Dr Jayesh Desai practices as a Medical Oncologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, and Senior Clinic Research Fellow within the Ludwig Colon Cancer Initiative program at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Parkville. He also serves as an Associate Director for Cancer Trials Australia (CTA) and Chairs the CTA Phase I Drug Development Group, and is Chair of the Australasian Sarcoma Study Group. Dr Desai completed his Medical Oncology training in Melbourne in 2002, before spending three years as a Translational Research Fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.

His clinical and research interests focus on rationally developing new anticancer therapeutics, and in exploring predictive markers of response to these agents. He has been Principal Investigator for more than a dozen first-in-human Phase 1 oncology trials, from small academically-focused groups and biotechs to large pharmaceutical company-sponsored trials. He has been closely involved in the development of Bionomics' Vascular Disrupting Agent, BNC105, as a Principal Investigator for that compound's first-in-human trial.