Dr Michael Dickinson MBBS (Hons) D.MedSc FRACP FRCPA manages all types of blood-related conditions including benign conditions causing abnormal blood counts, anaemia, bleeding disorders, blood clots, abnormal proteins in the blood, and enlarged lymph nodes. He has a special interest in cancers of the blood system which include lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes, and leukaemia.
Dr Dickinson is an an academic haematologist, and the Disease Group Lead of Aggressive Lymphoma at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, where he spends the majority of his working week. Dr Dickinson believes the first step in the management of any haematological malignancy is to secure the correct diagnosis using next generation genomic testing, where applicable. He runs a programme of early phase clinical trials, with a special focus on B and T-cell lymphoma, and new targeted therapies.
Immunotherapy has now become a standard treatment option for many types of blood cancers. Dr Dickinson is leading the development of new targeted, non-chemotherapy drugs as the principal investigator of many trials of new treatments. He is the local investigator on a range of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CART) trials. Dr Dickinson is working hard to bring approved CART treatments to Victorian patients.
Dr Dickinson has worked in the Cabrini Medical system since 2011 and has worked with A/Prof Kenealy, Dr Herbert, and A/Prof Wolf since 2007. He completed his medical degree at the University of Western Australia (2001) and physician training in Brisbane (2006). The majority of his haematology training has been at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Royal Melbourne Hospital. He completed a clinical fellowship in lymphoma at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. His higher doctoral degree was awarded at the University of Melbourne, where he wrote a thesis on new drugs (epigenetic therapies) and clinical trial design. He has been awarded the Julie Borschmann Fellowship in Myeloma Research at the University of Melbourne and a Clinical Researcher Fellowship at Peter MacCallum Cancer. Dr Dickinson has over 30 publications in peer-reviewed clinical journals. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, and is a Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Dr Dickinson is a member of the Aggressive Lymphoma working group of the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group (ALLG) and the Australasian Lymphoma Alliance (ALA). Dr Dickinson is on the steering committee of the Australasian Lymphoma Registry. He is a clinical advisor to the patient support group Lymphoma Australia.