Kathy Tucker

A/Prof Kathy Tucker is one of the leading cancer geneticists in Australia who brings clinical genetics expertise relevant to the management of individuals with inherited cancer syndromes. She founded the first Australian Familial Cancer Service in 1994 and is the former head of Hereditary Cancer Centre, Prince of Wales Hospital and a conjoint at the University of New South Wales POWH Clinical School. Since founding this service, A/Prof Tucker has been actively involved in local, state-wide and national working parties on genetics service and policy development. She is a key contributor to the cancer genetics stream of the NSW Cancer Institute- Evidence into Clinical Practice – eviQ.org.au. 

A/Prof Tucker has a keen research interest in rare and soft-tissue tumours and collaborates with the International Sarcoma Kindred Study (ISKS) researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. A/Prof Tucker is the clinical lead for the Surveillance study in Multi-Organ Cancer prone syndromes (SMOC+), established by the Genetic Cancer Risk Group at the Garvan Institute. She is also the clinical geneticist on multiple national genomic research projects, including Zero Childhood Cancer, Molecular Screening and Therapeutics (MoST) clinical trials, and Genetic Cancer Risk in the Young (RisC), where she leads the ethical return of germline cancer predisposition results. She has long been a strong advocate of ensuring ethical practice in genetics and positive psychosocial outcomes, generating research and education initiatives on these issues.

A/Prof Tucker was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia in June 2018’s AO for her distinguished service to medicine in the field of familial cancer genetics. She was also recognised for her work as a clinician, researcher and author; and for her contribution to medical education and to professional bodies.