Rate My Professor Helen Rizos

Rizos has made major contributions to understanding melanoma oncogenic signaling and mechanisms of response and resistance to systemic therapies. Seminal findings include the role of intratumoural heterogeneity in conferring resistance to targeted therapies, the continued clinical activity of targeted therapies beyond disease progression, the value of circulating tumour DNA in predicting survival and pseudoprogression for melanoma patients on immunotherapy, and ctDNA as prognostic in high-risk stage III melanoma. Her current research interests encompass defining liquid biomarker signatures that identify patients at high risk of recurrence or treatment resistance, examining mechanisms of treatment response and resistance, identifying new approaches to overcome resistance, and developing new models to support cancer research and clinical care. Awards include the Jim Piper Award for Excellence in Research Leadership (2023) and the Wildfire Highly Cited Publication Award (2017). Key publications include 'Prednisolone modulates CD8⁺ and regulatory T-cell activity to dampen response to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in melanoma' (2026), 'A scoping review of factors influencing the implementation of liquid biopsy for cancer care' (2025), 'Circulating IFNγ-associated protein signatures predict response to neoadjuvant immunotherapy in patients with stage III melanoma' (2025), and 'Circulating MicroRNAs: functional biomarkers for melanoma prognosis and treatment' (2025).