Rate My Professor Orazio Vittorio

Associate Professor Orazio Vittorio is a Scientia Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences within the Faculty of Medicine & Health at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney. He earned a Master of Science in Biology in 2006 and a PhD in Oncology in 2011. As Team Leader at the Children’s Cancer Institute and Head of the Metal Targeted Therapy & Immunology lab, Vittorio is an internationally recognized cancer biologist specializing in the mechanisms of anti-cancer therapeutics in paediatric cancers. His research investigates copper metabolism and homeostasis in aggressive childhood malignancies, including neuroblastoma, low-grade glioma, diffuse midline glioma (DIPG), and glioblastoma. Key areas encompass copper-targeted anticancer drugs, their impact on tumour immunity, cancer immunology, single-cell transcriptomics, nanomedicine, and PET imaging protocols using radiolabelled copper to monitor therapy response.

Vittorio has authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and six book chapters, holding inventorship on six patents. Notable publications include "Intratumoral Copper Modulates PD-L1 Expression and Influences Tumor Immune Evasion" (Cancer Research, 2020), "Copper chelation redirects neutrophil function to enhance anti-tumour immunity" (Nature Communications, 2024), "A novel network-based method identifies a cuproplasia-related pan-cancer gene signature to predict patient outcome" (Human Genetics, 2024), and "Copper: An intracellular Achilles heel allowing the targeting of epigenetics, kinase pathways and cell metabolism in cancer therapeutics" (MedChemComm, 2021). His pioneering discoveries reveal elevated copper levels in neuroblastoma cells compared to normal cells, copper's role in immune evasion by neuroblastoma and gliomas, and the potential of copper chelation as an epigenetic therapy and immunotherapy booster. Over the past decade, he has secured more than $5 million in competitive funding as Chief Investigator and over $10 million as co-investigator, including NHMRC Career Development Fellowships and UNSW Scientia Fellowship (2019-2026). Awards include Cancer Institute NSW Outstanding Career Development Fellow of the Year (2020), Young Tall Poppy Science Award (2021), Cure Cancer Australia Research of the Year (2022), UNSW Postgraduate Research Supervisor Award (2018), and Early Career Researcher Best Publication Award (2018). His positions at UNSW, Children’s Cancer Institute, and Kids Cancer Alliance advance translation of copper-targeting strategies to clinical settings.