Ness is Head of the Clinical Translation Research Division, and Program Director of the ZERO Childhood Cancer National Precision Medicine Program at Children’s Cancer Institute, with accountability for directing and sustaining the Program, ensuring efficient, effective, and medically responsible delivery of all aspects of the program, and building it into a sustainable permanent national precision medicine platform supporting research driven clinical care in the long term. 

 

With over 30 years of experience in all disciplines of genetic testing in both public and private pathology and research sectors, global biotech commercial industry experience, and over 20 years of continuous active voluntary service to peak professional bodies, Ness is a recognised leader in her field.  She has actively contributed to state and federal governments’ and professional bodies’ advisory committees, review, consultation, and development of policy, and the implementation of genomics and precision medicine in Australia. She is a Past President of the Human Genetics Society of Australasia (HGSA), and has previously been appointed by the Federal Health Minister to the NHMRC’s Human Genetics Advisory Committee, during which time she advised on and contributed to high level policy and position papers. Most recently she has been appointed to the MSAC Evaluation Sub-committee, and Australian Genomics National Steering Committee. She is a Fellow of the Human Genetics Society of Australasia (HGSA), Associate of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA), and Graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).

 

This broad range of experience and continued involvement in the translation, implementation, and management of genomics in healthcare, provides Ness with unique insights and the diversity of skills required to direct a multidisciplinary program such as ZERO, and to address policy challenges of an increasingly common translational nature in the clinical application of rapidly emerging genomic technologies that guide better health outcomes for us all.