Professor Maher Gandhi

Professor Gandhi, TRI’s CEO, leads the Blood Cancer Research group at TRI-based Mater Research, and is a pre-eminent senior staff haematologist at the adjoining Princess Alexandra Hospital.

He is internationally recognised for significant contributions to the understanding of the role of immune evasion in the tumour microenvironment of patients with lymphoma.

His team is working to accurately predict which patients will experience an early relapse and which would be candidates for novel cell-based treatment approaches.

To translate his team’s research findings, Professor Gandhi runs a number of innovative early phase cell therapy clinical trials.

Professor Gandhi is a member of the Federal Government-appointed National Blood Cancer Task Force steering committee that aims to improve access to blood cancer services across Australia. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

As well as giving frequent international and national keynote lectures and authoring more than 150 scientific publications, Professor Gandhi has been on numerous federal and philanthropic grant review panels. He has received uninterrupted NHMRCC/MRFF competitive funding for the last 20 years.

As CEO, Professor Gandhi leads the strategic direction for a community of 1100 TRI-based people in research, industry, clinical and support roles, biotech companies and service providers. He aims to advance research translation and clinical collaboration – as well as bolster national translational manufacturing capability through construction of TRI’s translational manufacturing facility, due to open in 2026.