Learn more about Monash Health’s Haematology team.
Professor Stephen Opat
Stephen Opat is an internationally renowned expert in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and lymphoma and serves on/leads numerous international scientific advisory boards. He has a strong interest in medical education and is a highly sought after speaker having lectured widely throughout the Asia-Pacific with recent engagements in North America, Europe, South Africa and South America.
In addition to roles as faculty with the European Research Initiative on CLL (2024) and international workshop on CLL (2025). He is a global leader in defining the optimal care for lymphoid cancer survivors and has worked with patient groups including the US-based CLL Society and the UK-based CLL Advocates Network serving as a member of their Immunodeficiency Taskforce.
He serves as the Cancer Program director at Monash Health as well as the research lead CLL/indolent lymphoma. He is a passionate advocate for healthcare improvement and is both founder and chair of the Australasian Lymphoma and Related Diseases Registry, a clinical quality registry with 39 participating sites across Australia and New Zealand and over 9400 patients enrolled.
He was also the lead investigator of the Melbourne Genomics Health Alliance Lymphoma Flagship which pioneered the use of genomics in lymphoid cancer management in Australia. In 2009, he spent six months at the BC Cancer Agency in Canada where he initiated the seminal study of the mantle cell lymphoma transcriptome. In 2018 was visiting professor at Stanford University researching the use of measurable residual diseases as a prognostic marker in aggressive lymphoma.
He is a Clinical Professor in the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash University and a principal investigator in over 80 trials mainly in lymphoid cancer. He established a first-in-human and early phase haematology research unit at Monash Health in 2014. He has over 150 peer reviewed publications with over 13,000 citations and is ranked in the top 1% of published authors in CLL and lymphoma.