Jayesh Desai

Professor Jayesh Desai is a Clinician Researcher and Medical Oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (PeterMac) with extensive experience in translational research applied to drug development/ trials/precision-oncology, with a predominant focus on colorectal cancer.

He is Associate Director for Clinical Research at PeterMac, and Head of the Phase I/Early Drug Development Program, internationally recognised as being in the top tier of Global Phase I cancer trials programs. He has been the Principal Investigator on over 70 clinical trials over the last ten years, including 50+ Phase I and first in human trials. A key area of focus has been in agents targeting the MAPK pathway in colorectal cancer, having led the development of BRAF inhibitors since the first agents were developed, other agents targeting key elements of the RAF/RAS/MAPK pathway, followed more recently with KRAS-directed approaches. These have included 1st in human trials with sotorasib, divarasib, and more recently with a number of KRAS G12D and pan-RAS inhibitors. He has authored approximately 200 publications in high impact journals including the NEJM, Nature, The Lancet and JCO.

He has been on scientific committees focused on drug development for major conferences including ASCO, ESMO and AACR (Clinical Trials Co-Chair for 2025-26). Jayesh has received approximately $60 million in competitive grant funding to help build his research programs.