You are cordially invited by The Victorian Vernier Society for Lunch on Thursday the 11th of November @1:00 for 1:30pm at The Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, 489 Glenferrie Rd, Kooyong.
The meeting will close around 3:30pm.
Please remember to bring cash to our lunch for paying the almoners for indiscretions for which you may be responsible.
For Friends of Vernier (who are financial) and general admission guests, please book using Humantix: events.humanitix.com/vernier-on-december-11-2025
Our program will include:
Melanoma Research Victoria
A Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, 305 Grattan Street, Melbourne 3000
An award-winning collaborative research program that engages with all stakeholders including patients, carers, researchers, clinicians, government, and industry, to improve outcomes for melanoma patients.
Founded in 2010 as the Melbourne Melanoma Project, the MRV cohort has increased to >4200 participants and with more than 56,000 biospecimens available for research projects. Participants continue to be recruited from MRV’s partner organisations to facilitate melanoma research. MRV has supported over 100 research projects to date and MRV participants are included in an average of 11 research projects.
MRV’s ultimate aim is to eliminate the impact of melanoma for all.
Dr David Speakman OAM, Melanoma Research Victoria
Dr David Speakman OAM is an integral Governance Committee member and champion of MRV. David is a practicing clinician working in the Breast and Melanoma and Skin services at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. David was Peter Mac’s Chief Medical Officer from 2013 to 2023, having previously held positions as Executive Director Clinical Services and Director of the Melanoma and Skin Service. David is the State Clinical Director of BreastScreen Victoria and Chair of BreastScreen Victoria’s Quality and Accreditation Committee and a member of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (COSA) Council representing melanoma and surgical oncology groups.
David is actively involved in teaching programs for medical, nursing and allied health students from undergraduate to postgraduate levels. He sits on numerous government advisory, NHMRC guideline, and optimal cancer care pathway committees and is currently Deputy Chair of the NHMRC non-melanoma skin cancer guidelines committee.
In 2022, David received the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to medicine, particularly cancer treatment.
Dr Jessica Da Gama Duarte, Melanoma Research Victoria
Dr Jessica Da Gama Duarte is a MRV researcher and a Governance Committee member. Jessica obtained a PhD in Medical Biochemistry at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in 2015, where she developed a novel protein microarray-based tumour antigen array. She was recruited as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow by the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute in the Cancer Immunobiology Program to investigate the translational capacity of the array. Here, she also became a national expert in multispectral immunohistochemistry.
In early 2025, she was recruited by Monash University, School of Translational Medicine as a new Laboratory Head and Senior Research Fellow. She is currently working on research projects that are aiming towards early detection of cancer onset and recurrence, prediction of immunotherapy benefit and/or toxicity, and understanding the role of B cells, antibody production, and Tertiary Lymphoid Structures in anti-tumour immunity.
We will also have 2 singers and Stewart Kelly playing piano
Stewart Kelly – Associate Artist
He is the founder and artistic director of Music by the Springs, which since 2018 has quickly become regarded as one of Australia’s finest chamber music festivals. In the same year he opened House of Pianos which is a hub for piano sales, music lessons and concerts and masterclasses.
As a performer, he works as a soloist and collaborator with many of Australia’s leading instrumentalists and singers at leading concert venues and festivals around the country. He has performed in many leading Australian venues, at Festivals in Tasmania, Hepburn Springs, Mackay, Townsville, Brisbane and Coramba and internationally in New Zealand, China, Italy and the USA.
His 2022 season includes directing the first Renaissance Tours Festival of Chamber Music in April, the fifth Music by the Springs, recitals at Tempo Rubato, a seventh year of Stewart Kelly and Friends at the Melbourne Recital Centre, and the Mackay Chamber Music Festival.
As a teacher and associate artist, Stewart is a casual staff member at the Melbourne Conservatorium at Melbourne University and part-time faculty at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School.
Soprano Alessia Pintabona
Alessia holds a Master of Music (Opera Performance) from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts (WAAPA).
Roles performed during studies include Jo March in Mark Adamo’s Little Women, Ottavia (L’Incoronazione di Poppea) and Papagena (Die Zauberflöte). She has participated in public masterclasses with Yvonne Kenny, Lynne Dawson and Mary King, and with Graham Johnson as part of the Melbourne International Festival of Lieder and Art Song.
Alessia has been a finalist in Melbourne Welsh Male Choir’s Singer of the Year competition and a member of Opera Scholars Australia. She has also been the grateful recipient of The Graff Family Scholarship, Barbara MacLeod Scholarship, Haselhurst Scholarship, and the Royal Overseas League Western Australia Art Song Prize.
In 2026, Alessia is a recipient of Victorian Opera’s Opera Prize Scholarship. This is generously sponsored by Professor Barbara van Ernst AM, Joy Selby Smith and Jane Lowther.
Syrah Torii
Japanese-Australian mezzo-soprano Syrah Torii (she/her) graduated with a Master of Music (Opera Performance) from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music in 2021.
Syrah is a recipient of the 2023 Victorian Opera Emerging Artist Prize, and is a Developing Artist in Melbourne Opera’s Richard Divall Emerging Artists Programme.
She has performed major roles in Little Women (Jo March), L’incoronazione di Poppea (Ottone), Hänsel und Gretel (Hänsel), and Die Zauberflöte (Third Lady).
With Victorian Opera, she performed in the world premiere season of The Butterfly Lovers (Ensemble), Elektra (Chorus), and covered the role of La Strega Cattiva dell’Ovest in Il Mago di Oz.
