How to build a career on curiosity

“You just have to realise that things happen that you never anticipated. To think that one's whole career – and life – changes because of a terrorist bombing.”  

Trinity News sat down with Professor Richard Fox AM (‘57) to talk about how his time at Trinity influenced his career as one of Australia’s leading oncologists and medical researchers. 

Professor Richard Fox’s earliest memories of his school years begin with milk. 

“Bet you weren’t expecting that,” he laughs before recalling the incident that left him with a distaste for the dairy product. “The free milk had been delivered in the glass bottles, of course, but they’d been left out in the sun. The cream had risen to the top and it was awful.” 

“I’ve never forgotten the taste and I’ve never drunk fresh milk since,” he says, acknowledging that many people of his vintage likely feel the same way, with the caveat that he still enjoys a milkshake and ice cream, of course. 

Before coming to Trinity, Richard spent the first three or four years of his education at Yeo Park Infants School, a small school that is still thriving, just down the hill from Trinity Grammar School in Summer Hill. 

A local through and through, Richard’s parents decided to send him to Trinity’s relatively newly established Junior School when he was eight years old. 

Walking through the gates for the first time, he knew no one but quickly gathered a tight knit group of three friends that he kept close, right through until he graduated from the Senior School in 1957. 

Moving up to the Senior School, when it was time, was a step that Richard was excited for, even with a healthy dose of trepidation. 

“I knew it was going to be a big jump forward,” he said of the learning, the responsibilities, and the expectations. 

But it was there, in the Senior School, that Richard experienced what it was like to be absorbed by research. Under the tutelage of none other than Clarence Latham, Richard studied Geology alongside his friend, Anthony Hope. 

“Geology fascinated me so much,” he remembers. “Tony and I decided we’d have a go at getting Honours in our Leaving Certificate. It required you to write an essay and submit a kind of mini thesis in your final year. 

“We took ourselves on a little expedition down to where the Shoalhaven River begins, in Bungonia south of Moss Vale. Tony, another friend, Graham Lorking, and I all caught the night train down with our backpacks and our tents and then we climbed down into Bungonia Gorge to explore. 

“We headed back to Sydney and straight to the NSW State Library to look up books on the geology of the area.” 

For Tony Hope, it was a turning point that led to a career in geology and saw him become an author, historian, and a key figure in China-Australia mining relations. 

While Richard didn’t follow his friend into geology, research had him hooked from then on. 

"It was one of the most interesting times,” he says. “Having the challenge to present the essay, it was quite intriguing. It was easy to take those thoughts – the historical development of the earth, ancient rocks, and fossils – and put that into the biology of the world and to think of how animals evolved.” 

It was this love for research that helped Richard make up his mind to go to university when it wasn’t always the obvious path to take for graduates. Taking on the world of medicine, the early years of his career saw him moving through the ranks as Junior Resident Medical Officer, a Senior Resident, then specialising to become a Physician and training at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. 

“Working at the Royal Prince Alfred was very exciting – it was a phenomenal hospital, by far one of the biggest hospitals in Australia at the time.” 

In his fourth year he took on an opportunity to travel with a delegate of Medical Registrars to ‘New Guinea’, a protectorate of Australia at the time. For four months, Richard took part in what he calls one of the most “extraordinary education experiences”. In Port Moresby, in particular, he was able to examine and understand the disease pattern of a tropical, developing country. Pneumonia, malaria, hookworm, and dysentery were all extremely common – his experience, and the experience of the other Medical Registrars posted there, was something that he says was extremely valuable for Australia. 

“It was essential that Australian doctors gained firsthand knowledge of those diseases in order to understand them better and work towards their prevention back home.”

In 1969, Richard was awarded the CJ Martin Travelling Fellowship by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) which saw him travel throughout the USA and the UK. Throughout this time, he visited and worked at hospitals and universities like The Royal Post Graduate Medical School in Hammersmith, London, Mt Sinai Hospital in New York, University of Michigan, University of California (in both San Francisco and San Diego) and plenty of others. 

His travels came to an end when he headed home to Australia, settling in Melbourne with his wife where he continued practising in Medical Oncology and Clinical Haematology, treating patients and researching various forms of cancer and blood disease. 

In 1975, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research was looking for a new location in Australia and it’s here that Richard’s career began to take on new heights while also being subject to forces well outside his control. 

Starting in the early 70s, Daniel K. Ludwig – U.S. shipping magnate and business tycoon – sold off his foreign investments, looking to use the funds to create the ‘Ludwig Institute’ in order to conduct cancer research. After a lengthy debate over the merits of putting roots down in Sydney or Melbourne, the institute attached themselves to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, taking up in the Blackburn building. 

Then came the selection of a director to begin the institute's operations in Australia. Chosen for the task was the Professor of Oncology, Gordon Hamilton Fairley. But his appointment never came to fruition after he was killed in London by an IRA bomb, intended for a different target.

Instead, beginning in 1977, Professor Martin Tattersall took up the post and, being connected through their research and work, he brought Richard along as Deputy Director. 

“Martin asked me if I’d come back to Sydney to join him,” Richard recalls. “I couldn’t pass it up. I came back [to Sydney] and the Institute acted as the medical oncology department for the hospital. We did a lot of laboratory-type work and looked after all the cancer patients in RPA.” 

This type of work often saw Richard involved in trials and research that are now considered to be pivotal in the history of cancer research. None more so than his contributions to G-CSF and GM-CSF clinical trials. 

The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research (WEHI), opposite the University of Melbourne and next door to the Royal Melbourne Hospital, had purified and gene sequenced ‘Granulocyte Stimulating Factor’ (GSF), a vital stimulator of white cell production in bone marrow. A U.S. biotech company were then able, via genetic engineering, to produce G-CSF for clinical use. 

What is GM-CSF and G-CSF? 

‘Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor’ and ‘Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor’ are both growth factors that help the body produce white blood cells. Cancer treatments like chemotherapy can stop bone marrow from producing blood cells so G-CSF and GM-CSF infuse the cells back into your bloodstream to help your body rebuild immunity and get back to business. 

G-CSF specifically promotes the growth of neutrophils, while GM-CSF is slightly broader in its impact, stimulating the production of neutrophils, monocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells. While both have different applications for patients, both greatly benefit those recovering from cancer treatment or other significant treatments.

Alongside Dr George Morstyn, Richard spearheaded the first clinical trials of G-CSF and GM-CSF as they took place between WEHI, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in the late 1980s. 

Their trials on cancer patients found that CSFs accelerated white blood cell counts to return to normal, meaning that patients needed less time in hospital, robust immunity, reduced antibiotic, and lower incidents of fever and infection after chemotherapy. 

This success alone is the kind that many doctors hope to have a hand in, but it didn’t stop there. Prior to these trials it was generally understood that bone marrow was the sole producer of white blood cells. What was known as a bone marrow transplant (replacing damaged or lost bone marrow) was – and is still – considered to be a dangerous procedure with too many possible complications. It was a last port of call for cancer patients.

But this all changed with Richard and his colleagues' trials and research, when they made some unexpected discoveries. They noticed that G-CSF caused a noticeable increase in blood stem cells in the bone marrow of their trial patients. It wasn’t just that they were replacing lost or damaged cells, they were also promoting the growth of new cells at a higher rate. 

This discovery changed the game, with the understanding that the blood could be the source of the cells to be transplanted, the dangerous bone marrow transplants became unnecessary in most cases, transforming the recovery process for millions of cancer patients around the world. 

Even today, it is this result that Richard is proudest of, but it is by no means the only historical medical moment he has been present for or actively involved in. From moving bone marrow transplants to a safer procedure, to playing a role in securing the Victorian government’s backing and other organisations’ support for the building of the Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery – his pride for his work and his commitment to the longevity of research is clear to everyone. 

Since then, he has continued to serve in the medical field, authoring or co-authoring over 200 publications in the Medical Oncology and Clinical Haematology fields, serving on the boards of medical councils, and supporting further research studies. 

Richard’s achievements and noteworthy contributions are numerous and lengthy but he added another two letter initialism to the end of his name in 2007 when he was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for his services ‘to medicine in the areas of clinical oncology and research, to medical education and training, and through governance and leadership roles within professional organisations’. 

“There was quite a crowd there,” he remembers of the mid-winter day he received the honour. The Honourable David de Kretser was the Governor of Victoria at the time – a medico himself and a friend of Richard’s. “I remember we both had to try to keep a straight face as he pinned it on me. It was all very serious, but we were friends.” 

Despite being awarded such a high honour, Richard says that it will never eclipse the work he was able to do as a researcher and Oncologist – something he never would have dared to have imagined as a young Trinity graduate. 

He urges everyone to remember just how much has happened over the past century in the way of medical advancements, recalling his time in La Jolla, San Diego in the 70s where the Salk Institute – named after the scientist who developed the Polio vaccine – was newly built. 

“It was interesting to see throughout the pandemic just how many people forgot the impact that the Salk Vaccine, and later the Sabin Vaccine, had on our lives.

“There’s been an enormous development since the 1970s, right up until today. Quite a few cancers have become curable or there has been significant prolongation of life.” 

While these advancements take time to develop, they are all the result of the hard work of scientists and doctors, just like Richard, who caught the research bug – whether at school or elsewhere. For Richard, it has always been about following what he is passionate about. 

“Follow something that interests you,” he advises Trinity students and fresh Alumni, acknowledging that a path into medicine or even to university isn’t the only way to find that interest and make a difference. 

“University education is so important today, but it can become redundant – if everyone went to university, we wouldn’t have the trades.” 

And, he says, no matter how well you plan out a career trajectory, be prepared to adapt those plans to accommodate things that you never thought would happen.

“You just have to realise that things happen that you never anticipated. To think that one's whole career – and life – changes because of a terrorist bombing.”  

Whether it’s taking the night train into a gorge where ancient geology is on display, or stepping up in a role that is unexpectedly yours, Richard says that it’s all about noticing the opportunities that come your way and being ready to take them on. 

This article originally appeared in our July 2025 Edition of Trinity News which you can
view on our online digital bookshelf.