Prof Janet Hardy

Professor Janet Hardy is a Senior Researcher, a co-lead of the Cancer Biology and Care Program and leads the Palliative Care Research Group at Mater Research, in addition to being the Medical Director of the Mater Cancer Care Centre, the Director of Palliative Care and the Acting Medical Lead of the Cancer Care Stream at Mater. Janet also holds an honorary chair with the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland.

Janet has been an author on over 130 scientific publications and many text book chapters, and has also received more than $4.5 million in competitive funding.

Janet came to Mater in 2003 and has had a very successful career which has allowed her to pursue her varied research interests. Her research group’s major interests are research methodology in palliative care, opioids in pain management and the use and abuse of corticosteroids. At Mater, Janet has developed a wide portfolio of clinical trials; ranging from electro-acupuncture to relieve nausea and the effect of steroids on sleep quality in oncology and palliative care patients, to the use of intraperitoneal injection of bevacizumab to prevent the re-accumulation of malignant ascites (the accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity). Janet has been instrumental in ensuring a bench to bedside approach in research and activity collaborates with her biomedical colleagues.

Janet is a specialty editor for the Internal Medicine Journal and frequently performs manuscript reviews for high quality journals, both national and international. She has served as an external assessor and project committee member for the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Janet is the Chair and a founding member of the Queensland Palliative Care Research Group (QPCRG), has been a key player and chair of the Trials Management Committee for the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSCa national palliative care research collaborative, and has served on the council of the Australia and New Zealand Palliative Care Society (ANZSPM) amongst many other scientific committees.

“My interest in research came from my time at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, an international centre of excellence for cancer research. I built up a palliative care research program there which has now been translated to the Australian environment. I strongly believe that the care of patients with life limiting disease should be based on research evidence that is just as strong as that which underpins the care of those patients with potentially curable disease.”