David Ziegler

David Ziegler is a paediatric oncologist and head of the neuro-oncology program and the clinical trials program at the Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick. David is Group Leader of the Brain Tumour Group at Children's Cancer Institute, and Chair of Clinical Trials for the Zero Childhood Cancer personalised medicine program, led by Children's Cancer Institute and Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick. He holds a conjoint appointment as Associate Professor with UNSW in the Faculty of Medicine.

David’s research at the Institute is focused on developing targeted therapies for brain tumours, particularly DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma), the most aggressive and incurable of all childhood cancers. In 2013, he established Australia’s first research program for DIPG, collecting and growing tumour samples from children around Australia and screening drugs against these to identify potential new therapies. He is now looking to find which combinations of these drugs work best in children with DIPG. In August 2019, Levi's Project was launched to develop these drug combinations for DIPG and accelerate them into clinical trials.

David’s work also focusses on developing new clinical trials that bring research discoveries into the clinic to treat children with the most aggressive cancers. He has developed and led a number of innovative national and international trials for children with brain tumours, leukaemia, and solid tumours. He is the clinical lead of trials run through the Zero Childhood Cancer personalised medicine program, and leads the early phase clinical trials program at the Kids Cancer Centre, SCH.

Neuro-oncology