The scientist who tested his revolutionary medicine on his own brain cancer: ‘It seemed worth it to give it a crack’

Richard Scolyer was one of the world’s leading melanoma researchers when he was struck with a brain tumour. Facing likely death, his team made him a guinea pig for his own medicine

Richard Scolyer was fully engaged in the business of living when he suddenly received a death sentence. A person more alive would be hard to find. As an endurance athlete competing across the globe, he was in peak physical condition. As one of the world’s leading pathologists on melanoma whose pioneering research has saved thousands of lives, he was in demand. At 56, Prof Richard Scolyer was flying along. His life, he says, was “rich”. And then, on the morning of 20 May 2023, he found himself losing consciousness and convulsing on the floor in a hotel room in Poland, panicking and scared.

After this grand mal seizure, he went for an MRI scan at University hospital in Krakow. It found a mass in his temporal lobe. Scolyer knew immediately it had delivered very bad news.

Having diagnosed other people with cancer many times, he knew exactly what the finding could mean. Most likely brain cancer. He knew the outcome for a high-grade glioma was “shockingly bad”. That a brain tumour is incurable, and he would have an “horrific last few months”. He descended into black despair; devastated, anxious, terrified. He cried and cried, weeping when he rang his children.