Austin Duffy is the Director of Research for START Dublin in Ireland. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1998, and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 2001. Between 2002 and 2006 he completed specialist registrar training in medical oncology before moving to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York where he completed a subspecialty fellowship in Gastrointestinal Oncology. In 2008 Professor Duffy joined the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Washington DC where he started a translational program in gastrointestinal cancers with a focus on tumor immunology. Between 2008 and 2017 Professor Duffy developed and led over 25 early-phase clinical trials including the first-in-human combination of immune checkpoint inhibition with loco-regional treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma.

In 2016 Professor Duffy was awarded a National Cancer Institute Director’s Award for Innovation in cancer research before returning to Ireland as a consultant medical oncologist at the Mater Hospital. Between 2017-2023 he served as Chair of the GI DSSG with Cancer Trials Ireland. He has also served as member of both the NCI Global Expert Committee on Hepatobiliary Malignancies and the Society of Immunotherapy for Cancer (SITC) expert panel on Liver Cancer. Professor Duffy’s research interests are in improving access to novel early-phase experimental options for Irish patients with advanced cancer. In October 2021 the National University of Ireland conferred on Professor Duffy the degree of Doctor of Medicine (DMed), the highest award of the University to scholars of international distinction in their fields.