Consumer Advisory Panel

A/Prof Hao-Wen Sim is a Sydney-based medical oncologist with specialised expertise in adult neuro-oncology and biostatistics. He graduated with Honours from the University of Melbourne, receiving the James Stewart Bequest for Surgery and a place on the Margaret Whyte Honour Board. He also holds a Master of Biostatistics from the University of Sydney, where he earned several prestigious awards, including the Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia Star Graduate Award, the Judy Simpson Biostatistics Scholarship, the Les Irwig General Epidemiology Award and the Australasian Epidemiological Association Top Student Prize. A/Prof Sim completed a neuro-oncology fellowship at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto.

Currently, A/Prof Sim serves as the Deputy Chair of the COGNO Scientific Advisory Committee, Chair of the COGNO International Clinical Research Subcommittee, and is the Group Coordinator and Clinical Lead for COGNO at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre. He is also actively involved in treating adult neuro-oncology patients at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre and the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. His research focuses on the development and implementation of national brain cancer trials.

I was diagnosed with a Grade 3 Oligodendroglioma in 2013. I under went concurrent radiation and chemotherapy treatment for approximately 5 weeks, followed by 6 cycles (5 days on, 23 days off) of chemotherapy treatment. After 11 years I’m happy to report the tumour is stable. I joined COGNO cap around 8 years ago as a Consumer Advisor, reviewing upcoming proposed or new clinical trials ensure patients are receive the best treatment possible.
Aside from my voluntary role at COGNO, I also work in Buying at Kmart Australia in Confectionery. Outside of work, my interests include walking, working out at the gym, and travelling regional, interstate or overseas.

My interest in being a COGNO CAP member stems from both my professional background and my family involvement with brain cancer. I trained in Canada as a psychometrist, and worked in Toronto administering neuropsychological assessments to the clients of a neuropsychologist in private practice, and to in-patients at St Michael’s Hospital. Other roles included implementing rehabilitation programs for adults with traumatic brain injuries, and most recently, as the Accessibility Adviser at James Cook University, Cairns for 15 years, supporting students with a range of disability, injury, illness or health conditions. I am now mostly retired, but do casual editing work for a research centre at Central Queensland University investigating Indigenous health equity and wellbeing.

I have personal lived experience with cancer, both first-person and through my 20-year-old daughter’s diagnosis and treatment for brain cancer (medulloblastoma). She was diagnosed in 2015 and died 18 months later. She had been treated with a paediatric protocol because there were no protocols specifically for young adults with this type of cancer. This gap in the research has fuelled my interest in contributing in whatever way I can to the advancement of brain cancer research in general, and in particular, to treatments targeting the adolescent and young adult population.