Professor Alex Swarbrick leads a multidisciplinary cancer research laboratory focussed on identifying new biomarkers and therapeutic strategies in breast and prostate cancer and melanoma. He is an international leader in the application of single-cell and spatially-resolved 'omics' to cancer. He leads the international Breast Cancer Cellular Atlas Consortium and co-leads Garvan's Strategic Program in Cancer Ecosystems with Professor Paul Timpson.

Alex graduated with a BSc (Hons I) in Molecular and Cellular Biology from UNSW in 1995. After obtaining his PhD in 2003 he undertook postdoctoral training with Nobel laureate J. Michael Bishop at the University of California, San Francisco, supported by a CJ Martin Travelling Fellowship from the NHMRC.

In 2008 he established the Tumour Progression Laboratory at Garvan and in 2012 was appointed co-Head of the Breast Translational Oncology Program in the newly commissioned Kinghorn Cancer Centre. Alex is a Professor at UNSW and an NHMRC Senior Leadership Investigator.

Alex is the founding co-convenor of the the Australian Translational Breast and Prostate Cancer Symposium and is the immediate-past convenor of the Lorne Cancer Conference, Australia's pre-eminent multi-disciplinary cancer research conference. He chairs the Cancer Research Committee of the Cancer Council NSW and is deputy chair of UNSW's Cancer Theme.