Professor Boussioutas is a tenured academic clinician at Monash University and Director of Gastroenterology at The Alfred. He retains an Honorary Professorial Fellowship at the University of Melbourne in the Department of Medicine at Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Centre for Cancer Research at the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre. He was formerly Associate Dean for Graduate Research in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences. He is also an honorary Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney.

His current clinical positions are Director of Gastroenterology at The Alfred, which is one of the premier Gastroenterology Units in the country. He has also been appointed as Program Director for Alfred Specialty Medicine. He is dual trained in Gastroenterology and General Medicine and currently holds AHPRA registration for both. He was formerly Deputy Director of Gastroenterology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Head of Gastroenterology at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre prior to his recruitment to The Alfred and Monash University in 2021.

He attained his MBBS, in addition to two years of a Bachelor of Science, from the University of Melbourne.  He completed his specialist physician training (FRACP) through Royal Melbourne Hospital, Canberra Hospital and St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne in 1999.  He was awarded a Gastroenterological Society of Australia Post-graduate scholarship and completed his PhD in 2004. His PhD, under the supervision of Professor David Bowtell (Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre) and Associate Professor Paul Desmond (St Vincent’s Hospital), was an example of pioneering genomics in gastroenterology in Australia for which he was awarded the prestigious Sir Peter MacCallum Medal for scientific excellence in 2004. He was recognised as an International Leader in Gastroenterology and was appointed as Fellow of the American Gastroenterology Association in 2020.

He was appointed the Associate Dean for Graduate Research (ADGR) in 2015 and his term was extended through to his departure from the University in 2021. The role was responsible for the maintenance and strategic direction of Research Higher Degree matters in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences with over 1600 Research Higher Degree scholars. In this role he has implemented initiatives including: roll-out of PhD programs in a unified Faculty-based model, Advisory Committee Chair training and mentoring for all schools, International initiatives within China, Germany and UK that fit within the strategic direction of the Faculty, overseen the award of scholarships for the faculty and improved timely completions for PhD students. For his role as ADGR he was awarded the National Award for Excellence in Graduate Research Leadership in 2019 by the ACGR.

While responsible for the ADGR portfolio he was asked to act as Associate Dean Research 2016-2018. During this time, he co-led the research and research training review for the strategic plan, has represented the Faculty of MDHS at Chancellery meetings and Leadership conferences as well as Research Australia meetings and Group of Eight meetings. He has initiated and led the Faculty and MACH (Melbourne Academic Centre for Health) advance into Clinical Trials with the creation Research Support Hub that aimed to facilitate clinical trials efficiency throughout the University and its precinct partners and maximise learning and teaching opportunities.

He has just been appointed Professor Director of Gastroenterology at The Alfred and Monash University which is one of the largest units in the country with 37 consultant physicians, 11 research nurses and nurse practitioners, 9 Research Fellows and 10 research scientists. He was appointed as Program Director for Specialty Medicine at The Alfred incorporating 640 staff and responsible for Gastroenterology, Infectious Diseases, Renal Medicine, Diabetes and Endocrinology, Rheumatology and Dermatology with an estimated budget of $50M.  

He was formerly Deputy Director of Gastroenterology at Royal Melbourne Hospital and was covering long service leave in the Director role until June 2021. He was Deputy Director of the Department of Gastroenterology at Western Hospital until his move to Royal Melbourne Hospital in 2011 and established the Gastroenterology Service at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. From the years 2006-2011 Prof Boussioutas was Director of Gastroenterology (Acting) at Western Health on the director’s absence.

At Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre he continues to lead the gastrointestinal component of the Familial Cancer Clinic. He is a national expert in hereditary gastrointestinal cancer and has contributed to guidelines for Hereditary Diffuse Gastric Cancer.

He has a private practice for one session a fortnight and understands the interaction of private and public medicine.

Prof Boussioutas leads a research program in Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer with his laboratory recently transitioning to the new home at the School of Translational Medicine, Monash University. He previously had laboratories at the Department of Medicine at RMH and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. His research in this area encompasses a number of disciplines attesting to the collaborative and multidisciplinary nature of his research activities. These include: population health and screening; use of novel technologies to aid early detection of cancer and; genomics in the investigation of molecular pathology of gastric cancer. He has an active research program into colorectal cancer through his leadership at the Familial Cancer Clinic at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and collaborations with the School of Population Health at University of Melbourne.

He is part of The Cancer Genome Atlas, a group of the National Cancer Institute of the USA, investigating integrated genomics of gastric and oesophageal cancer. He is the only non-US national that sits on the working group for this group and has led to multiple publications through the group. The most pertinent in Upper GI cancer were published in Nature in 2014 and 2017.

He has a number of successful national and international collaborations in these research areas. His research into a non-invasive screening tool for Barrett’s oesophagus was in collaboration with Prof Rebecca Fitzgerald at University of Cambridge, UK and Prof Jon Emery in University of Melbourne.

Through collaboration with Prof Min Gu (Swinburne University of Technology) he helped in the development of new confocal endoscopic imaging technology.

In collaboration with Heike Grabsch (now Maastricht, Netherlands) and Patrick Tan (National University of Singapore) he has published widely on genomic subtyping of gastric cancer.

He has an active collaboration with Korean scientists and clinicians (Prof Sun Young Rha) through Yonsei University and Korean Cancer Centre.

His laboratory has been continuously funded by the NHMRC and other sources since being awarded his PhD in 2004. In just over 15 years as an independent researcher he has attracted more than $13 million in research funds (excluding pharmaceutical trials he has led).

He has published 137 peer reviewed papers and 6 book chapters since 2001. His h-index is 66 and he has 33003 citations.

Teaching and Mentorship

Prof Boussioutas has been involved in all aspects of teaching from undergraduate teaching in lecture format and small group as well as bedside teaching and training of registrars and fellows. He also supervises postdoctoral fellows and PhD students as well as Honours students. This crosses disciplines of clinical medicine and basic science and broadly across all aspects of clinical gastroenterology and general medicine.

He has supervised to completion 7 PhD scholars, 1 Masters student and 7 Honours students. All his Honours students passed with H1, one of which was awarded the Larkins Prize for best Honours. He is currently supervising 5 PhD students. He was the Chair of the RHD Coordinators committee for the RMH Academic Centre, which oversaw the candidature for 146 RHD students per year. As Associate Dean for Graduate Research he was responsible for guiding pedagogical experience for over 1600 PhD scholars and has amassed significant experience of tertiary education.

Prof Boussioutas is committed to translational research and clinical medicine aimed at realising clinical benefits for patients at-risk-of or diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancer and gastrointestinal disease. His research interests complement his clinical commitments he has setup his research infrastructure and collaborations required to conduct patient-outcome oriented research from bench to bedside.