Professor Terry Dwyer joined the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute as Director in late 2004. In his first year of leadership, he implemented significant strategic change to the structure of MCRI, which has fostered continued growth and research successes.
Terry was previously Director of the Menzies Research Institute, University of Tasmania, coordinating research projects including those on cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, childhood asthma, and diabetes.
He is best known for his research conducted in the 1990s that led to the prevention of a large proportion of SIDS deaths internationally. In Australia, SIDS deaths decreased from 500 to less than 100 babies per year following Terry’s research group’s finding that sleeping babies on their stomachs was a major risk factor for SIDS. In 2005 Terry was awarded an Order of Australia in recognition of this major research achievement and for his service and dedication to medical research, particularly in the field of population health.
His research currently focuses on the effects of genes and environment in diseases as diverse as cancer, cardiovascular disease and multiple sclerosis and he has maintained an interest in researching the effects of lifestyle on health and the role of physical activity in relation to coronary heart disease. He is currently serving on the International Scientific Advisory Board for UK BioBank, the largest ever gene environment study conducted worldwide. This major research initiative will study 500,000 people from across the UK to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of diseases including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia and mental illness.
Terry spent six months in 2004 at the National Institutes of Health in the USA, advising on the design of the National Children’s Study, which involved follow-up of a cohort of 100,000 babies. Terry is now on the steering committee of the International Childhood Cancer Cohort Consortium (I4C), the world’s largest study into the cause of leukaemia, the most common type of childhood cancer. He also heads up the data coordinating centre for the study, based at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.
He is the Chair of the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific Region Advisory Committee on Health Research and is a member of the WHO's Global Advisory Committee on Health Research. Terry received a Global Health Leadership Fellowship from the World Health Organization in 2000 and was the Australian Society for Medical Research medallist in 2003.
Terry was previously a member of the National Health & Medical Research Council's Research Advisory Committee and the national chair of the Gulf War Veterans’ Health Study Scientific Advisory Committee.
His community roles have included Chairman of the Premier of Tasmania's Physical Activity Council and President of the Royal Automobile Club of Tasmania. He is also a Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellow.
