Andrew Victor Biankin is a Scotland-based Australian clinician-scientist, best known for his work on enabling precision oncology in learning healthcare systems by integrating discovery, preclinical and clinical development to accelerate novel therapeutic strategies, and developing standardised pan-cancer assays for use by healthcare systems and researchers worldwide. Biankin, who works as the Regius Professor of Surgery at the University of Glasgow, was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for 2019, for distinguished service to medical research, and to the treatment of pancreatic cancer, as a clinician-scientist. Biankin is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He has written over 160 articles in major medical journals relating to cancer, genomics and precision medicine. Early history The eldest of three sons, Biankin was born in Sydney’s western suburbs where his immigrant parents introduced him to projects on their weekend farm, music, sport and science. Initially enrolling in a pharmacy degree in 1983, Biankin then transferred to medicine the following year, graduating with his medical degree from the University of New South Wales in 1992. During his medical degree, he also took a year off to do a science research degree, and in another year’s ‘sabbatical’, learned to play the violin. His medical internship was followed by an intensive period in the emergency department of a large Sydney hospital where his surgical skills were in constant demand. Completing his surgical training, Biankin began to specialise in surgery for pancreatic cancer. Experiencing the unpredictability of pancreatic cancer and the high mortality rate of pancreatic cancer patients, he decided to conduct research in pancreatic cancer at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney under Professor Rob Sutherland, Director of the Cancer Research Program. His PhD project was an early personalised medicine approach that looked at why patients respond differently to treatment, despite the similarity of the tumours under the microscope. He continued to hone his surgical skills in the clinic. He finished his PhD in translational research at the end of 2002. Translational research Following a postdoctoral position at Johns Hopkins University, USA, to further develop his scientific skills, he returned to Sydney in 2004 to establish a pancreatic cancer program at the Garvan Institute, setting up the New South Wales Pancreatic Cancer Network and then the Australian Pancreatic Cancer Network. With senior surgeon Dr Neil