Professor Marissa Lassere

Associate Professor Marissa Lassere MBBS(Hons); Grad Dip Epi (Univ Newcastle); FRACP, PhD (UNSW), FAFPHM.

A/Prof Lassere graduated in medicine with honours from the University of Sydney in 1984, became a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1991, was awarded a Graduate Diploma in Epidemiology (University of Newcastle) in 1995, and was awarded her PhD by the UNSW in 1998. A/Prof Lassere is a rheumatologist and clinical epidemiologist with a strong interest in statistics, measurement, health informatics and patient-centred research. She has an established track record in performing clinical research. She has 121 publications. Her H index (scopus) is 29.

She has had 2545 citations since 2001, average of 254 citations per year. Oral presentations or invited lectures: 66 meetings between 1989 and 2010 inclusive (30 of these international conferences). She was awarded in 1992 a NHMRC Research Scholarship to set up a long-term cohort study on the course and outcome of rheumatoid arthritis (12 publications from PhD research between 1995 and 2001, first author 10 publications). A demonstrated capacity to attract competitive research grant funding as CIA - $1,900,00 in the past 5 years (NHMRC, Commonwealth Department of Health) and is CIC on a 5 year NHMRC Enabling Grant ($1.5 million). Supervised 3 PhD students.

Career Highlights: She is the co-founder and designer of the Australian Rheumatoid Arthritis Database (ARAD), established in conjunction with PBS listing of biologic therapies in Australia. She co-led a team of radiologists and clinicians to develop and publish the MRI atlas RAMRIS - The Rheumatoid Arthritis Magnetic Resonance Imaging Score (RAMRIS). Recognising the need to develop a transparent methodology for biomarker evaluation, she developed a framework, to set “levels of evidence” for biomarkers and surrogate endpoints. This work led to a NHMRC grant and to a number of publications. CIA’s review of the biomarker and surrogate literature published in 2008 was incorporated as the literature review on this subject by USA Institutes of Medicine of the National Academies Committee on the Qualification of Biomarkers and Surrogate Endpoints in Chronic Disease (April, 2010 Academy of Sciences, Appendix A).