SPECIALIST AREAS

Dr Mihir Shanker is a Radiation Oncologist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane and is a member of the Gamma Knife® Centre of Queensland. He specialises in stereotactic radiosurgery for the treatment of brain and skull base cancers; primary and secondary cancers of the spine, upper gastrointestinal and sarcoma malignancies.

EDUCATION 

Dr Shanker completed his medical degree at The University of Queensland in 2014. He commence specialty training in Radiation Oncology in 2017 and was awarded Fellowship of the Royal and Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (FRANZCR) in 2022. He completed further specialty training as the Garry Reichart Gamma Knife Fellow at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and completed an Advanced Radiation Oncology Fellowship at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, USA in 2023 specialising in stereotactic radiotherapy for brain and spine malignancies and in translational data science.

Dr Shanker is a Certified Health Informatician in Australasia (CHIA) and has a background in Biomedical Engineering with Honours from The University of Melbourne. He holds a Master of Philosophy (Research) and a Master of Medicine (Clinical Epidemiology) from The University of Sydney. He additionally holds qualifications in New Ventures Leadership from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

RESEARCH & PUBLICATIONS 

Dr Shanker has published in multiple peer-reviewed journals in fields of primary brain tumours, brain metastases, spine metastases, radiomics & machine learning and upper gastrointestinal malignancies, collaborating with national and international clinicians.

He has published textbook chapters on the topic of spine stereotactic radiotherapy and brain radiation toxicities. He has also presented at numerous national and international conferences and is a peer reviewer for several radiation oncology journals.

Dr Shanker has worked as a visiting scientist at the Sid Faithful Brain Cancer Laboratory at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research and in the Chung Computational Imaging Laboratory at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

AWARDS & MEMBERSHIPS 

Dr Shanker has been a recipient of:

• The Cooperative Trials Group in Neuro Oncology (COGNO) (2021) and Gastrointestinal Society of Queensland (GESQ) 2014 Young Investigator of the Year awards.

• Varian Prize for best oral presentation at the RANZCR (2021) Annual Meeting

• COGNO Best Oral Presentation prize (2021).

• The PA Research Foundation Prize (2015) and has been awarded over $950K in competitive grant funding.

• Uhr Clarke Examination award (2020)

• Harvard University President’s Innovation Challenge (2023) for development of novel peripheral neuromodulation technology.

Dr Shanker holds an academic position as Senior Lecturer at The University of Queensland. He is actively involved in education of medical students and trainees. He is a member of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO), International Stereotactic Radiosurgery Society (ISRS) and the Harvard Innovation Laboratory.