Dr. Terry Dwyer

Biography

Terry Dwyer is a non-communicable disease epidemiologist with extensive experience in conducting cohort and case-control studies. He was previously the Director of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, where he coordinated research projects on cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, childhood asthma, and diabetes, with a focus on infant and child health. His research on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and sleeping position has been recognized by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia for its significant contributions to medical research in the 20th century. Dwyer's work involved conducting the Tasmanian Infant Health Survey, which enrolled 11,000 infants between 1988 and 1995, supported by funds from NHMRC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Currently, he plays a leading role in large global cohort collaborations, involving collaborations with birth cohorts from more than ten countries to gather prospective evidence on the causes of childhood cancer. His consortium, the International Childhood Cancer Cohort Consortium (14C), aims to assemble data from 1 million mothers and babies followed into childhood. Currently, he is working with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) on studies focused on 40,000 subjects measured from school age into their fourth and fifth decades, aiming to estimate the separate effects of childhood physical and lifestyle characteristics on the risk of major adult diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Research Interests