I experienced firsthand Australia’s commitment to attracting international scientific talent when the federal government granted me permanent residency on an expedited basis through its Global Talent program, based on my “internationally recognized record of exceptional and outstanding achievement” and continued “prominence” in oncology research and clinical drug development.
Yet attracting exceptional scientific talent is only part of the challenge. Equally important is creating an environment in which such talent can thrive, contribute and remain. This question takes on particular significance amid growing concerns about antisemitism in Australia’s universities and healthcare institutions.
Australian Jews numbered about 117,000 in 2021, less than half a percent of the population. Their contributions to Australian and global medicine illustrate what a country gains when it creates opportunities for talented people, regardless of background.
Professor David Cooper, born in Sydney to Jewish immigrant parents, was a pioneering clinician-researcher in HIV medicine. He helped build the institution that became UNSW’s Kirby Institute and was instrumental in clinical trials demonstrating the benefits of combination antiretroviral therapy. These advances changed the prognosis of HIV infection and saved lives far beyond Australia.
Sir Marc Feldmann, born into a Jewish family in Europe, grew up in Melbourne, studied medicine at the University of Melbourne and trained in immunology at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. His subsequent work in Britain, alongside Ravinder Maini, established TNF inhibition as a therapeutic strategy, transforming treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases. Australia helped train a scientist whose discoveries benefited patients worldwide.
Jewish Australian philanthropy has also strengthened the infrastructure for discovery. In 2007, Frank Lowy and his family committed $10 million toward the Lowy Cancer Research Centre at UNSW, designed to bring childhood and adult cancer researchers together.
These are not arguments that any community has an exclusive claim to scientific excellence. They are reminders that knowledge, leadership and institutional capacity develop over generations and can be difficult to replace.
Medical progress also depends on universities willing to sustain ambitious programs, hospitals capable of running trials and professional networks built on trust. When experienced researchers depart, those relationships may not follow their replacements.
That makes recent evidence concerning. A survey of 265 Jewish healthcare professionals and students in Victoria found that 48% reported feeling a need to conceal their Jewish identity and 33% reported workplace antisemitism after Oct. 7, 2023. Because participants were self-selected, these figures cannot be treated as national prevalence estimates. They nonetheless warrant serious attention.
In July 2026, ABC reported testimony from Jewish university staff, including an academic who said she had left the University of Sydney amid concerns about its response. Meanwhile, some 100 Australian doctors attended events exploring work in Israel in 2025. Attendance does not prove emigration, nor establish why each doctor was interested. But the possibility of losing skilled professionals deserves examination.
In oncology drug development, losing a researcher can mean more than losing one employee. Clinical programs rely on specialized judgment, patient networks, long-standing collaborations and mentorship. Rebuilding them can take years.
The consequences may emerge gradually, as affected professionals reconsider opportunities, collaborators and institutions they previously trusted. We cannot yet quantify a Jewish biomedical brain drain from Australia, but waiting for measurable losses may mean responding too late.
Australia’s universities, teaching hospitals and research institutes should act on three fronts.
First, independently measure whether discrimination affects recruitment, retention and career decisions, using confidential surveys and voluntary exit interviews. Second, establish trusted reporting pathways with clear investigation timelines and protection against retaliation. Third, ensure that scientific appointments, clinical-trial participation and research collaborations are judged by merit, ethics and patient benefit, not religion or nationality.
University governing councils and hospital boards should take responsibility for these measures. Institutions should publish anonymized progress annually, while safeguarding individual privacy, and assess whether staff feel safer, are choosing to stay and can contribute to research. Legitimate political criticism must remain possible; professional exclusion based on Jewish or Israeli identity must not.
Jewish Australians do not need exceptional achievements to deserve equal treatment. But Australia has benefited enormously from their medical contributions. The question now is whether it will protect the conditions that allow the next generation to make theirs.
The next medical breakthrough Australia loses may be one it never discovers.
