Dr Stephen Tong

Carl Wood Senior Lecturer

Senior Scientist, The Ritchie Centre

Dr Stephen Tong is a Senior Scientist at MIMR in The Ritchie Centre’s Pregnancy and Maternal Health group. Additionally, he is a Consultant Obstetrician at the Monash Medical Centre and a Carl Wood Senior Lecturer at Monash University, a prestigious title that commemorates Australia’s most widely known specialists in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Dr Tong’s interests are in early pregnancy, twinning epidemiology and clinical obstetrics. His research group has a strong focus on translational research (i.e. bringing research findings into clinical practice); developing medications to cure stable ectopic pregnancies instead of surgery, and identifying blood-based biomarkers to predict obstetric complications and monitor fetal health in clinically relevant settings. He is also undertaking genomic studies of important pregnancy complications in search of new therapeutic leads.

Dr Tong is leading the 2010 MIMR Flagship project to test a cure for unruptured ectopic pregnancies of any size with a single injection of methotrexate, and a course of Gefitinib tablets taken for seven days, thereby avoiding invasive surgery with its potential for reducing fertility and causing internal bleeding.

This drug intervention could be used to treat up to 80-90% of all ectopic pregnancies, causing them to simply stop growing and resorb. If successfully translated to clinical care, the treatment will revolutionise management of this acute gynecological emergency.

Dr Tong holds research grants totaling over 1.6 million dollars, including three NHMRC grants, and numerous grants from benevolent sources. He regularly publishes in top journals of his field, and has first author publications in prestigious general science/medical journals (Nature, Lancet).

In 2007, Dr Tong received an NHMRC Achievement Award for the top ranked Clinical CDA (Level I) Fellowship.