Dr Michael Lau

Michael graduated MB ChB from the University of Otago in 1992 and has been a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia since 2005. He works as a Consultant Anatomic Pathologist at Awanui Laboratories, Dunedin and his current practice includes thoracic, gastrointestinal, genitourinary and renal pathology (and occasionally lymphoma pathology). He also has interests in structured cancer reporting and is the lead pathologist for Te Aho o Te Kahu’s Structured Cancer Reporting project since early 2021 and has led working groups on Structured Cancer Reporting for Thoracic Tumours and Digestive System Tumours. He is the lead pathologist for the Awanui laboratories in the field of oncology biomarkers and PD-L1 scoring, and currently, he is working with Te Aho o Te Kahu’s ACT-NOW programme on the development of a standardised combined molecular-immunohistochemical oncology biomarker list for New Zealand. Michael is one of the lead pathologists for the New Zealand Bowel Cancer Working Group and the New Zealand Bowel Screening Programme, having contributed to the NZ Bowel Screening Histology Data Standard. In addition, he has co-written the Pathology curriculum for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists, and previously was a regular examiner in their Part II Vivas.  One of Michael’s current roles is to lead Awanui Laboratories Digital pathology project, which includes Whole Slide Imaging project and Data management and sharing. He has been a technical expert for International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) since 2010 and will join a working group to develop new ISO documents for Digital Pathology and Artificial Intelligence-based image analysis.