Adjunct Professor Geoff Askin co-founded the Spine Research group with Professor Mark Pearcy in 2002. His clinical expertise and leadership ensure the research performed by the group’s members is clinically driven and directly impacts patient care.

Dr Askin completed his Spine Fellowship in Nottingham, Switzerland and Germany and served as Director of Orthopaedics at the Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) in the early 1990s as well as Director of the Spinal Injuries Unit at PAH. Dr Askin has been supervising specialist training Spine Fellowships annually since 1994 and has to date trained 25 specialist spine surgeons.

He has a special interest in spine deformity and is known worldwide as a leader in the field of innovative treatment of complex spine deformity in children and adults. He pioneered the thoracoscopic correction of idiopathic scoliosis technique in Australia such that he has the world’s largest case series and is considered the world authority.  He was the first Australian user of 3D printed patient-specific biomodels to assist in the surgical planning and correction of complex spine deformity cases and the first to publish on this experience in complex spine surgical cases in 1999.  Dr Askin also has a keen interest in the surgical management of early onset scoliosis and has developed an innovative growth friendly semi-constrained growing rod which is inserted using a minimally invasive technique. His research has contributed to improved treatments and better timing for these interventions, in addition to ensuring optimal outcomes for the management of spine deformity in children with inherited neuromuscular disorders.

Dr Askin has been pivotal in leading, managing and supporting the BSRG research direction, to address critical challenges in paediatric spine deformity aetiology, progression risk, management and treatment (fusion and fusionless surgery and conservative management). The BSRG team is a multi-disciplinary research group, including engineers, physiotherapists, surgeons and scientists, and since its foundation has published over 140 internationally peer reviewed scientific journal papers and ten book chapters.