Professor Finlay Macrae MBBS, MD,FRACP, FRCP, AGAF is a Principal Fellow with title Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, The Royal Melbourne Hospital (2000- ) Head, Colorectal Medicine and Genetics, The Royal Melbourne Hospital. Sessional Principal Specialist Gastroenterologist, Dept of Gastroenterology, Royal Melbourne Hospital (1977-). Honours: Distinguished Service Medal, Gastroenterological Society of Australia. 1999.
Professor Macrae has had a career in translational and clinical research focusing on diseases of the large bowel especially with regard to screening and familial risk of colorectal cancer.

As lead clinician in the Familial Cancer Clinic at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, the state's busiest in familial bowel cancer, he is engaged in a range of research projects including SNP based Genome Wide Association studies, candidate gene searches in hyperplastic polyposis, and screening by MR colonography in mismatch repair gene carriers. Professor Macrae co-authored the chapters on family history in both the NHMRC Guidelines on Early Detection, Prevention and Management of Colorectal Cancer, and NHMRC Familial Cancer Guidelines. He is the author on chapters on polyps and colorectal cancer in the widely respected on-line resource "Up to Date".  He sits on the Programme Advisory Group of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Programme, and the Quality Working Group of the Australian Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Association's (a division of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia) Quality Working Group and its National Endoscopy Training Initiative. He is also a member of the Australian Cancer Network's recently formulated committee addressing issues of implementation relating to colonoscopy certification and synoptic reporting on behalf of the Australian Government. He is a Councillor for the Gastroenterological Society of Australia, responsible for Professional Affairs.

Professor Macrae is a consultant to the CSIRO p-Health Flagship programme which focuses on colorectal cancer prevention. A particular focus of the latter is the analysis of surveillance data generated from the 27 year history of the RMH Bowel Cancer Surveillance Programme, which has focussed on management of familial bowel Cancer. With the CSIRO, linkages with similar but younger databases across Australia is now under development, to inform clinical questions relating to surveillance from a larger dataset.

He is Chair of the Hereditary Bowel Cancer Group of The Cancer Council of Victoria, Past Chairman of the international Leeds Castle Polyposis Group, currently Secretary to the International Society of Gastrointestinal Hereditary Tumours (InSiGHT), based in Leiden and London, a member of Steering Committee of the US National Institutes of Health Colon Cancer Family Register, and International vice chairman of the CAPP organization for randomized controlled trials of prevention in HNPCC gene carriers. He has recently co-authored a book for families with colorectal cancer with Canadian counselor Terri Berk.