Professor Baxter is Director of the Kolling Institute of Medical Research at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney and a professor in the departments of Medicine and Molecular & Microbial Biosciences at the University of Sydney.

Professor Baxter is a leading expert in proteins that regulate cell growth and metabolism, the insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) and their binding proteins.

These are essential for normal body growth but are also important in the abnormal growth of some cancers. He was the first to identify several of these proteins and to devise methods of measuring them.

At the Kolling Institute, Professor Baxter is Head of the Hormones & Cancer Group which is among the leading groups internationally studying the endocrinology and cell biology of the IGFs and their binding proteins. Professor Baxter has led successful R&D programs involving the application of IGFs in diagnostic tests, critical illness, pregnancy, nonpancreatic tumour hypoglycaemia, cancer cell biology and cell signalling, cancer cell apoptosis, and the use of serum and tissue proteomics in understanding cellular mechanisms of cancer and identifying new biomarkers for diagnostic development.

Professor Baxter has authored more than twenty book chapters, and over 250 refereed papers. He is on the Executive Committee of the International Society for IGF Research, was awarded the prestigious Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence in Biomedical Research in 2002, and was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2004.