Welcome to the Cancer Biology & Therapeutics (CBT) Lab website.

Established by Prof. William Gallagher, The Cancer Biology and Therapeutics laboratory is a dynamic research group led by five principal investigators in the UCD College of Science. Research focuses investigating he extrinsic and intrinsic factors involved in cancer biology as well as the development of novel cancer screening tools and therapies.  

Prof. William Gallagher (Professor of Cancer Biology) focuses on identifying and validating molecular determinants of tumour progression in breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer and melanoma, with a particular interest in the biomarker and drug development arenas. Dr. Maria Prencipe (SFI Starting Investigator, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology) focuses on the mechanisms of resistance to hormone therapy in breast and prostate cancer with the goal of identifying novel and more effective treatments especially for the advanced stages of these diseases. Dr Antoinette Perry (Assistant Professor in Genetics and Cell Biology) leads the translational prostate and ovarian cancer epigenetics team; focused on understanding the role of epigenomic changes in the pathogenesis of cancer and harnessing these changes to develop prognostic and predictive biomarkers. She also has an active research programme investigating terrestrial and marine plant-derived anti-cancer compounds. Dr. Arman Rahman (Assistant Professor of Anatomy) co-leads the POI multiplex tissue imaging platform that focuses on cancer biomarker discovery and validation using tissue based detection methods (IHC, ISH) and digital pathology. Dr. Simone Marcone (Assistant Professor in Cell and Molecular Biology) specialises in translational oncology, exploring how changes in the tumour microenvironment drive disease progression and treatment resistance, with the goal of developing novel diagnostics and targeted therapies.

We benefit from a wide array of collaborations with academic and industrial groups at both national and international levels. Our work is supported primarily by Research Ireland (RI), the European Commission (under the 7th Framework programme), the Health Research Board (HRB), as well as charitable sources such as the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) and Breakthrough Cancer Research (BCR).  The CBT group has been involved in multiple nationally funded research centres, Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnership and Pathways Programmes and FP7 funded European consortiums. We collaborate with several industrial groups, both indigenous and internationally based. The CBT Lab also enjoys fruitful interactions with a wide range of basic, translational and clinical researchers in Ireland and further afield.