The Irish Cancer Society‘s first Collaborative Cancer Research Centre, BREAST-PREDICT is Launched
The Irish Cancer Society has brought together Ireland’s leading breast cancer researchers in a new five year collaboration that aims for better treatments for breast cancer in Ireland.
The strong team of expert Irish researchers will collect and study information such as tumour samples from practically every breast cancer patient in the country in a five-year unique state-of-the-art study to determine how best to treat individual breast cancer patients, according to the particular characteristics of their own cancer.
The research team will examine the changes that take place in this disease which determine, for instance, whether patients respond to a particular drug, how their cancers change over time while they are being treated and whether drugs that they may have been taking prior to their diagnosis have any effect on the outcome of their cancer treatment.
The Centre will also test ways to find new treatment strategies, either by using existing drugs for the correct patient or by identifying new combinations of drugs that will help patients to beat their disease more effectively. It will also develop new tools for improved prediction of patient outcome and response to treatment.
Six academic centres
Involving six leading academic centres around Ireland with expert computational and laboratory scientists, as well as a nationwide cancer-focused clinical trials group, the Irish Cancer Society’s first Collaborative Cancer Research Centre BREAST-PREDICT is a truly country-wide effort to improve the lives of Irish breast cancer patients.
Commenting on the announcement of BREAST-PREDICT, Director of the Irish Cancer Society Collaborative Cancer Research Centre BREAST-PREDICT, UCD Professor William Gallagher said: “The Collaborative Cancer Research Centre will for the first time in Ireland harness the wealth of data available on breast cancer from around the globe to inform new clinical trials and treatments, and link in with world leading scientists and institutions such as the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and the Cambridge Research Institute in the UK. The ultimate goal of this research is personalised medicine, which allows us to tailor therapy towards individual patients based on the characteristics of their particular tumour and, thus, improve outcomes for breast cancer patients both in Ireland and worldwide. We are most grateful to the Irish Cancer Society for their incredibly generous support as we strive to work together as a critical mass in the battle against breast cancer, and deliver initial and hopefully important research findings in our first year.”
