Cancer Biology and Therapeutics Lab

14th February 2019: Dr Antoinette Perry receiving official award of Commercialisation Fund from Deirdre Glenn, Director, Lifesciences & Food Commercialisation at Enterprise Ireland for project entitled, “epiCaPture: a urine test to detect aggressive prostate cancer”.

Repro Free: Dublin, 15th January 2019 – Minister for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection, Pat Breen, T.D., today launched Science Foundation Ireland’s Plan for 2019 and announced a research investment of €10.8 million in funding for 20 projects in the areas of health, energy, environment, materials and technology. He is pictured with Prof Mark Ferguson, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of Ireland and SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant (SIRG) Awardees. The projects, which will be funded for four years, will support 20 researchers and a further 20 PhD students. Picture Jason Clarke

Congratulations to Dr. Maria Prencipe who received Science Foundation Ireland’s Starting Investigator Research Grant (SIRG) for her project entitled ‘Targeting co-regulators of the androgen receptor as a novel therapeutic approach for prostate and breast cancer’. The SIRG awards help early-career researchers develop the essential skills and experience necessary to lead Ireland’s future research in areas such as health, energy, materials and technology.  Having passed through a rigorous competitive international merit review process, these projects continue to advance Ireland’s international research reputation.

Alex was one of three Irish Cancer Society-funded scholars who were shortlisted for an Irish Cancer Society Research Award, where she presented a lay version of her research to a mixed audience judged by a patient panel. To-date, Alex has computationally identified changes in activity of thousands of enhancer regulatory elements in prostate cancer. Her talk entitled “Understanding Aggressive Prostate Cancer”, explained her key findings in simple terms by applying an analogy that searching for these tiny DNA sequences in the human genome is equivalent to searching for a small set of words in 200 phone books.

Congratulations to Alex for her successful travel bursary application to attend the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Gordon Research Conference in Italy. The focus of this conference is on newly emerging aspects of the field including the genetic heterogeneity of cancer, the “long tail” of less frequent cancer mutations and the importance of intratumoural heterogeneity as assayed by single cell technologies.

To mark World Cancer Day, five secondary school and community choirs combined to highlight cancer awareness at a unique choral event in University College Dublin with the help of Irish singer/songwriter Don Mescall. The event was organised by Professor William Gallagher, Luciana Herda (CBT lab) and Colette Kearney (Biology Teacher in Mount Sion CBS) with CBT lab members helping on the day. All the speakers were inspirational including CBT lab members Maria Prencipe and Seodhna Lynch who thoroughly enjoyed the enthusiasm of the students.

The response was overwhelming positive: ‘the atmosphere was so wonderful and the buzz really was phenomenal’;  ‘music really does warm the soul’; ‘such inspirational amazing young speakers’ and ‘uplifting and beautiful occasion’ to quote a few.

On Daffodil Day, thousands of volunteers take to the streets selling flowers and daffodil pins to raise monies for the Irish Cancer Society.  Daffodil day was launched on Feb. 1st 2019 with BREAST-PREDICT an Irish Cancer Society Collaborative Research Centre represented by CBT lab members Dr. Arman Rahman and Emer Conroy

Congratulations to PhD student Flavia Genua who has been awarded € 1300 under COST Action CA17118 Identifying Biomarkers Through Translational Research for Prevention and Stratification of Colorectal Cancer  (TRANSCOLONCAN.Eu)  for a three – week STSM (short term scientific mission …EU speak) to the  lab of Dr Alessio  Naccarati Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine , Turin, “Relationship between microbes and microRNAs in colorectal carcinogenesis”.

The CBT lab entered the Conway Christmas decoration competition to build a Christmas tree or decoration (anything Christmassy!) made out of lab materials and as pointed out by Dr. Prencipe the most valuable lab materials are the people.  Jingles cells was a hit with Prof. Gallagher as lead angel and the CBT lab were joint winners of the competition.

Dr Seodhna Lynch (left) was delighted to be shortlisted for an oral presentation for the UCD Allergan Innovation Award at the UCD Conway Festival in October 2018. Her talk was on the investigation of miRNA Expression and their potential prognostic utility as biomarkers in prostate cancer.

Congratulations to Eve O’Reilly PhD student (right) who was awarded a prize for her poster presentation at the UCD Conway Festival of Research 2018. The poster, titled ‘Effects of Cannabidiol on Prostate Cancer Cell Viability and Proliferation’, describes the phenotypic effects of a non-psychoactive cannabinoid compound in cell line models of prostate cancer.

Dr. Arman Raman and Claudia Aura MD, represent the CBT lab at the 5 year celebration of BREAST-PREDICT.  One of the Irish Cancer Society’s greatest achievements over the past five years has been Breast-Predict, the country’s first collaborative cancer research centre.   The CBT group and Prof. William Gallagher are delighted to be a part of this success.