{"id":339,"date":"2011-03-14T09:39:55","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T09:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cbtlab.ie\/?page_id=339"},"modified":"2025-10-11T16:56:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T16:56:50","slug":"research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.cbtlab.ie\/?page_id=339","title":{"rendered":"Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

CURRENT CONSORTIUMS\/PROJECTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Precision Oncology Ireland: <\/strong>Consortium of academic, charity and industrial partners aiming to develop\u00a0new diagnostics and therapeutics for the personalised treatment of cancer<\/p>\n

\"\"Prof. William Gallagher is Deputy Director of Precision Oncology Ireland (http:\/\/www.precisiononcology.ie\/<\/a>) , a consortium of 5 Irish Universities, 6 Irish Charities, and 10 companies aiming to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics for the personalised treatment of cancer. The Consortium is part-funded by Science Foundation Ireland under their Strategic Partnership Programme.<\/p>\n

Precision Oncology Ireland will use cutting-edge technologies to\u00a0generate unique genetic and molecular profiles for each patient\u2019s cancer.\u00a0The\u00a0key competitive advantage of the programme lies in the innovative computational methods applied to make sense of these profiles, and decipher what drives each individual cancer. The results of this programme will be better diagnostics, personalised cancer treatment, and faster drug discovery and development.<\/p>\n

The outcomes of this research programme will range from diagnostic tests for cancer based on personal molecular markers, novel drugs which specifically target cancer cells, and improved synergistic drug combinations. The programme will also provide key infrastructural supports to researchers, co-ordinating access to tumour biobanks, and allowing access to state-of-the-art technologies. Crucially, the programme will\u00a0allow cancer patients to benefit from research advances at an earlier stage.<\/p>\n

The combined SFI, charity, and industrial funding commitment will total \u20ac11.9 million over the next five years. This is the first time that researchers, charities and industry have combined forces to take on the challenge of tailoring cancer treatments to individual patients based on their unique cancer.<\/p>\n

OPTi-PREDICT:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"OPTi-PREDICT is a 2.5million euro project, funded by SFI, that aims to reduce the harmful effects of over treatment by more accurately diagnosing patients with early stage prostate or breast cancer. The project is led by Prof. William Gallagher and Prof. William Watson.\u00a0Its objective in the breast cancer\u00a0space is to develop and validate a protein variant of a previously-decovered\u00a0biomarker panel (OncoMasTR) to distinguish patients who will get a recurrence of their disease from the majority (~70%) who will not. In the prostate cancer space, signatures are being worked on to distinguish indolent from aggressive disease which should allow more patients to have less invasive or even to forego treatment for their cancer.<\/p>\n

BREAST-PREDICT: 2013-2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Prof. William Gallagher is currently Director of\u00a0BREAST<\/em>-PREDICT<\/em>, which is the first Irish Cancer Society Collaborative Cancer Research Centre (CCRC) to be funded (www.breastpredict.com). This country-wide CCRC, which is supported to the level of 7.5 million euro, runs from 2013 to 2018 and involves 6 academic institutions (UCD, TCD, RCSI, DCU, NUIG and UCC), as well as the not-for-profit clinical trials organisation, the All-Ireland Co-Operative Oncology Research Group (ICORG). \u00a0BREAST-PREDICT integrates key components of several pre-existing entities in the cancer research arena in Ireland. The translational activities within the Centre owe their origins in significant part to two Science Foundation Ireland-funded programmes, namely Molecular Therapeutics for Cancer Ireland (www.mtci.ie<\/a>) with Prof. Gallagher as a co-PI and Deputy Co-ordinator and Systems Biology Ireland (www.ucd.ie\/sbi<\/a>) \u00a0led by Prof. Walter Kolch.\u00a0 Further details about the centre can be found at www.breastpredict.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

FP7 IAPP\u00a0 SYS-MEL: 2013-2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Prof. Gallagher co-ordinates an FP7 Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnership and Pathways (IAPP) Programme under FP7 SYS-MEL<\/em>, which is focused on developing prognostic and predictive tests for melanoma<\/strong>, the most aggressive form of skin cancer. This programme involves 6 partners (4 academic\/2 industrial) across 3 EU countries and runs from 2013-2017. This SYS-MEL Consortium is a follow-up on the successful TargetMelanoma project that was completed in June 2013.\u00a0 Further details about the centre can be found at www.oncomark.com\/go\/research\/sys-mel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

FASTPATH: 2011-2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Prof. Gallagher co-ordinates an FP7 Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnership and Pathways FAST-PATH<\/em>\u00a0(www.fastpathproject.com<\/a>) which is focused on applying high-performance computing and automated image analysis to fast-track pathological assessment in prostate cancer.\u00a0 <\/strong>This programme involves 6 partners (4 academic\/2 industrial) across 3 EU countries and runs from 2011-2015. OncoMark Ltd\u00a0 (http:\/\/www.oncomark.com\/<\/a>) one of the industrial partners was co-founded by Prof. Gallagher.<\/p>\n

BUMP: Prostate Cancer Urine Biomarkers<\/strong><\/p>\n

In conjunction with Dr Jeremy Clark at the University of East Anglia (https:\/\/www.uea.ac.uk\/biological-sciences\/people\/profile\/jeremy-clark<\/a>) Dr. Perry\u2019s team is carrying out a parallel analysis of molecular changes (DNA methylation, transcriptomics) in biopsy cores and urine in an effort to assess the potential utility of urine as a \u201cliquid biopsy\u201d in overcoming sampling biases inherent of needle biopsies. This project is jointly funded by a cost-sharing agreement from the Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Society in the UK.<\/p>\n

iPROSPECT: Evolution of the CRPC epigenome and its clinical application for delivering precision medicine<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This project is one of three transformative projects funded within the iPROSPECT (Irish Programme for Stratified Prostate Cancer Therapies) programme by the Irish Cancer Society & Movember. In this project, we are developing evidence-based predictive epigenetic biomarkers of response to taxane therapies and CYP17A1 inhibitor, abiraterone. We are also studying evolution of the methylome during progression to castration resistance by longitudinally sampling circulating DNA in men with late stage prostate cancer.<\/p>\n

epiCaPture: a non-invasive urine test for early detection of high-risk prostate cancer<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Perry\u2019s research team have identified a panel of loci that become specifically hypermethylated in high-grade\u00a0prostate<\/strong>\u00a0cancer (PMID: 22915211, 22906661, 17453001). They are working on translating this panel into a prognostic biomarker for early detection of high-risk prostate cancer. Prostate cancer kills approximately 300,000 men every year; early detection is vital to\u00a0eradicate death from this disease. At the same time, many men live perfectly health lives with low-grade, indolent prostate cancer. For this reason, millions of men stand to benefit from a better test to identify precisely which men have the aggressive form of cancer, so that they can be treated early, whilst sparing the majority of men the significant co-morbidities associated with radical therapies.\u00a0 epiCaPture, a non-invasive urine DNA methylation test which detects the presence of high-grade, potentially aggressive prostate cancer addresses this unmet need. Data on 450 men show that epiCaPture offers similar sensitivity and superior specificity compared with the current blood test used, PSA. Results from this study were published in the JCO Precision Oncology in 2019 (http:\/\/ascopubs.org\/doi\/full\/10.1200\/PO.18.00134<\/a>).\"\"<\/p>\n

Dr. Perry\u2019s research is currently focused on validating these findings in a large, independent cohort. This work has been funded by an Irish Cancer Society post-doctoral fellowship award (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=D2nDT1MyF6w<\/a>\u00a0), a Movember Global Action Plan Award (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YA689UOFwpM<\/a>), a Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award (https:\/\/vimeo.com\/44534009<\/a>\u00a0), an SFI TIDA (A Perry) and an Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Award (A Perry).<\/p>\n

PROVE: PRostate and OVarian Epigenetics \u2013 investigating therapeutic resistance via cfDNA<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Emergence of chemoresistance in prostate (PCa) and ovarian (OvCa) cancer remains a significant challenge. Drug efficacy is limited by tumour heterogeneity and the tumour\u2019s ability to evolve and produce resistant clones. Analysis of liquid biopsies has emerged as a useful method to overcome spatial and\/or temporal heterogeneity and study tumour characteristics. Furthermore, epigenetics have been shown to be paramount to tumour initiation and progression, with recent\u00a0 studies also reporting an association between methylation and therapeutic resistance in these cancers. This highlights the potential of the epigenome, more specifically DNA methylation, as a driver of chemoresistance. The aim of the study is to understand how the methylome evolves over time, during clinical progression and acquired therapeutic resistance in PCa and OvCa patients. This project is co-funded by the UCD School of Medicine and the Irish Cancer Society, and is being developed by PhD student Romina Silva.<\/p>\n

Investigating the chemopreventive & chemotherapeutic properties of terrestrial and marine plants<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eve O\u2019Reilly was awarded a PhD scholarship under the IRC Enterprise Partnership Scheme. The aim of the project, funded by the Irish Research Council and GreenLight Pharmaceuticals (https:\/\/greenlightmedicines.com\/<\/a>), is to investigate the chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic effects of cannabinoid compounds in prostate cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CURRENT CONSORTIUMS\/PROJECTS Precision Oncology Ireland: Consortium of academic, charity and industrial partners aiming to develop\u00a0new diagnostics and therapeutics for the personalised treatment of cancer Prof. William Gallagher is Deputy Director of Precision Oncology Ireland (http:\/\/www.precisiononcology.ie\/) , a consortium of 5 Irish Universities, 6 Irish Charities, and 10 companies aiming to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics …<\/p>\n

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