Trinity symposium shows breadth of translational cancer research
Posted on: 22 February 2019
The Trinity Translational Medicine Institute (TTMI) held its 3rd annual scientific symposium recently to align as closely as possible with World Cancer Day. The symposium focussed on cancer precision medicine, with 110 registered researchers and clinicians attending from across the oncology community.
The ambition of the symposium was to consolidate links within Trinity’s teaching hospitals and research sites by bringing together recognised experts and key leaders in translational research, to discuss current and future oncology perspectives and open up opportunities for interaction and collaboration in translational oncology.
Director of TTMI, Professor Orla Sheils said that ‘Cancer remains a huge burden in Irish society accounting for 1 in 4 deaths, but it provides hope to see the breadth of promising translational research driving the evolving field of precision medicine; and this symposium provides a forum to discuss key challenges and research measures ongoing to deliver a tailored approach to cancer care and diagnostics.’
Both local and national speakers credited with achieving big steps forward in their respective fields across a range of cutting edge oncology topics chaired sessions throughout the day including Professor Maeve Lowery (Professor. of Translational Cancer Medicine at TCD and Consultant Medical Oncologist at St. James’s Hospital) who discussed the approach of developing a precision medicine strategy for gastrointestinal malignancies using information from inherited genetic alterations to direct an appropriate therapy.
Professor Jacintha O’Sullivan (Professor in Translational Oncology, Trinity) outlined one of the theranostic programmes focused on targeting angiogenesis to treat gastrointestinal (GI) cancer.
Dr. Sharon O’Toole (Trinity) discussed the novel personalised approaches the team is working on in finding better diagnostic tools and new targeted therapies for gynaecological cancers using liquid biopsies, explants and biobanked tissues.
Professor Stephen Finn (Trinity and St. James’s Hospital) described the current technological approaches in working with liquid biopsies and their great potential in the clinic.
The connection between bacteria and cancer was discussed by Dr. Mark Tangney (UCC), who described the enormous potential in modifying the different microbiota for the management of cancer treatment.
The area of cancer immunotherapy is a very novel and promising area in oncology therapy and Professor Kingston Mills (Trinity) discussed the latest advancements in this field.
Professor Elizabeth Connolly (St. James’s Hospital and Trinity) described the clinical efforts in screening for familial breast cancer and the dedicated service St. James’s Hospital offers working alongside Professor David Gallagher. She also discussed the lifestyle and obesity trends in this cohort with BRCA mutations and how this should be managed with good recommendations to this cohort.
Professor Laurent-Puig (Professor at the Paris Descartes University Medical School, France) was selected as an invited keynote speaker for his international expertise in area of precision medicine. Professor Laurent-Puig spoke about his pioneering work in the field of sub grouping colorectal cancers based on their molecular profiles and how this information can aid in therapy decisions which have been translated into the clinical setting to benefit patients.
The symposium embraced its role in engaging early-career researchers and clinicians that will play a pivotal role in pushing forward the highly competitive, knowledge-intense field of translational medicine. Two sessions were dedicated to actively promote post-graduate and post-doctoral participation through the ‘3 slides in 3 minutes’ presentation format. This elevator pitch style proved extremely engaging as it presented a snapshot of the wide array of research activities ongoing to conference delegates in an effort to encourage collaboration opportunities. The sessions were scored by a judging panel and Professor Sheils congratulated the winners:
Post-Doc. 1st Place: Dr. Martin Barr; 2nd Place: Dr. Donal Cox
Post-grad. 1st Place: Ms. Emma Leacy; 2nd Place: Ms. Jessica O’Brien
Building Engagements in Health Research: Bursaries announced
The winners of ‘Building Engagements in Health Research’ bursary which is supported by the Office of the Dean of Research. The programme fast-forwards solutions for collaborative multidisciplinary research, with the ultimate goal of increasing translational research activity. One of the primary criteria was that applications involve (ideally new) collaborations between TTMI-based researchers and Trinity-affiliated clinicians to facilitate the development of the requisite inter-relationships necessary for future grants of scale. The award was highly competitive and the quality of submissions received was outstanding. After much deliberation, a decision was taken to fund eight research projects under the scheme:
Joint First:
1. Dr. Kate Dinneen (Lecturer/Specialist Registrar in Histopathology) and Prof. Orla Sheils (Director of TTMI, Professor of Molecular Diagnostics and Director of Medical Ethics at the TCD School of Medicine)
Project Title: Biological Characteristics of Oesophago-Gastric Tumours and their Clinical Correlates
2. Dr. Roman Romero-Ortuno (Associate Professor in Medical Gerontology and Consultant Physician) and Prof. Ross McManus (Professor of Molecular Medicine)
Project Title: A Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) of the Frailty Index in UK Biobank, with a view to inform collaborative genomic research in The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA)
Joint Second:
3. Dr. Sinead Smith (Ussher Assistant Professor in Applied & Translational Medicine) and Prof. Deirdre McNamara (Associate Professor & Consultant Gastroenterologist)
Project Title: The Polycomb Repressor Complex as therapeutic target and predictive biomarker for Helicobacter pylori-associated disease
4. Dr. Colm Kerr (Research Fellow & specialist registrar in infectious diseases) and Dr. Cara Martin (Assistant Professor in Molecular Pathology and Tumour Biology)
Project Title: Human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence, seroprevalence, diversity and HPV-related cancer prevention in a HIV positive and HIV negative men who have sex with men (MSM) population
5. Dr. Daniela Tropea (Assistant Professor in Molecular Psychiatry) and Prof. Aiden Corvin (Professor of Psychiatry)
Project Title: Validating the effects of schizophrenia rare variant mutations PAK7 in patient-derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Joint Third:
6. Dr. Gareth Brady (Ussher Assistant Professor of Vascular Biology) and Professor Mark Little (Professor/Consultant of Nephrology, Clinical Medicine)
Project Title: Investigation of ANCA-induced pro-inflammatory signaling in human monocytes Autoimmune Vasculitis
7. Dr. Nollaig Bourke (Ussher Assistant Professor in Inflammageing) and Professor Sean Kennelly (Consultant Physician in Geriatric and Stroke Medicine)
Project Title: Role of our immune system in mediating the link between T2DM and dementia
As in previous years, AbbVie, Pfizer, Genomic Medicine Ireland, other organisations (TCD – Faculty of Health Sciences, Breakthrough Cancer Research, Bio-Sciences Ltd. and Miltenyi Biotec) contributed significantly to the sponsorship of this successful event.