The Trinity Centre for Reproductive Sciences and Women's Health

Contact Us Trinity Centre for Health Sciences
St James’s Hospital
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin 8
Ireland

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tcrw@tcd.ie

Sharon O'Toole

Dr Sharon O'Toole

Senior Research Fellow

Affiliation(s): Trinity College Dublin;St James's Hospital;Coombe Women and Infants Hospital 

Research Interests: 

  • Gynaecological Cancer
  • Cancer Metastasis
  • Biomarkers

Sharon O’Toole is a senior research fellow in Trinity College Dublin working in the area of gynaecological cancer. Her research interests centre around diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and understanding the fundamental biology of the metastatic cascade and circulating tumour cells. She manages a large bioresource of gynaecological cancers and benign ovarian lesions.

 She is president of the Irish Society for Gynaecological Oncology and co-founded a public and patient involvement group (ISGOPPI) within the society. She is the translational co-chair of the gynaecological disease specific sub-group in Cancer Trials Ireland. She is on the board of OvaCare, an ovarian cancer support charity. She coordinates the Irish Network for Gynaecological Oncology which comprises over 30 of Ireland’s foremost gynaecological cancer campaigners, researchers and patient advocates who take part in awareness events around gynaecological cancer.

  1. Henderson, B. D., et al. (2026). A workflow for assessing antibody-drug conjugate target expression on circulating tumour cells from triple-negative breast cancer and epithelial ovarian cancer patients. Journal of Liquid Biopsy, 13, 100479. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlb.2026.100479

  2. Lewis, F., et al. (2026). Memorable Medicine: How the BEAT Campaign could impact the future of ovarian cancer. Journal of Cancer Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-026-02899-w

  3. Ward, M. P., et al. (2026). Circulating tumour cells are a prognostic indicator in advanced high-grade serous ovarian cancer and are associated with platelets and immune cells following dissemination. British Journal of Cancer, 134(1), 22–32. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-025-03227-7

  4. Lewis, F., et al. (2025). A pilot study evaluating the feasibility of enriching and detecting circulating tumour cells from peripheral and ovarian veins in rare epithelial ovarian carcinomas. European Journal of Surgical Oncology, 51(4), 109721. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejso.2025.109721

  5. Lewis, F., et al. (2024). Unravelling the biological and clinical challenges of circulating tumour cells in epithelial ovarian carcinoma. Cancer Letters, 605, 217279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.canlet.2024.217279

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9260-3225 

PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=o%27toole%20s%20and%20trinity