Season's Greetings! As 2023 draws to a close, we should take pride when we reflect on the outstanding achievements we have made this year. We are delighted to bring you the LDCRC newsletter that celebrates the thriving and vibrant cancer research community in the Midwest region and highlights several of our successes this year To everyone, thank you for your passion and commitment to building collaborative mid-west cancer research that will advance our understanding of cancer, impact patients and our community.
NEWSLETTER CONTENTS
Cancer Clinical Trial Unit @UHL activity
Cancer Research Collaborative working Groups
Patient Public Involvement
Blood Cancer
Colorectal Cancer
Breast Cancer
Lung Cancer
Biobanking
Highlighting LDCRC Projects
Digital Health: eHealth Hub for Cancer Cancer Imaging: uCAIR
LDCRC Single Cell and Next Generation Sequencing Core Facility
Single Cell and Sequencing Technology Showcase
Lunch n’ Learn seminar series with Illumina LDCRC Awards for NGS and Single Cell Experiments
www.reallygreatsite.com
LDCRC Bioinformatics and Digital Health Genomics Software for Single Cell Core Data BIoconductor Software Leadership by LDCRC UL and Dell Technologies
AICRI, All Island Cancer Research Institute
LDCRC in the News
Events: IACR/EACR/AACR joint meeting
Funding: Upcoming Funding Opportunities
LDCRC Strategic Planning
LDCRC Membership
Publications
LIMERICK CANCER TRIALS GROUP @UHL ACTIVITY
2023
We are delighted that the Limerick cancer trials group was awarded a HRB cancer trials enhancement grant for the next three years. This is a tremendous achievement by the Limerick Cancer Trials Group (LCTG) in conjunction with UL and will hugely benefits cancer patients in the region.
The application is a collaborative partnership between the hospital group and UL, led by the CTU director Professor Ruth Clifford and her co- applicant HRI director Dr Alan Donnelly. This HRB funding will increase mid-west patients access to cancer clinical trials, improve integrated care and address cancer inequities.
It includes 7 work packages;
WP 1 Project Management (Ruth Clifford, Alan Donnelly)
WP 2 Focus on Big 3 Cancers (Breast, Lung and Genitourinary) in our Region (Niamh Peters, Greg Korpanty)
WP 3 Build on Track Record in Haematology (Ruth Clifford)
WP 4 Comprehensive Integrated care and Survivorship (Rose Galvin)
·WP 5 Cancer Inequalities and Social Deprivation (Patrick O’ Donnell, Anne Dee)
WP 6 Innovation and Partnerships (Aedin Culhane)
WP 7 Education and Training (Rose Galvin)
UL-UHL CANCER COLLABORATIVE WORKING GROUPS
CANCER RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE PATIENT PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT LEAD: MIRIAM MCCARTHY
The Cancer Research Collaborative PPI Group at University Hospital Limerick with the University of Limerick was established in June 2022 In this time the group has made considerable progress in embedding PPI in cancer research in UL and ULHG. The group consists of academics, patients and clinicians representing different cancer diagnoses
In 2023, the Cancer Research Collaborative PPI Group successfully established and finalized a comprehensive Terms of Reference (TOR) document. The TOR provides a solid foundation for the group ' s activities and ensures effective governance, allowing the setting up of a cancer research PPI panel from which patients can participate in advising and partnering on research projects.
We have developed an Information Form specifically designed for clinical researchers who wish to work with patients from our PPI group on their projects. This has proven very effective in establishing connections with research parties
www.reallygreatsite.com
Members of the cancer PPI group have actively engaged in several research projects throughout the year. Our collaboration has played a crucial role in shaping these projects and ensuring patient-centred research.
The PPI group was one of the collaborators in the successful application and award of the HRB Limerick Cancer Trials Grant application
To support us in recruiting patients to the PPI panel we successfully obtained funding from PPI-Ignite Network@UL This bursary will be used to publish PPI education leaflets and an educational video promoting patient membership in the cancer research PPI panel.
We look forward to another productive year ahead during which we will be recruiting patients to participate in cancer research projects.
BLOOD CANCER LEADS: RUTH CLIFFORD & ELIZABETH RYAN
Mr Brian Gleeson was awarded a PhD scholarship under the Doctoral College PhD Scholarship SchemeSustainable Development (SDGs) program to study “The role of neutrophils in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia” This will fund Brian’s Stipend for 4 years allowing him to undertake the structural PhD programme in the Department of Biological Sciences. Mr Gleeson is a graduate of BSc Bioscience in UL (2023) and received the Thornton and University Gold Medals for academic excellence. He will be supervised by Profs Elizabeth Ryan and Ruth Clifford His project addresses the sustainable development goal 3 – good health and wellbeing.
We welcome two new members to the blood subgroup – two patients from our UHL Cancer PPI group have joined in October 2023 – Mr William O’ Shaughnessy and Mrs Margaret Carroll.
Ailin McMahon, enrolled on Year 2 of the Professional Doctorate Programme UL-UHL submitted a HRCI-HRB grant application on 19th October, PI Prof Ruth Clifford, coapplicants Dr Elizabeth Ryan and Mr Willliam O’ Shaughnessy PPI member This is to fund the biomarker clinical trial: Dynamic assessment of treatment response using ctDNA and immune response analyses in a population of Irish patients with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma. Awaiting outcome (Q1 2024)
www.reallygreatsite.com
We are currently recruiting a post-doctoral fellow to work on a project funded by the North/South HEA All Island Cancer Research Institute (AICRI)--start programme. The project entitled Immune exhaustion in cancer patients, defining the host-microbe interaction and exploring a potential role of human and microbial extracellular vesicles is a collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Ryan and Prof RuthClifford with Prof Joanne Lysaght and Prof Lorraine O’Driscoll, Trinity College Dublin; Dr Kyle Matchett and Dr Andrew McDonnell, University of Ulster
Prof Ruth Clifford was invited to speak at the AICRI-Start Symposium, Dec 2023, University of Galway. Her talk was titled Translational and Clinical Research – From Lab to the Clinic and Cancer Patients –Collaboration and Benefits for All
Recent PublicationsPubications
Butyrate limits human natural killer cell effector function. Zaiatz-Bittencourt V, Jones F, Tosetto M, Scaife C, Cagney G, Jones E, Doherty GA, Ryan EJ. Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 15;13(1):2715. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-29731-5.
COLORECTAL CANCER LEADS: KIERAN MCGROURTY & COLIN PIERCE
1. Groundbreaking Multiplex Histology Project Collaboration Between BDBiosciences and SSPC
A landmark 12-month multiplex histology project has been co-funded by BDBiosciences and the SSPC, marking a significant step forward in cancer research. This project is set to utilize the Akoya PhenoCycler-Fusion multiplex histology platform alongside the BD Rhapsody single cell sequencing platform. The primary goal is to examine the extracellular matrix's role in influencing immune cells and stem cells within the tumour microenvironment (TME) of colonic tumours. The project is led by an interdisciplinary team comprising Prof. Kieran McGourty at the University of Limerick (UL), Mr Colin Pierce at University Hospital Limerick (UHL), and Dr Siobhan Cashman at BD Research Centre Ireland (BD-RCI). This collaboration enhances the ongoing efforts in the McGourty lab, which focuses on developing single cell spatial transcriptomic approaches for tumour microenvironment characterization, in partnership with BD and UHL.
www.reallygreatsite.com
2. International Collaboration and Research Enhancement Prof. Kieran McGourty has secured a prestigious visiting scientist collaboration with the AGORA Cancer Research Centre in Switzerland. This collaboration aims to develop expertise and establish connections between the AGORA Cancer Research Centre and the LDCRC focusing on single cell computational expertise to explore the TME. This initiative is already benefiting members of the McGourty lab and is expected to foster a robust collaboration network for multiple projects hosted by the LDCRC.
3. Advancements in Biobanking and Research Coordination Harmonizing Biobanking Protocols
The colonic cancer research group has made significant strides in harmonizing and centralizing biobanking protocols. This effort, in collaboration with the clinical care teams at UHL, focuses on improving the management and utilization of biobanked samples for research. The group has met on several occasions, laying the groundwork for these advancements. Plans are in place to action these points in the first quarter of the next year, with a formal application for the consolidation of biobanking efforts at UHL and UL. This initiative is expected to streamline research processes, enhance sample quality, and foster more efficient collaboration between research and clinical teams.
These positions and projects underscore the cancer centre's commitment to advancing research in colonic cancer through innovative collaborations, cutting-edge technology, and strategic partnerships.The integration of diverse expertise and resources across these initiatives promises to yield significant insights and advancements in the understanding and treatment of colonic tumours.
Publications
Recent Publications
Mahdi AF, Nolan J, O'Connor RÍ, Lowery AJ, Allardyce JM, Kiely PA, McGourty K. Collagen-I influences the post-translational regulation, binding partners and role of Annexin A2 in breast cancer progression. Front Oncol. 2023 Oct 24;13:1270436 doi: 103389/fonc20231270436 PMID: 37941562; PMCID: PMC10628465
BREAST CANCER
LEADS: JAMES BROWN & CHWANROW BABAN
The breast cancer surgical team and oncology team are supporting 2 clinical trials in early breast cancer actively recruiting at UHL. The breast cancer research group has continued to meet monthly, and is progressing with several new collaborative projects, between UHL and UL
Dr James Brown and Dr Maire Lavelle have received ethical approval for a Breast Biobank. We are looking forward to starting to collect samples in the new year, to support new collaborative projects.
Nazanin Zohourian is a new Masters in Research student in Dr James Brown’s group Nazanin has an undergraduate and master degree in microbiology from the University of Tehran, Iran Nazanin is working on project to transcriptomically profile the effects of a targeted inhibitor, developed in Dr Brown’s group, on breast cancer subtypes.
Nazanin has already written and submitted a special report, which is under review.
Welcome Amira, Assistant Professor in Biomedical Sciences at the School of Medicine
Amira Mahdi is a new Assistant Professor in Biomedical Sciences at the School of Medicine, joining the LDCRC and the Breast Cancer CRC Amira received a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science from the University of Galway in 2016. Following this she was awarded an Irish Research Council Post-graduate Scholarship to undertake her PhD studies at the University of Limerick Amira's PhD examined the role of newly synthesised proteins in the progression of breast cancer. Following this, Amira took up a post-doctoral researcher role as part of a Science Foundation Ireland Strategic Partnerships Award, in collaboration with Puma Biotechnology at the National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology (NICB) at Dublin City University (DCU). During her time at DCU, Amira worked on devising novel combination treatment strategies for HER2+ breast cancer. Amira joined the School of Medicine in September 2023. Her current research interests include the microenvironmental regulation of therapeutic resistance in breast cancer and investigating the interactions between cancer treatment and the blood brain barrier for the treatment of brain metastasis
Publications
Recent Publications
Brown JAL (2023) Profiling leadership: Attitudes, knowledge and training in the biological sciences PLOS ONE 18(6): e0286826 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286826
Lim, E., Baban, C., Peirce, C., Walsh, D., Coffey, J. (2022) Abdominal anatomy the foundation of clinical practice. Mesentery and Peritoneum 6. https://map.amegroups.org/article/view/7524
LUNG CANCER LEAD: GREGORY KORPANTY
Dr Greg Korpanty at UHL is co-leading the PLAsma genomic testing in Patients with Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (PLAN) clinical trial (https://www.cancertrials.ie/cti-trials/22-15-plan/). PLAN is available to adult patients with newly diagnosed advanced or locally advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Patients are offered a “liquid biospy“ plasma genotyping test, alongside standard tissue gen plasma and the study will test the value of liquid biospy (blood tests) in diagnosis in NSCLC.
BIOBANKING LEADS: RUTH CLIFFORD & ELIZABETH RYAN
We would like to introduce our new “biobanker”, Ms Alannah Morley.
Alannahgraduated with an undergraduate degree in Human Health and Disease from Trinity College Dublin in 2021 and a master's degree in Regenerative Medicine fromUniversity of Galway in 2022 Since graduating, Alannahhas been working in UL under the supervision of Dr Elizabeth Ryan as a research assistant in Cancer Biobanking
Alannahis involved with setting up a cancer biobank in UHL that will facilitate the collection, storage, and study of human biological specimens and their associated data. These biobanks (currently Blood cancer, and shortly Breast Cancer) will provide access to a large number of biological samples with annotated data that can be used for research studies, ultimately furthering cancer research across the university and hospital
www.reallygreatsite.com
DIGITAL HEALTH: EHEALTH-HUB FOR CANCER
The eHealth Hub for Cancer is a €4 million HEA funded program led by Prof Aedin Culhane (UL) and Prof Mark Lawler (Queens University Belfast) and will establish infrastructure and training on standards and methods for federated sharing and analysis of clinical data. In federated approaches, the data remains locally, under local governance and data protections A local anonymized version of the data is harmonized to global standards (OMOP) that can be queried by researchers who have permission to the data. Only aggregated results are returned to researchers. The eHealth Hub will train 10 PhD students (6 in UL and 4 in QUB) and are delighted that most students are now recruited and will shortly start their research projects. Project will focus on blood cancer, prostate and colon cancer data and standards for federated analysis of clinical genomics data.
Prof Culhane delivered keynote talks on the Digital Health Infrastructure and the eHealth hub for cancer as the Gathering Around Cancer 2023 meeting in Croke Park, Dublin in November and at the Irish Computational Biology and Genomics Symposium in Galway.
During the Gathering Around Cancer meeting Dr Terri McVeigh from the Royal Marsden spoke about a very nice resource for oncologists called the NHS GeNotes. These are genomics education notes which describe genes and their role in cancer and help in clinical decision making about appropriate genomic testing.
There are 2 Postdoctoral positions in the eHealth Hub for Cancer. Closing date Dec 15th 2023. (Deadline to be extended)
Further information: https://universityvacancies.com/universi ty-limerick/post-doctoral-researcherlevel-1-or-2-cancer-digital-health-realworld-evidence)
CANCER IMAGING: UCAIR
Dr Christophe Silien will lead a large ~ €5 milllion EC Horizon Europe consortium program called uCAIR that will study new emerging technology in the field of Raman imaging. Raman and associated techniques are able to detect and image but without the need for adding the dyes The main opportunities are in medical imaging, in applications such as endoscopy, where the label-free aspect will be most interesting In uCAIR, a new instrument will be developed to speed up the technique and widen the spectral coverage so that real-time in-vivo multiplex is possible (without labels). The project will focus on cases studies of bladder cancer.
Project abstract
Current live cell imaging tools can only provide a limited view of the in vivo and in vitro microenvironments where diseases originate and grow. The result is a gap in our understanding of the biochemical cellular makeup and how their disturbance leads to disease. By increasing accuracy and speed of imaging and analysis, the gap can be closed allowing novel medical treatments and diagnostics tailored to patients’ specific conditions. uCAIR brings successful R&D photonics SMEs, research laboratories in optics and cell biology, and worldleading microscopists and clinicians to create an innovative, versatile, practical multimodal photonics platform that will enhance and speed up the way cells are examined by scientists and healthcare professionals
uCAIR will achieve breakthrough results by developing a laser platform that inventively combines non-linear optical fibers, optronics, wide-band coherent Raman and artificial intelligence technologies to image at video rates and track cells and biological tissues with augmented chemometric digitalisation The new coherent light sources will be suitable for fundamental research microscopes and microfluidic channels but also in medical imaging instruments, encompassing a value chain for new biomarker discoveries and translation into medical endoscopy, for example during cystoscopy and resection of bladder cancer Technology progression to TRL 6 will allow first mover advantage with sustainable supply chain. In this way, uCAIR sustains the European leadership in photonics to deliver continuous innovation and outstanding benefits for its economy and the health of its population.
Launch of the LDCRC single cell and next generation sequencing core
The showcase was a very well attended and begun with an incredibly thought-provoking talk from Dr. Fedor Berditchevski, the University of Birmingham who spoke on 'New pathways of communication between cancer cells and immune cells in the tumour microenvironment' This was followed by industry talks from Akoya Biosciences, Nanopore Technologies, BD Biosciences and Illumina. There were live demos from Nanopore Technologies and an opportunity to meet and discuss fine details of sequencing with industry partners.
As Ireland’s first single cell research service we hope to provide a national service to investigate each individual cell in a tumour to produce a detailed molecular map of each patient tumour. Single cell studies will help us identify genes and molecular pathways that are dysregulated, discover new therapeutic targets and develop more personalized treatment approaches for cancer patients.
Lunch n’ Learn seminar series with Illumina
Our industry partnerships continue to grow, and we launched a Lunch n’ learn with Illumina. The first lunch and learn on 1st November introduced liquid biopsy and the detection of DNA mutations in circulating tumour (ct) cells. Sequencing ctDNA in the blood provides non-invasive information about the genetics of a patient's tumour Blood tests for cancer (or liquid biopsies) can allow detection of changes in tumour DNA that might be predict emerging drug resistance or tumour progression.
Dr Olwyn Mahon and PhD Student Ahmad Alkan watch a demo by Nanopore Technologies.
LDCRC awards funds for Next Generation Sequencing and Single Cell Experiments
LDCRC received a donation of funds (from ULcan) which allowed it to open a competitive application call to fund experiments. It awarded funds to purchase consumables for single cell DNA/RNA short or long-read sequencing or spatial proteomics of tissue or biological samples. Applications were reviewed by 3 external reviewers and applicants were ranked by scientific quality, feasibility and alignment with LDCRC growth The LDCRC awarded consumable funding to:
Dr Elizabath Ryan (UL) and Dr Ruth Clifford (UHL) who will use BD, Nanopore sequencing and seahorse metabolic assays to study the Innate Immune
Landscape of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) to investigate if disrupted innate immune signalling contributes to immune compromise in CLL patients underpinning increased susceptibility to infection
Dr Eoghan Cunnane (UL) who will study the spatial distributions of proteins in adult human testicular tissue using the Akoya PhenoCycler-Fusion
Dr Olwyn Mahon (UL) and Prof Subhasis Giri (UHL) who will use BD single cell sequencing, genomic sequencing and spatial imaging (Vectra Polaris) to explore gender in prospectively collected human urological (bladder) cancer tissue and patient matched blood samples from University Hospital Limerick
Additional funding was allocated to purchase UHL biobanking consumable and plastic supplies to upgrade the Nanopore long-read sequencer in the Brown Lab to provide 10x Xenium slide capacity in the Murray lab
Backup tapes to support storage of sequencing and bioinformatics data
LDCRC
Bioinformatics and Digital Health
Genomics Software for Single Cell Core Data Analysis
Dr Michael Lynch, a second year PhD student in the Culhane lab released a R software package which was accepted for publication in Bioconductor. DemuxSNP provides enhanced demultiplexing of single cell data allowing one to recover single cell data that might otherwise be discarded. It is available at https://bioconductor.org/packages/demuxSNP/
BIoconductor and Bioinformatics Software Leadership by LDCRC
Dr Maria Doyle was invited to be the European life sciences infrastructure (ELIXIR, https://elixir-europe.org) Ireland training coordinator for Ireland and continued to expand Bioinformatics training through ELIXIR and Bioconductor described in the blog https://blogbioconductororg/posts/2023-06-16-smorgasbord-recap/
The global impact of Aedin Culhane and Maria Doyles work in developing training is described in a recent paper.
Woodley, L., Pratt, K., Doyle, M., & Culhane, A. (2023). CSCCE Community Profile: Bioconductor. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8400205
LDCRC and Dell Technologies join forces using AI to advance predictive and diagnostic cancer research
LDCRC MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES
Dell Technologies joined forces with the Murray Lab in the LDCRC to develop an artificial intelligence platform for cancer treatment The technology is designed to help clinicians provide more effective cancer care for patients with B-cell lymphoma. The AI platform, which was created by Dell for UL, delivers high performance computing power to accelerate oncology and precision medicine research. It produces cancer patient digital twins for better diagnostics. A digital twin is a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object Dell said that with the new AI platform, researchers can rapidly accelerate biomarker testing for cancer, gain a better understanding of how to treat patients with B-cell lymphoma and develop personalised therapies based on a person’s tumour characteristics.
During 2023, Paul Murray, Catriona Dowling, Ruth Clifford and Aedin Culhane joined AICRI as board member to contribute to growth of all-island cancer research James Brown, Aedin Culhane and Ruth Clifford will be the UL representatives on the AICRI board in 2024.
AICRI _start, is the €4 million HEA funded program to grow collaboration and cooperation in all-island cancer research, which will fund 10 PhD students and 10 postdocs at 10 academic institutions (UCD, TCD, RCSI, TU Dublin, DCU, QUB, UU, NUIG, UL and UCC). Saoirse Flanagan, AICRI start PhD student at the University of Limerick (UL) is studying gene mutations in non-small cell lung cancer supervised by Dr Catríona Dowling (previously UL, but has recently moved to RCSI), Professor Paul Murray (RCSI/UL), Professor Jarushka Naidoo (RCSI). An AICRI start funded postdoc will be employed to work with Prof Elizabeth Ryan and that position will be advertised soon. The project is entitled Immune exhaustion in cancer patients, defining the host-microbe interaction and exploring a potential role of human and microbial extracellular vesicles is a collaboration with Dr Elizabeth Ryan and Prof Ruth Clifford with Prof Joanne Lysaght and Prof Lorraine O’Driscoll, Trinity College Dublin; Dr Kyle Matchett and Dr Andrew McDonnell, University of Ulster
AICRI organized a showcase in September 2023 and also organized an EU Cancer Mission day (youtube video of the day at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-4ZtsqeY6I) AICRI _ Start PhD students got an opportunity to present their projects at the 1st AICRI start symposium in Galway on 30h Nov and 1st Dec Find out more about AICRI and AICRI Start at https://www.aicri.org/
New acute service helping cancer patients avoid Limerick hospital emergency department
March 2023, https://www.limerickpost.ie/2023/03/20/new-acute-service-helpingcancer-patients-avoid-limerick-hospital-emergency-department/
UL academic discusses need for greater crossborder collaboration on cancer research
Prof Aedin Culhane, UL was privileged to participate in the Belfast Agreement 25 ‘Cancer Knows No Borders’ event at Queens University Belfast on the 18th April 2023, The event marked the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and celebrated the positive impacts of the Good Friday Agreement upon cancer research and care across the island of Ireland. Professor Aedin Culhane, Professor of Cancer Genomics at UL, met Tánaiste Micheál Martin at the Belfast Agreement 25 Cancer Showcase event in April to discuss greater cross-border collaboration on cancer research.
Bioinformatics, data and the value of open science
April 2023 University of Limerick’s Dr Maria Doyle demystifies bioinformatics for SiliconRepubliccom and explains some of the many applications for this multidisciplinary field
Bioinformatics, Dr Maria Doyle explains, “combines biology, computer science and statistics to analyse and interpret biological data” “It involves the development and application of computational tools and techniques to understand complex biological information such as genetic sequences, protein structures and gene expression patterns,” she tells SiliconRepublic.com https://www.siliconrepublic.com/i nnovation/bioinformaticsuniversity-limerick-maria-doyle
New equipment to bolster cancer radiation treatment capacity in Limerick May 2023, A NEW state of the art machine, to be installed by Mater Private Network, will increase capacity to provide radiation cancer services at University Hospital Limerick by 50 per cent when it becomes operational next month https://www.limerickpost.ie/2023/05/31/new-equipment-to-bolster-cancer-radiationtreatment-capacity-in-limerick/
Landmark study involving UL research demonstrates economic benefit of precision medicine in treating cancer
July, 2023 A landmark study involving researchers at University of Limerick has shown how precision medicine can be a cheaper and more efficient way to treat cancer. The study, led by Queen’s University Belfast, is the world’s first and most comprehensive study of the initial wave of precision oncology medicines in the marketplace It was carried out by the All-Island eHealth Hub for Cancer, of which Professor Aedin Culhane, Professor of Cancer Genomics at UL is a co-lead and was conducted in collaboration with a team of precision healthcare economists and researchers from Salutem Insights Ltd, Diaceutics PLC and King’s College London. The study examined the economic impact of precision oncology medicines compared to traditional oncology medicines It found that it costs over $1 billion less in research and development (R&D) spend to develop an oncology medicine that is guided through clinical trials in a precision oncology approach, compared to a “one size fits all” approach to treatment. The findings have been published in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice
New study highlights significant gender inequality and bias in cancer research Oct 2023.
Researchers of the All-Island e-Health Hub for Cancer, which is led by Queen’s University Belfast and University of Limerick, with King’s College London, UK, Ghent University, Belgium, the International Brain Tumour Alliance and the European Cancer Organisation looked at published cancer research papers from the 28 EU Member States (plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (UK), from two specific years (2009 and 2019) and used these data to determine female cancer research participation and female cancer research leadership over that decade.
UniversityofLimerick’sHealthResearchInstitutelaunches ambitiousfive-yearstrategicplan. Thursday November 9th marked a huge milestone for the Health Research Institute. The HRI released its 5-year Strategic Plan for 20232028 It was celebrated with a launch with guests from UHL and UL
Limerick breast expert demystifies the process of diagnosing cancer Nov 2023, MARKING Breast Cancer Awareness month, a lead doctor has thrown light on what happens when a patient presents with what might be a problem
Dr Máire Lavelle, consultant pathologist at University Hospital Limerick, says that the most common question women ask is what happens after a scan reveals something out of the ordinary Dr Lavelle explained that her role in the diagnosis of disease and treatment options for women attending the region’s Symptomatic Breast Unit, is chiefly in helping to “diagnose breast disease under the microscope”.
The 2023 National Hameatologysummit was chaired byProfessor Ruth Clifford, Consultant Hematologist, University Hospital Limerick Photos show Dr Dima El-Sharkawi (Royal Marsden Hospital, London), Dr Mark Catherwood (Belfast City Hospital), Prof Ruth Clifford (UHL), Prof Philippe Moreau (University Hospital of Nantes, France.), and Prof Siobhan Glavey (Beaumont Hospital, RCSI) (L-R)
2023 National Hameatologysummit was chaired byProfessor Ruth Clifford
Cookbook launched in Limerick for cancer patients is 'awfully important' March 2023 https://www.limerickleader.ie/video/home/1073571/cookbook-launchedin-limerick-for-cancer-patients-is-awfully-important.html
Limerick cancer survivor urges young people to get HPV vaccination Nov 2023, https://wwwlimerickpostie/2023/11/24/limerick-cancer-survivor-urgesyoung-people-to-get-hpv-vaccination/
Charity Christmas cards to raise money for cancer research
6th Dec 2023 https://www.limerickpost.ie/2023/12/06/charity-christmas-cards-toraise-money-for-cancer-research/
Research (by the Irish Cancer Society) reveals cancer patients are lacking a basic service
8th Dec 2023. https://www.live95fm.ie/news/live95-news/research-reveals-cancerpatients-are-lacking-a-basic-service/
The IACR (for IACR members) have announced a 1-Day Satellite meeting in RCSI on Monday 26th February from 10:30-18:30. This will run prior to the EACR/AACR/IACR triple meeting and welcomes Allied Health, Biomedical and PPImembers The1-Day Satellite meetingwill cover the ‘normal’ format of the annual IACR meeting, facilitating Patrick Johnston Awards, Flash Talks, EACR awards, alongside the Irish Cancer Society and BreakThrough Cancer Research sessions.
Both the IACR Allied Health and Biomedical sessions are welcomingabstract submissions for oralpresentations. These abstracts can be submitted to the IACR for reviewusing the email addressinfo@iacrie The abstract deadline is 10th December 2023 at 17:00.(late submissions might be accommodated)
The IACR are also accepting abstract submissions for ‘The Professor Patrick Johnston IACR award for excellence in cancer research outreach’ at the 2024 IACR Satellite meeting. This IACR initiative is aimed at junior members (PhD students and early-stage post-docs (≤3 years)) to recognise the importance of science communication to the public This award is in memory of Professor Patrick Johnston who was a great advocate for clear communication with patients, something that he would also transfer to his trainees Abstracts can be submitted to the IACR for review using the email address info@iacr.ie.
Registration for the 1-day Satellite meeting costs a nominal €25 (details on payment to follow), but also requires IACR membership for 2024. The link for 2024 membership can be found here
Funding -Upcoming Opportunities
European Partnership for Personalised Medicine (EP PerMed): Preliminary Announcement for the Joint Transnational Call (JTC) 2024 Identification or Validation of Targets for Personalised Medicine Approaches (PMTargets)
The European Partnership for Personalised Medicine, EP PerMed, has launched the joint transnational call 2024 (JTC2024), co-funded by the EU, to fund multinational innovative research projects in personalised medicine (PM), which should bring together academic, clinical/public health and private research teams, thus enhancing the competitiveness in Europe in this field. The JTC2024 will be conducted simultaneously by the participating funding organisations in their respective region/country and coordinated centrally by the Joint Call Secretariat (JCS), hosted by the French National Research Agency, (ANR), France.*
The call will be implemented in two stages, i.e. a pre- and a full-proposal phase. The JTC2024 will aim to fund research that fosters the identification or validation of targets for personalised medicine approaches. Applicants submitting a proposal to this call must combine the research on new and advanced targets with companion biomarker research (companion diagnostics) Consortia are required to be transnational, interdisciplinary and trans-sectoral as well as to clearly outline the personalised medicine perspective in the research proposed For more information, see:https://www.eppermed.eu/jtc2024/
*Ireland’s participating funding organisation would be the HRB. Please note however that Ireland’s participation in this call is not yet confirmed
Funding Upcoming Opportunities
*The first Call for Proposals to the Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund programme in 2024 is open. The Call will close for Applicants at 3pm on Friday 9thFebruary 2024
The Commercialisation Fund provides funding to third-level researchers to develop, build and validate innovations, technically and commercially, to address a market need or challenge. The programme will fund innovations at all stages of the commercial pipeline to the point where the innovations can be commercialised to have an economic impact in Ireland.
Applicants who are interested in applying to the Programme are encouraged to engage with their Technology Transfer Office as soon as possible (see contacts below).
Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Specialists are available to guide researchers in preparing and submitting applications. Working together with the TTO and EI Commercialisation Specialists will help to align applications with the requirements of the Programme TTO contacts by area:
Life Science/Biotech/Chemistry – Margaret LawlorMargaret.Lawlor@ul.ie
Engineering/Materials/Medical Devices – Joan O’SullivanJoanBOSullivan@ulie
Full details on the Commercialisation Fund (CF) are available atwwwenterpriseireland.com/en/supports/commercialisation-fund
Please contact Pablo for more additional information. Dr Pablo Najt, Research Support Officer pablo.najt@ul.ie T +353 (0) 61 202308
Publication
The LDCRC are in the process of developing a 3-year strategic plan to be launched in 2023. A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) assessment was held in June.
A SWOT is a strategic-management tool to help take stock of an organisation's internal characteristics, or its strengths and weaknesses, and can be used to develop strategy, prioritise projects and refine goals The LDCRC SWOT engaged more than 40 participants, from multiple academic disciplines, clinical, and health related areas The SWOT was a highly successful, stimulating fun day that delivered lots of ideas The findings from the SWOT are currently are still being aggregated and distilled. The key findings and recommendations will be shared shortly. We will presented some initial findings at the meeting on afternoon of Dec 12th at CERC, UHL.
Contributions welcome
Contributions welcome, if you wish to add your cancer research publication, grant or research in our newsletter please email ldcrc@ul.ie
LDCRC Membership
LDCRC offers multiple membership levels including PI - Full, Affiliate membership Researcher (lab member), community (PPI), industry
To avail of LDCRC benefits, including LDCRC funding, please join the LDCRC at https://www.ul.ie/limerick-dcrc/membership
*There were 25 publications with a LDCRC affiliation in 2023.
Brown JAL. Profiling leadership: Attitudes, knowledge and training in the biological sciences PLoS One. 2023 Jun 7;18(6):e0286826. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286826. PMID: 37285357; PMCID: PMC10246786.
Prakash A, Paunikar S, Webber M, McDermott E, Vellanki SH, Thompson K, Dockery P, Jahns H, Brown JAL, Hopkins AM, Bourke E. Centrosome amplification promotes cell invasion via cellcell contact disruption and Rap-1 activation. J Cell Sci. 2023 Nov 1;136(21):jcs261150. doi: 101242/jcs261150 Epub 2023 Nov 1 PMID: 37772773; PMCID: PMC10629695
Eckenrode KB, Righelli D, Ramos M, Argelaguet R, Vanderaa C, Geistlinger L, Culhane AC, Gatto L, Carey V, Morgan M, Risso D, Waldron L. Curated single cell multimodal landmark datasets for R/Bioconductor PLoS Comput Biol 2023 Aug 25;19(8):e1011324 doi: 101371/journalpcbi1011324 PMID: 37624866; PMCID:PMC10497156
de Matos Simoes R, Shirasaki R, Culhane AC, McFarland JM, Dempster JM, Licht JD, Boise LH, Hahn WC, Vazquez F, Tsherniak A, Mitsiades CS Genome-scale functional genomics identify genes preferentially essential for multiple myeloma cells compared to other neoplasias Nat Cancer. 2023 May;4(5):754-773. doi: 10.1038/s43018-023-00550-x. Epub 2023 May 26. PMID: 37237081.
Lawler M, Sullivan R, Abou-Alfa GK, McCloskey K, Keatley D, Feighan J, Dahut W, Mulroe E, Ladner R, Genead M, Lowery M, Gulley JL, Scott CJ, Longley DB, Culhane A, Gallagher WM, Orr N, Chanock SJ, Gopal S. Health diplomacy in action: The cancer legacy of the Good Friday Agreement J Cancer Policy 2023 Dec;38:100448 doi: 101016/jjcpo2023100448 Epub 2023 Oct 14 PMID: 37839622
Hsu LL, Culhane AC. Correspondence analysis for dimension reduction, batch integration, and visualization of single-cell RNA-seq data Sci Rep 2023 Jan 21;13(1):1197 doi: 101038/s41598022-26434-1 PMID: 36681709; PMCID: PMC9867729
Riba M, Sala C, Culhane A, Flobak A, Patocs A, Boye K, Plevova K, .... The Minimal Dataset for Cancer of the 1+ Million Genomes Initiative bioRxiv, 202310 07561259 2023
Ross AM, Leahy CI, Neylon F, Steigerova J, Flodr P, Navratilova M, Urbankova H, Vrzalikova K, Mundo L, Lazzi S, Leoncini L, Pugh M, Murray PG. Epstein-Barr Virus and the Pathogenesis of Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Life (Basel) 2023 Feb 14;13(2):521 doi: 103390/life13020521 PMID: 36836878 Free PMC article Review
Nohtani M, Vrzalikova K, Ibrahim M, Powell JE, Fennell É, Morgan S, Grundy R, McCarthy K, Dewberry S, Bouchal J, Bouchalova K, Kearns P, Murray PG. Impact of Tumour Epstein-Barr Virus Status on Clinical Outcome in Patients with Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma (cHL): A Review of the Literature and Analysis of a Clinical Trial Cohort of Children with cHL. Cancers (Basel). 2022 Sep 1;14(17):4297. doi: 10.3390/cancers14174297. PMID: 36077832 Free PMC article.
Pearce H, Croft W, Nicol SM, Margielewska-Davies S, Powell R, Cornall R, Davis SJ, Marcon F, Pugh MR, Fennell É, Powell-Brett S, Mahon BS, Brown RM, Middleton G, Roberts K, Moss P. Tissue-Resident Memory T Cells in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Coexpress PD-1 and TIGIT and Functional Inhibition Is Reversible by Dual Antibody Blockade Cancer Immunol Res 2023 Apr 3;11(4):435-449 doi: 101158/2326-6066CIR-22-0121 PMID: 36689623; PMCID: PMC10068448.
Ross AM, Leahy CI, Neylon F, Steigerova J, Flodr P, Navratilova M, Urbankova H, Vrzalikova K, Mundo L, Lazzi S, Leoncini L, Pugh M, Murray PG Epstein-Barr Virus and the Pathogenesis of Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Life (Basel) 2023 Feb 14;13(2):521 doi: 103390/life13020521
Mundo L, Leoncini L, Accardi-Gheit R Epstein-Barr Virus Infection in Cancer Cancers (Basel) 2023 Sep 21;15(18):4659 doi: 103390/cancers15184659
Zaiatz-Bittencourt V, Jones F, Tosetto M, Scaife C, Cagney G, Jones E, Doherty GA, Ryan EJ. Butyrate limits human natural killer cell effector function. Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 15;13(1):2715. doi: 101038/s41598-023-29731-5 PMID: 36792800; PMCID: PMC9932090
Nash A, Ryan EJ. Immunity in Sea Turtles: Review of a Host-Pathogen Arms Race Millions of Years in the Running. Animals (Basel). 2023 Feb 5;13(4):556. doi: 10.3390/ani13040556. PMID: 36830343; PMCID: PMC9951749
Ross AM, Cahalane RM, Walsh DR, Grabrucker AM, Marcar L, Mulvihill JJE. Identification of Nanoparticle Properties for Optimal Drug Delivery across a Physiological Cell Barrier. Pharmaceutics 2023 Jan 6;15(1):200 doi: 103390/pharmaceutics15010200
Mukherjee S, Nag S, Mukerjee N, Maitra S, Muthusamy R, Fuloria NK, Fuloria S, Adhikari MD, Anand K, Thorat N, Subramaniyan V, Gorai S. Unlocking Exosome-Bas Theragnostic Signatures: Deciphering Secrets of Ovarian Cancer Metastasis ACS Omega 2023 Oct 1;8(40):36614-36627 doi: 101021/acsomega3c02837 PMID:37841156; PMCID: PMC10568589
Mukerjee N, Maitra S, Gorai S, Ghosh A, Alexiou A, Thorat ND. Revolutionizing Human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancer therapies: Unveiling the promise of Proteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) and Proteolysis Targeting Antibodies (PROTABs) in cancer nano-vaccines. J Med Virol. 2023Oct;95(10):e29135. doi: 10.1002/jmv.29135. PMID: 37792364.
Phalake SS, Somvanshi SB, Tofail SAM, Thorat ND, Khot VM Functionalized manganese iron oxide nanoparticles: a dual potential magneto-chemotherapeutic cargo in a 3D breast cancer model. Nanoscale. 2023 Oct 5;15(38):15686-15699. doi: 10.1039/d3nr02816j. PMID: 37724853.
Bhattacharya T, Preetam S, Ghosh B, Chakrabarti T, Chakrabarti P, Samal SK, Thorat N. Advancement in Biopolymer Assisted Cancer Theranostics. ACS Appl Bio Mater. 2023 Oct 16;6(10):3959-3983. doi: 10.1021/acsabm.3c00458. Epub 2023 Sep 12. PMID: 37699558; PMCID: PMC10583232
Nag S, Bhattacharya B, Dutta S, Mandal D, Mukherjee S, Anand K,Eswaramoorthy R, Thorat N, Jha SK, Gorai S. Clinical Theranostics Trademark of Exosome in Glioblastoma Metastasis. ACS Biomater Sci Eng 2023 Sep 11;9(9):5205-5221 doi: 101021/acsbiomaterials3c00212 Epub 2023 Aug 14 PMID: 37578350
Murugappan S, Tofail SAM, Thorat ND. Raman Spectroscopy: A Tool forMolecular Fingerprinting of Brain Cancer ACS Omega 2023 Jul 27;8(31):27845-27861 doi: 101021/acsomega3c01848 PMID: 37576695; PMCID: PMC10413827
Babar Q, Saeed A, Tabish TA, Sarwar M, Thorat ND. Targeting the tumor microenvironment: Potential strategy for cancer therapeutics Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Basis Dis 2023 Aug;1869(6):166746 doi: 101016/jbbadis2023166746 Epub 2023 May 7 PMID: 37160171
Babar Q, Saeed A, Murugappan S, Dhumal D, Tabish T, Thorat ND. Promise of dostarlimab in cancer therapy: Advancements and cross-talk considerations Drug Discov Today 2023 Jun;28(6):103577 doi: 101016/jdrudis2023103577 Epub 2023 Mar 31 PMID: 37004983
Mahdi AF, Nolan J, O'Connor RÍ, Lowery AJ, Allardyce JM, Kiely PA, McGourty K. Collagen-I influences the post-translational regulation, binding partners and role of Annexin A2 in breast cancer progression Front Oncol 2023 Oct 24;13:1270436 doi: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1270436. PMID: 37941562; PMCID: PMC10628465. Publication
Kar R, Dhar R, Mukherjee S, Nag S, Gorai S, Mukerjee N, Mukherjee D, Vatsa R, Chandrakanth Jadhav M, Ghosh A, Devi A, Krishnan A, Thorat ND. Exosome-Based Smart Drug Delivery Tool for Cancer Theranostics ACS Biomater Sci Eng 2023 Feb13;9(2):577-594 doi: 101021/acsbiomaterials2c01329 Epub 2023 Jan 9 PMID: 36621949; PMCID: PMC9930096
Publications
Limerick Cancer Research
Cancer research publications in UL/UHL that didn’t include LDCRC as an affiliatio c
School of Medicine
Jenkins BD, Rossi E, Pichardo C, Wooten W, Pichardo M, Tang W, Dorsey TH, Ajao A, Hutchison R, Moubadder L, McCullough LE, Bailey-Whyte M, Ambs S. Neighborhood Deprivation and DNA Methylation and Expression of Cancer Genes in Breast Tumors JAMA Netw Open 2023 Nov 1;6(11):e2341651 doi: 101001/jamanetworkopen202341651 PMID: 37930698; PMCID: PMC10628736.
Harris AR, Panigrahi G, Liu H, Koparde VN, Bailey-Whyte M, Dorsey TH, Yates CC, Ambs S Chromatin Accessibility Landscape of Human Triple-negative Breast Cancer Cell Lines Reveals Variation by Patient Donor Ancestry. Cancer Res Commun. 2023 Oct 5;3(10):20142029. doi: 10.1158/2767-9764.CRC-23-0236. PMID: 37732899; PMCID: PMC10552704.
Minas TZ, Lord BD, Zhang AL, Candia J, Dorsey TH, Baker FS, Tang W, Bailey-Whyte M, Smith CJ, Obadi OM, Ajao A, Jordan SV, Tettey Y, Biritwum RB, Adjei AA, Mensah JE, Hoover RN, Hsing AW, Liu J, Loffredo CA, Yates C, Cook MB, Ambs S. Circulating trans fatty acids are associated with prostate cancer in Ghanaian and American men Nat Commun 2023 Jul 19;14(1):4322 doi: 101038/s41467-023-39865-9 PMID: 37468456; PMCID: PMC10356769
Koka H, Bodelon C, Horvath S, Lee PMY, Wang D, Song L, Zhang T, Hurson AN Guida JL, Zhu B, Bailey-Whyte M, Wang F, Wu C, Tsang KH, Tsoi YK, Chan WC, Law SH, Hung RKW, Tse GM, Yuen KK, Karlins E, Jones K, Vogt A, Zhu B, Hutchinson A, Hicks B, Garcia-Closas M, Chanock S, Barnholtz-Sloan J, Tse LA, Yang XR. DNA methylation age in paired tumor and adjacent normal breast tissue in Chinese women with breast cancer. Clin Epigenetics. 2023 Mar 30;15(1):55 doi: 101186/s13148-023-01465-1 PMID: 36991516; PMCID: PMC10062015
Bailey-Whyte M, Minas TZ, Dorsey TH, Smith CJ, Loffredo CA, Ambs S. Systemic Inflammation Indices and Association with Prostate Cancer Survival in a Diverse Patient Cohort. Cancers (Basel) 2023 Mar 20;15(6):1869 doi: 103390/cancers15061869 PMID: 36980755; PMCID: PMC10047449
Pichardo MS, Minas TZ, Pichardo CM, Bailey-Whyte M, Tang W, Dorsey TH, Wooten W, Ryan BM, Loffredo CA, Ambs S Association of Neighborhood Deprivation With Prostate Cancer and Immune Markers in African American and European American Men JAMA Netw Open 2023 Jan 3;6(1):e2251745 doi:101001/jamanetworkopen202251745 PMID: 36662526; PMCID: PMC9860532.
Mundo L, Leoncini L, Accardi-Gheit R Epstein-Barr Virus Infection in Cancer Cancers (Basel) 2023 Sep 21;15(18):4659 doi: 103390/cancers15184659 PMID: 37760627; PMCID: PMC10526860
McMahon JN, Gaffney EF, Aliaga-Kelly WJ, Stephens JF, Jalali A, Curran B. P53 loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded leiomyosarcoma (LMS): a novel report Ir J Med Sci 2023 Jul 20 doi: 101007/s11845-023-03370-1 Epub ahead of print PMID: 37468695.
Publication
UHL - Department of Otorhinlaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
Petrucci B, Okerosi S,.. Fenton JE, Agius AM,Doležal P, Mudekereza ÉA, Mojica KM, Rueda RS, Xu MJ The Global Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Workforce JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2023 Oct 1;149(10):904-911 doi: 101001/jamaoto20232339 PMID: 37651133; PMCID:PMC10472262.
Nursing Studies
Mumuni S, O'Donnell C, Doody O. The Risk Factors and Screening Uptake for Prostate Cancer: A Scoping Review Healthcare (Basel) 2023 Oct 20;11(20):2780 doi: 10.3390/healthcare11202780. PMID: 37893854; PMCID: PMC10606491.
Dunnion C, Giltenane M, Dowling M The 'inbetweeners': living on a watch and wait approach for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia - a qualitative study Br J Nurs 2023 Sep 7;32(16):794800. doi: 10.12968/bjon.2023.32.16.794. PMID: X37682762
Griffin L, O'Reilly P, Murphy M, Prendergast G, Pender E, Tummon O, Griffin CM, Laing M Photoprotection and skin cancer education: the experiences of renal transplant recipients, a qualitative study - why the 'personal touch' is importZant Br J Dermatol 2023 Jul 7;189(1):145-147. doi: 10.1093/bjd/ljad116. ZPMID: 37022792.
McNamara N, Feeney M, Giltenane M, Dowling M. Breast cancer genetic Zmutation: Synthesis of women ' s experience J Clin Nurs 2023 ZJul;32(13-14):4144-4158 doi: 101111/jocn16498 Epub 2022 Aug 25. PMID: ZZ36016506.
School of Allied Health
Murnane LC, Forsyth AK, Koukounaras J, Shaw K, King S, Brown WA, Mourtzakis M, Tierney AC, Burton PR. Malnutrition defined by GLIM criteria identifies a higher incidence of malnutrition and is associated with pulmonary complications after oesophagogastric cancer surgery, compared to ICD-10-defined malnutrition J Surg Oncol 2023 Oct;128(5):769-780 doi: 10.1002/jso.27366. Epub 2023 Jun 9. PMID: 37291908.
Fhlannagáin NN, Greaney C, Byrne C, Keaver L A qualitative analysis of nutritional needs and dietary changes during cancer treatment in Ireland. Ir J Med Sci. 2023 Nov 27. doi: 10.1007/s11845-023-035727 Epub ahead of print PMID: 38010446
Dept of Psychology
Stewart R, Richards HL, Houghton S, Sweeney P, Fortune DG 'I Had It I Don't Think I Have It But I Do Feel It Will Come Back Somewhere': A Qualitative Investigation of the Experience of People With NonMuscle Invasive Bladder Cancer Qual Health Res 2023 Sep;33(11):969-982 doi: 10.1177/10497323231170089. Epub 2023 Jul 24. PMID: 37485658.
