Festival of Science: Emerging Breakthroughs Advancing Cancer Research (HRI)

Introduced by Professor Aedin Culhane, Biomedical Sciences (Cancer Genomics), School of Medicine and Professor Ruth Clifford, Consultant Haematologist at UHL. The Limerick Digital Cancer Research Centre’s (LDCRC) multidisciplinary initiative dedicated to improving our understanding of the fundamental biology of cancer and using this new knowledge to find better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease.

This event will explore key themes of the research centre, Tumour Microenvironments and Genitourinary Disease and will be facilitated by Dr James Brown, UL, and Professor Shona Tormey, UHL.

Panel members of the LDCRC will discuss their groundbreaking cancer research included are: Dr Eoghan Cunnane, Dr Jason Bennett, Dr Kieran McGourty and Dr Sinead O’Keeffe, Faculty of Science & Engineering, UL, Assistant Professor Amira Mahdi, Mr Michael Lynch and Ms Ciara Leahy, School of Medicine, UL, Christina Fleming Consultant of Colorectal Surgery and Máire Lavelle, Lead Breast Histopathologist, UHL

Schedule :

2.30 – 2.35 Welcome Aedin Culhane, Ruth Clifford

Session 1. Emerging Research in Genitourinary Disease Chair: Dr James Brown

2.35-2.50 Eoghan Cunnane

Characterisation of genitourinary tissue for the development of medical devices and preclinical models.

2.50 -3.00 Michael Lynch

Understanding the ccRCC tumour microenvironment using single-cell RNA sequencing

3.00-3.15 Jason Bennett

Unlocking a NF-κB pathway targeting strategy in endometriosis

3.15-3.30 Sinead O’Keeffe

Optical Fibre Sensors for Radiotherapy Dosimetry

3.30-3.45 Panel Discussion

3.45 – 4.00 Tea/Coffee

Session 2. Tumours in context Chair: Prof Shona Tormey

4.00-4.15 Christina Fleming

IDEAL research in colorectal cancer surgery

4.15-4.30 Kieran McGourty

Cancer stem cells in the Tumour Microenvironment

4.30-4.40 Ciara Leahy

The Spatial Immune Landscape of Primary Epstein-Barr Virus Infection and EBV-associated malignancies

4.40-4.55 Máire Lavelle

Expanding the Role of the Pathologist in Patient-Centred Care

4.55-5.10 Amira Mahdi

Advancing therapies for poor prognosis and hard-to-treat breast cancers within the context of the tumour microenvironment

5.10-5.25 Panel Discussion

5.25-5.30 Closing Remarks Aedin Culhane, Ruth Clifford

This event may be recorded for future promotional use by the University of Limerick.

All venues are wheelchair accessible but should you have any specific accessibility queries, please contact us at: Research@ul.ie

Dr Jason Bennett, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science & Engineering

After receiving a PhD in Pharmacology from University College Dublin in 2010, Dr Jason Bennett joined the Franzoso lab in Imperial College London. His post-doctoral research aimed to decipher the mechanisms by which NF-κB transcription factors drive cancer by integrating the signalling networks governing cancer-cell survival, metabolism and tumour microenvironment (TME)-based inflammation. Since joining UL in 2023, Jason has set about establishing a new research program in endometriosis. This work seeks to understand both how NF-κB drives the survival of endometrial tissue-like lesions in areas outside the uterine cavity, and how the immune environment within endometriotic lesions influences disease progression.

Dr Sinead O’Keeffe, Faculty of Science & Engineering

Sinead O’Keeffe is a Royal Society – Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellow at the Optical Fibre Sensors Research Centre at the Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering, University of Limerick and a member of UL’s Health Research Institute. She graduated with BE (hons) in Electronic Engineering from the University of Limerick in 2003 and received her PhD in 2006 from the same institute, for the development of polymer optical fibre sensors for the sterilization industry. She is leading a team that focuses on the development of optical fibre based sensor systems for the diagnosis, assessment and treatment of cancer tumours. She is co-ordinator for the European H2020 Project “ORIGIN” developing optical fibre based sensors for real-time dose imaging and source localisation for adaptive brachytherapy

Assistant Professor Amira Mahdi, Faculty of Education & Health Sciences, School of Medicine

Amira Mahdi is an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Sciences at the School of Medicine. 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.

Michael Lynch is a 3rd year PhD student working on computational methods development and analysis tools for single-cell RNA sequencing data. He studied Biomedical Engineering and Mathematical Modelling before joining the Culhane Lab at the University of Limerick. His current projects include development of open-source software tools for maximising cell recovery in multiplexed single-cell experiments and analysis of single-cell ccRCC data in collaboration with the Marasco Lab at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Ms Ciara Leahy, PhD Student, School of Medicine

After completing a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Biochemistry at the University of Limerick, I was awarded a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship by the Irish Research Council in 2020 to pursue a PhD. Under the guidance of Professors Paul Murray and Pat Kiely, my research has centred on the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a human-herpesvirus associated with both benign conditions and cancers. My primary interest is in employing spatial biology techniques to investigate the intricate immune microenvironment of EBV-infected cells, work which I have presented at conferences including the International Symposium on EBV and Associated Diseases in 2022. My PhD thesis focuses on the tissue pathology of infectious mononucleosis (IM), a benign condition resulting from primary EBV infection, as well as two EBV-associated cancers: nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and extra nodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTL).

Dr Kieran McGourty, Department of Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Science & Engineering

Kieran McGourty is a lecturer in the Chemical Sciences department at the University of Limerick (UL). Kieran has a BSc in Industrial Biochemistry from UL, und completed a Wellcome Trust funded PhD working with Prof. David Holden FRS, Imperial College London, studying the molecular basis of infection. Kieran took a post-doctoral research position in 2012 with Dr. Emmanuel Boucrot at University College London (UCL), with a primary research focus on the cell cycle and extracellular matrix (ECM) biology.

Dr Máire Lavelle LRCP & SI MB BCh NUI FRCPath FFPath (RCPI) FRCPI graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 2004. After completing specialist training in Histopathology in 2016 she took a Consultant post with BartsHealth NHS Trust London. During that time, she subspecialised in Breast Histopathology, including symptomatic and screening breast services.

Dr Lavelle currently works as Lead Breast Histopathologist for University Hospital Limerick

Ms Christina Fleming PhD FRCSI is a Consultant Colorectal Surgeon in the UL Hospital Group. She has a special interest in surgery for locally advanced colorectal cancer and surgery for faecal incontinence and rectal prolapse. She graduated from UCC with First Class Honours in 2011 and completed surgical training in Ireland through RCSI during which time she completed a PhD on ‘perioperative inflammation and metabolism in colorectal cancer’ in UCC. This involved translation projects using ctDNA and metabolomics and was supported by an EACR Travel Fellowship to the Berlin Institute of Health Metabolomics Platform, Max Delbruck Centre for Molecular Medicine. Following surgical training she completed a European Society of Coloproctology Robotic Surgery Fellowship at CHU Bordeaux France in advanced pelvic malignancy. She is a past Chair of the Irish Surgical Research Collaborative and has received over 20 prizes and bursaries for her academic work. She currently is the General and Colorectal Surgery Lead on the National Advisory Committee on Robotic Surgery Training and a Scientific Advisory Board member of the National Surgical Research Support Centre in RCSI. Her current research is predominantly clinically based involving trials, large international surgical collaboratives and technology enhanced surgery

Dr Eoghan Cunnane, Bernal Institute

Eoghan received his PhD from the University of Limerick in 2015 under the supervision of Prof Michael Walsh. He was subsequently awarded a Marie Curie Global Fellowship to transition his expertise from tissue characterisation to tissue engineering and modelling at the University of Pittsburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was then awarded a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Fellowship to characterise cancerous tissue at Imperial College London. Eoghan is also the co-founder of the start-up company Class Medical which was spun out of UL to commercialise a patented device that improves urinary catheter safety. Eoghan is the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant aimed at developing preclinical models of the human testes.

Dr James Brown is an Associate Professor in Cancer and Cell Biology in the Department of Biological Science (Faculty of Science and Engineering). His Oncobiology & Targeted Treatments Group is developing novel histone acetyltransferase inhibitors as a new treatment for breast cancer. Complementing this is their discovery and validation of new breast cancer biomarkers to allow improved patient stratification, and enriched understanding of tumour (and subtype specific) molecular diversity