TSJCI Annual Report 2021

Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute Annual Report 2021 31 Section 7.0 Research 7.1 Key Developments during 2021 The research vision of the TSJCI is to advance cancer care through internationally recognised fundamental, translational research, and clinical research in cancer prevention; molecular and precision oncology; cancer immunology; and cancer survivorship and supportive care, leading to improvements in health status and quality of life for people in Ireland and beyond. In September 2021, Prof Lorraine O’Driscoll was appointed as TSJCI Research Lead. Outlined are some examples of our key achievements in 2021, with notable progress made across all four Research Themes: • Theme 1: Cancer Prevention . In 2021, Dr Gerard Brien was awarded a Worldwide Cancer Research grant to investigate the underlying causes of synovial sarcomas. https://www. worldwidecancerresearch.org/what-we-do/our-research-projects/understanding-the-cause- of-synovial-sarcoma-to-improve-survival/. • Theme 2: Molecular & Precision Oncology Leader, Prof Adrian Bracken, made seminal discoveries on an incurable childhood brain cancer, published in Nature Genetics 1 ; and based on research performed on extracellular vesicles, Prof Lorraine O’Driscoll was commissioned to publish a review in New Eng. J. Medicine 2 . In addition, in a project spanning precision oncology and cancer immunology, Prof. Maeve Lowery, Jacintha O’Sullivan and Aideen Long received over €2.3 million via the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund, as part of a three-year, €10.5M programme to develop next generation cell therapies for cancer. The consortium is comprised of RemedyBio as programme lead, aCGT Vector DAC, Trinity College Dublin and St James’s Hospital, and the SFI Centre for Research Training (CRT) in Genomics Data Science at NUIG. The goal is to enable a new kind of revolutionary immunotherapy to cure incurable cancers. • Working with samples donated by patients with metastatic breast cancer, Prof Clair Gardiner – a Theme 3: Cancer Immunology Leader – discovered a specific reason why an important type of immune cells don’t protect the body from cancer 3 ; • In November, Prof Juliette Hussey, Theme 4: Cancer Survivorship Leader, led an All-Island Workshop on Living with and Beyond Cancer. • Of note, in this time period, we have: • opened 32 clinical trials. • secured €14.7 million in competitive research funding. • published 325 peer-reviewed publications. 1 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34294917/ 2 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32846069/ 3 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33568351/