Irish Cancer Society announces shortlist for ‘Researcher of the Year’ award in advance of inaugural Celebration of Research

The Irish Cancer Society today announced details of three cancer researchers who have been shortlisted for the first ‘Irish Cancer Society Researcher of the Year’ award.

The winner of which will be announced at a special ‘Celebration of Research’ on Wednesday next 14th March in Bewley’s Hotel, Ballsbridge, Dublin.

Cancer clinicians and researchers, along with many of the Irish Cancer Society’s top supporters and fundraisers from across the country will gather to hear presentations by Dr Róisín Dwyer, Dr Aisling Pierce and Dr Yue Fan, who published important research findings in breast and prostate cancer in 2011 and who will battle it out to win the coveted title on the night.

Guest speakers at the Celebration of Research will include a number of highly successful researchers whose research, funded by Irish Cancer Society grants, has led to major advances for patients;     Professor Michael J Duffy, who will speak about his research Predicting Breast Cancer Metastasis; Professor Sean McCann, who will share insights on his Open Window – Reducing Stress for Cancer Patients project at St James’s Hospital; and Mr Ray McDermott, who will speak about Bringing Cancer Clinical Trials to Ireland. The event will also feature highlights of new cancer research that got underway in Ireland throughout 2011.

Cancer research undertaken by the three shortlisted candidates was judged by strict criteria that included how well the researcher explained the achievements of the research, the potential benefits to patients as well as the overall impact of the research. The three researchers shortlisted and their research projects include:

• Dr Róisín Dwyer, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Discipline of Surgery at NUI Galway. She has a degree in Science from UCD, an MSc in Biological Studies from DCU and was awarded a PhD in Medicine and Therapeutics from UCD.  Her research investigates the potential of adult stem cells as vehicles for targeted delivery of therapeutic agents to breast tumours which aims to significantly reduce tumour growth. The ability to track the migration of these stem cells non-invasively before therapy is a major advantage to this novel approach for breast cancer therapy. Research Title: Adult Stem Cells: Have Tumour? Will Travel.
   
• Dr Aisling Pierce started out her research in the area of lung cancer as a PhD student in DCU and then moved into breast cancer research joining Prof. Joe Duffy’s team at St. Vincent’s University Hospital in 2006. Her research project investigates if the measurement of specific sugars called “glycans” in blood could help to identify aggressive early stage breast cancer in women. The measurement of these sugars through this research could be a simple way to tell how a cancer is likely to progress in women recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Research Title: Blood Sugars in Breast Cancer – Keeping us Sweet.
   
• Dr Yue Fan completed his PhD with Prof. Bill Watson in the UCD School of Medicine and Medical Research and he is currently a post doctorate fellow working on cancer biomarker research in the UCD Conway Institute. His research uses computer technologies to analyse serum samples from prostate cancer patients with different grade and stage. The initial evaluation work has demonstrated better accuracy than the current diagnostic standard for predicting stage and the identified serum biomarker panel has the potential to benefit prostate cancer patients. Research Title: The Answer is in the Blood: Using computers to help identify treatments for prostate cancer.
   
• The judging panel was chaired by Kathleen O’Meara, Head of Advocacy and Communications, which also included Professor Cliona O’Farrelly, Irish Cancer Society Research Priorities Committee Chair and Dr Sinéad Walsh, Research Manager at the Irish Cancer Society.

Commenting on the high standard of submissions, Kathleen O’Meara, Head of Advocacy and Communications and judge on the panel for the Researcher of the Year 2011 award said that “"for the Irish Cancer Society to make headway in our request for support for research, we need to be able to communicate our research, and our researchers need to be able to do that too. Each of the shortlisted researchers explained their research exceptionally well, in a way that made clear the exciting nature of their work. They showed clearly what they achieved and, most importantly, what it might mean for patients. The impact of the research was also a major consideration when short listing the candidates for the 'Irish Cancer Society Researcher of the Year'."

Speaking about the Celebration of Research, Professor John Fitzpatrick, Head of Research, Irish Cancer Society said that "the Society's Researcher of the Year Award is an opportunity to celebrate the results coming out of our research. Last year, a total of 64 publications were produced from Irish Cancer Society-funded research, with 47 of these describing new research discoveries. These results were published in a range of high impact international journals, which means that the research being done here in Ireland is having a global impact on cancer."

The Irish Cancer Society has contributed more than €26 million to cancer research since 1963. Over the past 30 years, research funded by the Society has led to major advances in cancer research and more than 650 important research findings have been discovered. Currently, the Society is supporting 33 researchers as they investigate a number of potentially important discoveries in all types of cancer including breast, colorectal, ovarian, leukaemia, oesophageal, lung, prostate and metastatic cancers.