The 11th International Cancer Conference
“Advances and Future Directions in Personalised Medicine”
24th-25th September 2019
Trinity Translational Medicine Institute
St James's Hospital
“Advances and Future Directions in Personalised Medicine”
24th-25th September 2019
Trinity Translational Medicine Institute
St James's Hospital
Health professionals, cancer clinicians and clinical scientists, scientists working in cancer, representatives of pharmaceutical companies involved in oncology, policy makers, post-doctoral researchers within medicine and science will benefit from participation in the conference.
CPD POINTS
The conference has been approved by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland for 12 CPD credits. 1 CPD credit is equivalent to 1 hour of educational activity.
By Plane
There is one major international airport in Dublin, situated approximately 10km north of the city centre. Dublin is easily accessible from the UK, Continental Europe and the east and west coast of the USA.
Access from Dublin Airport to Dublin City
There are a number of private and public bus services that operate from outside the airport arrivals terminal: Aircoach, a privately run bus service, operates between the airport and a number of city hotels and locations. www.aircoach.ie
Airlink (bus 747), operated by Dublin Bus, will bring you directly from the airport to Busaras, the central bus station, located in the city. www.dublinbus.ie
There are also a number of other public bus services operating between the airport and various destinations
By Ferry
It is also possible to get to Dublin by ferry via Hollyhead, Liverpool and Isle of Man ports in Britain. Dublin has two ferry terminals – Dublin Port, located in the city centre, is serviced by bus and Dun Laoghaire ferry terminal, south of the city, is easily reached by a 20 minute car or DART train journey.
Trinity College Dublin has preferential agreements (applicable to weekdays only, if available) with the following hotels close to the conference venue:
| Trinity City Hotel | |
| Contact: | Jacinta Collins |
| Email: | reservations@trinitycityhotel.com |
| Phone: | 353 (0) 1 6481000 |
| Fax: | 353 (0) 1 6481010 |
| More Information | |
| Address: | Pearse Sreet, Dublin 4 |
| Clayton Hotel Cardiff Lane | |
| Contact: | Jane Forsyth |
| Email: | jforsyth@claytonhotels.com |
| Phone: | 353 (0) 1 6439500 |
| Fax: | 353 (0) 1 6439510 |
| More Information | |
| Address: | Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2 |
| O'Callaghan Hotels Dublin | |
| Contact: | Maria Lawlor/Jeremy O’Keeffe |
| Email: | dublin.reservations@ocallaghanhotels.com |
| Phone: | 353 (0) 1 6073900 |
| Fax: | 353 (0) 1 6615663 |
| More Information | |
| O'Callaghan Hotels has three Mont Clare Hotel Alexander Hotel Davenport Hotel |
|
Conference dinner is not included in the conference registration fee and needs to be booked separately.
The dress code for the dinner is business attire.
Patricia Doherty
Tel: 00353 1 896 3376
Email: Patricia.Doherty@tcd.ie
| 9.00-9.20 | WELCOME ADDRESS AND CONFERENCE OPENING |
| SESSION 1: | Molecular classification of tumours: its importance in the cancer care pathway of patients |
| Chairs: Maeve Lowery, Stephen Finn | |
| 09.20 | Personalized Oncogenomics: Integrating State of the Art Genomic Technology into Cancer Care |
| Dr Janessa Laskin, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia | |
| 09.50 | Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer: The New Standard of Care? |
| Daniel Renouf, MD, MPH, FRCPC, Assistant Professor, Medical Oncologist, University of British Columbia, BC Cancer, Vancouver Centre | |
| 10.20 | title |
| David Gallagher Medical Oncologist, TSJCI | |
| 10.40 | title |
| Proffered paper | |
| 10.55 | title |
| Proffered paper | |
| 11.10-11.35 | Coffee Break and Poster Viewing |
| SESSION 2: | Cancer Risk Factors and Prevention |
| Chairs: John O'Leary, Barry O'Connell | |
| 11.35 | Dopamine Signaling in Lung Cancer: Implications for Cancer Prevention and Therapy |
| Dr. Brid Ryan, Stadtman Investigator, Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis, Centre for Cancer Research, NCI, USA | |
| 12.05 | title |
| Prof. Richard Sullivan, Kings Health Partners Institute of Cancer Policy and Global Health | |
| 12.35 | Colorectal cancer: prevention requires shared responsibility |
| Amanda Cross, Reader in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention, School of Public Health and the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London. | |
| 13.05 | title |
| Profferd paper | |
| 13.20 | title |
| Proffered paper | |
| 13.35-14.20 | Lunch and Poster Viewing |
| SESSION 3: | Tumour Microenvironment |
| Chairs: Jacintha O’Sullivan, Elisabeth Vandenberghe | |
| 14.20 | Breast cancer and new aspects of glutamine metabolism: metformin, exosomes, hormone resistance |
| Prof. Adrian Harris, CRUK Prof of Medical Oncology, University Department of Oncology, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital. | |
| 14.50 | Exploring and Exploiting the Tumor Microenvironment |
| Prof. Johanna Joyce. Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne | |
| 15.20 | Targeting tumour-stroma cells to improve therapies in B cell malignancies |
| Dr. Ingo Ringhausen, Consultant Haematologist and Principal Investigator, Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. | |
| 15.50 | title |
| Proffered paper | |
| 16.05 | title |
| Proffered paper | |
| 16.20-16.40 | Coffee Break and Poster Viewing |
| 16.40 | Introduction to Burkitt awardee |
| 16.50 | Burkitt Lecture: Why Don't We Get More Cancer: The critical role of extracellular matrix and microenvironment in malignancy and dormancy: Prof. Mina J. Bissell, Distinguished Scientist, Biological Systems and Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California |
Why Don't We Get More Cancer: The critical role of extracellular matrix and microenvironment in malignancy and dormancy |
|
| 17.30 | Reception |
| 19.00 | Conference dinner/presentation of 2019 Burkitt Medal |
| SESSION 4: | Advances in Immunotherapy |
| Chairs: Michael McCarthy, Cliona O’Farrelly | |
| 09.00 | Uncovering targets on gd T cells to mitigate metastasis |
| Dr. Seth Coffelt, Snr Research Fellows, Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, Glasgow. | |
| 09.30 | Autophagy modulation as an example of precision cancer (immuno)therapy |
| Prof. Lorenzo Galluzzi, Assistant Professor of Cell Biology in Radiation Oncology, Weill Cornell Medical College, NY. | |
| 10.00 | New Immunotherapy strategies in mCRC |
| Prof. Guillem Argilés, Clinical Investigator, Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain. | |
| 10.30 | title |
| Proffered paper | |
| 10.40 | title |
| Proffered paper | |
| 10.50-11.20 | Coffee Break and Poster Viewing |
| SESSION 5: | Molecular agents in Radiation Oncology; Future Directions |
| Chairs: Lorraine O’Driscoll, Frances Duane | |
| 11.20 | Development and pre-clinical validation of dual-function radiation modulating nanoparticles – successes and challenges |
| Dr. Jonathan Coulter, Senior Lecturer in Nanotherapeutics, School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University Belfast. | |
| 11.50 | Towards radiotherapy and DNA repair inhibitor combinations: challenges and opportunities |
| Dr. Conchita Vens, Netherlands Cancer Institute | |
| 12.20 | Novel and Drug and Radiotherapy Combinations – Back to the Future? |
| Prof Gerry Hanna, Associate Professor and Director of Radiation Oncology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre/University of Melbourne. | |
| 12.40 | title |
| Proffered paper | |
| 12.55 | title |
| Proferred paper | |
| 13.10-14.30 | Lunch and poster viewing/judging |
| SESSION 6: | Academic Cancer Centres |
| Panel: John Kennedy, Lorcan Birthistle, Linda Doyle, Susan O’Reilly | |
| 14.30 | Challenges for a Comprehensive Cancer Center; bridging basic and clinical research |
| Professor Rene Medema, Director of Research, Chairman Board of Directors, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam | |
| 15.00 | Academic Cancer Centres: The NCCP Perspective |
| Dr. Jerome Coffey, Director of National Cancer Control Programme | |
| 15.30 | Trinity St. James’s Cancer Institute: Update and Future Plans |
| Professor Paul Browne, Director of Trinity St. James's Cancer Institute | |
| 16.00 | Panel Discussion |
| 16.30 | Concluding session followed by awards ceremony |
| 17.00-18.00 | Reception |
Bibliography
MINA J. BISSELL is Distinguished Scientist, the highest rank bestowed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and serves as Senior Advisor to the Laboratory Director on Biology. She is also Faculty of four Graduate Groups in UC Berkeley: Comparative Biochemistry, Endocrinology, Molecular Toxicology, and Bioengineering (UCSF/UCB joint). Having challenged several established paradigms, Bissell is a pioneer in breast cancer research and her body of work has provided much impetus for the current recognition of the significant role that extracellular matrix (ECM) signalling and microenvironment play in gene expression regulation in both normal and malignant cells. Her laboratory developed novel 3D assays and techniques that demonstrate her signature phrase: after conception, “phenotype is dominant over genotype.” Bissell earned her doctorate from Harvard Medical, won an American Cancer Society fellowship, and soon after joined LBNL. She was founding Director of the Cell and Molecular Biology Division and later Associate Laboratory Director for all Life Sciences. Bissell has published more than 400 publications, received numerous honours and awards and is one of the most sought-after speakers in the field. She is not only an elected Fellow of most U.S. honorary scientific academies, but she also sits on many national and international scientific boards.
Bibliography
Paul Browne is currently Director of the Trinity St. James’s Cancer Institute. He is a Professor of Haematology at Trinity College Dublin, and Consultant Haematologist and Director of the National Adult Stem Cell Transplant Programme at St. James's Hospital Dublin. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin in 1986, he trained first in Ireland, and then as a Fellow and Faculty member at the University of Minnesota, USA. Since returning to Ireland in 1997, he has led the development of therapeutic programmes for leukaemia and myeloma, with a special interest in stem cell transplant and novel therapeutics. He has collaborated on laboratory studies of myeloma biology, including a focus on genetic susceptibility in DNA repair pathways, in work funded by the HRB and the Irish Cancer Society. He was Chair of the Irish Cooperative Oncology Research Group (ICORG, now Cancer Trials Ireland) from 2008 to 2012, leading the successful international peer-reviewed HRB multi-million euro grant renewal to support clinical and translational research in cancer. More recently, he has led the TCD work packages of two major projects in conjunction with colleagues in Cork and Galway, one on Cellular Therapy and cord blood cells, funded by the National Blood Centre, and the other a joint Irish Cancer Society/Science Foundation Ireland five-year programme establishing the infrastructure and clinical research activities for the Blood Cancer Network Ireland (BCNI).
Biography
Seth Coffelt is a Senior Research Fellow within the Institute of Cancer Sciences at the University of Glasgow. His lab is based at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute. Seth obtained his Ph.D. from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, in 2006. He undertook his first postdoc position at the University of Sheffield in the UK where he studied the role of macrophages in tumor progression. Afterwards, Seth was awarded a Marie Curie Intra-European Career Development Fellowship to join Karin de Visser’s lab at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. During this time, Seth discovered how certain immune cells cooperate with each other to promote metastasis through the suppression of other immune cells. Seth moved to Scotland in the summer of 2016 to focus on the molecular mechanisms that regulate gd T cell function during the evolution of metastasis and cancer progression. Recently, Seth was awarded the British Association for Cancer Research AstraZeneca Young Scientist Frank Rose Award for 2018.
Bibliography
Dr Jerome Coffey is the Director of the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP).
A graduate of TCD he completed internal medicine and radiation oncology training in Ireland. Following higher training in major academic oncology centres in Canada and the UK he was appointed as a Consultant Radiation Oncologist to the staff of the St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network and the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in 2006. Before taking up his current role he was Clinical Director of the St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network, Chairman of the Radiation Oncology Committee in the Faculty of Radiologists (RCSI) and Radiation Oncology Advisor to the NCCP.
Dr Coffey was appointed Chairperson of the Board of the National Cancer Registry in May 2017.
Bibliography
Dr Coulter is a Senior Lecturer, working within the Nanomedicine and Biotherapeutics research group at the School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University Belfast. His research has always had a focus on developing strategies to overcome treatment resistance in cancer, with a specific focus on radiotherapy. His work has spanned approaches that include the use of suicide gene therapy and more recently exploiting the unique physical properties of high atomic number nanoparticles as radiosensitisers. Recent iterations have been developed as biologically active formulations, designed to overcome tumour microenvironment properties which are known to confer treatment resistance, in addition to the core particle acting as a radiation dose modifier. This presentation aims to outline some of the successes we have experienced in this space while looking to spark discussion around the key challenges that have limited clinical translation to date.
Title: Reader in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention, School of Public Health and the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London
Bibliography
Dr. Cross is a cancer epidemiologist with a joint appointment in the School of Public Health and in the Department of Surgery and Cancer within the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. She is Head of the Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Group (http://csprg.org.uk). She completed her PhD at Cambridge University and then spent 11 years in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), United States. As a tenure-track investigator at NCI, she was also a mentor for the Yale University– NCI Partnership Training Program and held the position of Assistant Professor Adjunct within the Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at Yale University. Her research interests are focused on aetiologic studies of diet and lifestyle factors in relation to cancer risk and survival, as well as colorectal cancer prevention and early detection by screening and surveillance. Her projects include analyses of large international cohort studies as well as the conduct of randomised controlled trials.
Biography
Dr David Gallagher is a consultant medical oncologist and consultant medical geneticist. He graduated from University College Dublin Medical School, and trained on the Irish specialist registrar scheme in medical oncology. He was awarded the first ISMO Fellowship to MSKCC in 2006. Dr Gallagher completed training in both medical oncology and medical genetics between Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre and New York Presbyterian Cornell University Hospital. He worked in Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre for four years before returning to Ireland in 2010 where he established a medical oncology and medical genetics practice. He remains actively involved in cancer research and has retained a number of research collaborations in North America, in addition to establishing new collaborations with colleagues in Dublin, and the UK. Dr Gallagher is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, an active member of Cancer Trials Ireland, and the National Clinical Lead in Cancer Genetics.
Bibliography
Lorenzo Galluzzi (born 1980) is currently Assistant Professor of Cell Biology in Radiation Oncology with the Department of Radiation Oncology of the Weill Cornell Medical College (New York, NY, USA), Honorary Assistant Professor Adjunct with the Department of Dermatology of the Yale School of Medicine (New Haven, CT, USA), Honorary Associate Professor with the Faculty of Medicine of the Paris Descartes University (Paris, France), and Faculty Member with the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Biotechnology of the University of Ferrara (Ferrara, Italy) and the Graduate School of Pharmacological Sciences of the University of Padova (Padova, Italy).
Prior to joining Weill Cornell Medical College (2017), Lorenzo Galluzzi was a Junior Scientist of the Research Team “Apoptosis, Cancer and Immunity” at the Cordeliers Research Center (Paris, France; 2012-2016). Lorenzo Galluzzi did his post-doctoral training at the Gustave Roussy Cancer Center (Villejuif, France; 2009-2011), after receiving his PhD from the Paris Sud University (Le Kremlin-Bicetre, France; 2005-2008). He is also Associate Director of the European Academy for Tumor Immunology (EATI), Co-chair of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Immunogenic Cell Death Working Group, and Founding Member of the European Research Institute for Integrated Cellular Pathology (ERI-ICP).
Lorenzo Galluzzi is best known for major experimental and conceptual contributions to the fields of cell death, autophagy, tumor metabolism and tumor immunology. In particular, he provided profound insights into the links between adaptive stress responses in cancer cells and the activation of a clinically relevant tumor-targeting immune response in the context of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Lorenzo Galluzzi has published more than 400 scientific articles in international peer-reviewed journals. According to a survey published by Lab Times, he is currently the 6th and the youngest of the 30 most-cited European cell biologists (relative to the period 2007–2013), and he was nominated Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics (formerly, Thomson Reuter) in 2016 and 2018. Lorenzo Galluzzi currently operates as Editor-in-Chief of three journals: OncoImmunology (which he co-founded in 2011), International Review of Cell and Molecular Biology, and Molecular and Cellular Oncology (which he co-founded in 2013). In addition, Lorenzo Galluzzi currently serves as Founding Editor for Microbial Cell and Cell Stress, and Associate Editor for Cell Death and Disease.
Bibliography
Associate Professor Gerry Hanna is the Director of Radiation Oncology at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne and holds an honorary appointment with the University of Melbourne. A/Prof Hanna’s research interests are the use of PET/CT in radiotherapy planning for lung cancer, mechanisms of radiotherapy resistance, technical radiotherapy, stereotactic ablative radiotherapy and systemic therapy and immunotherapy combinations with radiotherapy. He is chief investigator of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s “PERTAIN” study and previous co-chief Investigator of the CONCORDE study, a UK study of novel agents in combination with radiotherapy in the treatment of lung cancer. He is the Thoracic Sub-Study lead for the SARON study and a TMG member for the UK’s HALT and CONFIRM studies.
Biography
Adrian L Harris is the Cancer Research UK Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Oxford and directs the Cancer Research UK Molecular Oncology Laboratories at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (WIMM). He is a Consultant Medical Oncologist and a Professorial Fellow of St Hugh’s College Oxford. He is Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Cancer and on the Editorial Board of Cancer Cell. He is a Senior Investigator in the National Institute of Health Research and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
He is a ‘Highly Cited Researcher 2014’ ranking among the top 1% most cited for their subject field and year of publication—between 2002 and 2012 and included in Thompson Reuters ‘2014 World’s most Influential Scientific Minds.’ He is also listed in Boyack KW, et al. A list of highly influential biomedical researchers, 1996-2011. Eur J Clin Invest. 2013 43:1339-65. These are Top 400 world-wide cited investigators in all biomedical fields. He has published over 500 papers and there are over 145,000 citations to them, h-index 184.
He has received a Platinum Merit Award from then National Health Service for the last 15 years, given to the 200 most outstanding consultants for all specialities.
He trained in Medicine and Biochemistry at Liverpool University, did a DPhil at Oxford University then trained at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Medical Oncology. He was appointed Professor of Clinical Oncology at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1982. Since 1988 he has been the Professor of Medical Oncology at Oxford University. He directs the Molecular Oncology Laboratories at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. He has managed breast cancer patients for over 30 years.
His major laboratory interests involve the role of hypoxia in breast tumour biology, and tumour angiogenesis, the metabolic response to hypoxia, microRNAs induced by hypoxia and hypoxia-induced cell death. He has conducted many predictive and prognostic studies and early exploratory phase trials in new drug development, molecular pathology and biomarkers, to translate laboratory findings to clinical relevance and development of new agents.
In the Department of Oncology over 20 Phase I and II trials are run and current trials include new drugs blocking angiogenesis, metabolism inhibitors, DNA repair, immunotherapy, inhibitors of signal transduction and their interactions with radiotherapy. Specific emphasis is on classification of tumours by functional imaging, molecular profiles, and pharmacodynamic endpoints to targeted therapies.
Bibliography
Prof. Johanna Joyce’s laboratory investigates the microenvironment in which a tumour arises and the critical influence that non-cancerous immune and stromal cells can have on tumour progression and metastasis. They have uncovered regulatory signals provided by the normal tissue stroma and immune cells to the cancer cells, and determined how normal cells can be modified by the cancer cells to produce a variety of factors that enhance tumour malignancy. Her group is also actively exploring the mechanisms underlying the contribution of the tumour microenvironment to therapeutic resistance. Their ultimate goal is to apply this collective knowledge to the clinic and develop targeted therapies that disrupt critical tumour-stromal interactions.
Johanna began her independent career at MSKCC in New York in 2004, rising through the academic ranks to Full Member and Full Professor at Cornell Medical School in 2014. Johanna moved to Switzerland in 2016, where she is a Full Professor at the University of Lausanne and Full Member of the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research. In 2017, Johanna was elected as a Member of EMBO and a Fellow of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences. Johanna has been recognized for her contributions to cancer research through a series of awards including the Cloetta Prize, Swiss Bridge Award, American Cancer Society Scholar Award, Rita Allen Foundation Award, Sidney Kimmel Foundation Award, and the inaugural Pandolfi Women in Cancer Research Award from Harvard Medical School, among many others.
Bibliography
Dr Laskin is a clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and an active member of the medical oncology staff at BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada. Her clinical and research interests have primarily focused on lung and head and neck cancers. She is an active member of many national and international lung cancer trials and advisory groups. In the last 7 years her research has evolved towards cancer genomics and personalized medicine and she is the clinical program leader for the Personalized Oncogenomics (POG) Program which is a collaborative research project between medical oncologists and the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver. The POG program is truly translational research effort that uses in-depth genomic and transcriptomic sequencing to guide chemotherapy decision-making in a clinically relevant time-frame.
Bibliography
Daniel Renouf is a medical oncologist at BC Cancer, Vancouver Centre, and an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, Department of Medicine.
He received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Alberta and completed his internal medicine and medical oncology training at the University of British Columbia and BC Cancer. He undertook further training in early drug development and gastrointestinal oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital and the University of Toronto, and obtained a Masters of Public Health from Harvard University.
Daniel’s research interests include developmental therapeutics, genomics, and biomarker development within gastrointestinal cancers, with a focus on pancreatic cancer. He is the leader of the BC Cancer Phase I program, the BC Cancer GI Tumour Group chair, the Co-Director of Pancreas Centre BC and is the Co-chair of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group Pancreatic Cancer disease group.
Bibliography
Ingo Ringshausen studied medicine at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz/ Germany and London/ Canada. After his graduation in 1999 he started his medical training in Internal Medicine and Haematology/ Oncology at the Technical University in Munich. Between 2003 and 2006 he joined the group of Gerard Evan at UCSF on a postdoctoral fellowship. After his board certification in 2010 he became a Consultant in the Department of Haematology/ Oncology in Munich and subsequently an independent group leader. In 2014 he joined the Department of Haematology in Cambridge and is now appointed as Consultant Haematologist at Addenbrooke’s hospital and a Principal Investigator at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute.
Bibliography
Dr Ryan is a Principal Investigator at the National Cancer Institute. She came to the US in 2007 under a US-Ireland jointly funded program as a Cancer Prevention Fellow. She received all of her formal training in Ireland: from University College Cork (BSc Biochemistry), and University College Dublin (PhD Biochemistry, followed by Masters of Public Health). Dr Ryan is head of the Integrative Molecular Epidemiology Unit (IMEU) of the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis, CCR, NCI, and uses an integrative and translational approach to studying population differences in lung cancer, combining epidemiological and laboratory methods to her research. In particular, her research program aims to develop diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for lung cancer, and uses a precision medicine approach to understand cancer health disparities. She is the author of over 50 research papers and book chapters and has received numerous awards for her work, including the European Association for Cancer Research Young Scientist Award and the AACR Future Leader in Cancer Prevention Award.
Bibliography
Richard Sullivan is Professor, Cancer Policy & Global Health at Kings College London and Director of the new Kings Institute of Cancer Policy. As a member of the Integrated Cancer Centre executive he leads the international strategy and is also Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Catolica, Chile, and Washington University. Richard also serves on Kings Centre for Global Health and the Marjan Centre for Conflict & Conservation. Richard qualified in medicine at St. Marys Hospital, London. Following training in surgery (onco-urology) he undertook a PhD and post-doctoral research in cell signalling at University College London. He then worked in a senior role in the pharmaceutical industry before spending nearly a decade with one of the worlds biggest NGO funders of cancer R&D Cancer Research UK as their clinical director. There he led on a number of major strategies including developing and launching the UK’s Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres and the development of the European Comprehensive Cancer Centres program. In 2008 Richard moved back into research at the London School of Economics were he studied complex healthcare systems within the health, society and population programme having previously worked in conflict and post conflict public health settings in the Balkans, Africa and most recently Middle East. He serves on a wide variety of advisory boards, including Charite Comprehensive Cancer Centre Berlin, Irish Clinical Oncology Group, Pfizer Policy Advisory Board, et al. He is past UK Director of the Council for Emerging National Security Affairs (CENSA) a Washington-based national security think-tank where he specialised in counter-proliferation and the security implications of global health.
Richard’s research programmes extend from the public policy of global cancer, to the development of public health systems in high-risk, conflict areas focusing on DR Congo, Afghanistan & Libya. In cancer public policy he has led on a number of major Lancet Oncology Commissions examining the affordability of cancer in high-income countries, global childhood cancer care and f cancer systems in Latin America. He is also chief investigator for a number of conflict and health programs including, analysis of the basic package of health services in Afghanistan, the post conflict reconstruction of Libya’s NCD system and the impact of the Syrian conflict on future population health, amongst others.
Bibliography
Conchita Vens is a clinical radiobiologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. Her research focuses on molecular mechanisms involved in the cellular radiation response and on DNA repair defects in cancer. Next to revealing repair defects in tumours and characterizing the associated molecular processes, her projects aim to develop radiation combination strategies that exploit such tumour repair defects. She further supports the clinical application opportunities of DNA repair inhibitors with biomarker and radiation induced normal tissue toxicity studies. Her team developed DNA repair associated biomarkers to reveal the impact of repair defects on patient outcome and is interested in prognostic and predictive biomarkers to tailor head and neck cancer patient treatment. Her engagement in international and national radiation oncology societies reflects her strong commitment to support radiation oncology.
Established in 2013, the Burkitt Medal is designed to recognise people with the integrity, compassion and dedication matching that of Denis Burkitt, a Trinity graduate, who is known for his discovery of Burkitt lymphoma. Nominees should demonstrate extraordinary achievement and advancement in the field of cancer internationally.
Denis Parsons Burkitt (28 February 1911 – 23 March 1993), surgeon, was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ireland. He was the son of James Parsons Burkitt, a civil engineer. Aged eleven Denis lost his right eye in an accident. He attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen and Dean Close School, England. In 1929 he applied to Trinity College Dublin to study his father’s profession, engineering, despite a tutor writing to his father expressing doubts if Burkitt would be capable of earning a degree. During his first year at Trinity he joined Room 40, a small group of undergraduates, who met regularly for prayer and Bible study, and committed his life to Jesus Christ. His religious convictions would be a driving force for the rest of his life. Soon after his commitment to Christianity, he felt that God was calling him to devote his life to medicine. He changed his study to medicine and graduated with his MB on 5 July, 1935. After graduating from Trinity College Dublin he continued his surgical training and obtained Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1938. He went on to write his MD entitled ‘Spontaneous rupture of abdominal viscera’ in 1947.
While serving as a ship’s surgeon in 1938, Burkitt decided he would be a surgeon first and a missionary second and hoped to work with the Colonial Service in West Africa. During his five-year sojourn as an army surgeon during World War Two, he married Olive Mary Rogers, a trainee nurse he had met while working as the Resident Surgical Officer at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Plymouth. Denis and Olive had three daughters Judy Howard, Cas and Rachel.
Despite having his application to the Colonial Office being turned down on account of his loss of sight, Burkitt passed a medical and enlisted into the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was posted to a military hospital in Mombasa. Burkitt 'made two major contributions to medical science related to his experience in Africa.
The first was the description, distribution, and ultimately, the etiology of a pediatric cancer that bears his name Burkitt's lymphoma'. Burkitt in 1957 observed a child with swellings in the angles of the jaw. Having an intensely enquiring mind, Burkitt took the details of these cases to the records department, which showed that jaw tumours were common, were often associated with other tumours at unusual sites in children in Uganda. He kept copious notes and 'concluded that these apparently different childhood cancers were all manifestations of a single, hitherto unrecognized tumour complex'. Burkitt published A sarcoma involving the jaws of African children. The newly identified cancer became known as 'Burkitt's lymphoma. He went on to map the geographical distribution of the tumour. Burkitt, together with Dr Dennis Wright, published a book titled 'Burkitt's Lymphoma' in April 1970.
His second major contribution came when, on his return to Britain, Burkitt compared the pattern of diseases in African hospitals with Western diseases. He concluded that many Western diseases which were rare in Africa were the result of diet and lifestyle. He wrote a book Don't Forget Fibre in your Diet, which was an international bestseller.
Although one study showed that people who eat very low levels of fiber—less than 10 grams per day—had an 18 percent higher risk of colorectal cancer, the more general idea that colon cancer is a fiber deficiency disease is now generally considered incorrect by cancer researchers. Nevertheless, research suggests that a diet high in dietary fiber is advised as a precaution against other diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. He had an alternative theory, published in numerous articles and books, that the use of the natural squatting position for defecation protects the natives of Africa and Asia from gastrointestinal diseases.
Burkitt was president of the Christian Medical Fellowship and wrote frequently on religious/medical themes. He received the Bower Award and Prize in 1992. He died on 23 March 1993 in Gloucester and was buried in Bisley, Gloucestershire, England.
Deadline for submissions – 1 March 2019
Completed forms to be returned to Professor John Reynolds, Chair of the Selection Committee, by e-mail: CONFSM@tcd.ie
General Information (PDF 429 kB)
Nomination Form (MS Word 532kB)
Burkitt Medal Awardee 2019 Mina Bissell
MINA J. BISSELL is Distinguished Scientist, the highest rank bestowed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and serves as Senior Advisor to the Laboratory Director on Biology. She is also Faculty of four Graduate Groups in UC Berkeley: Comparative Biochemistry, Endocrinology, Molecular Toxicology, and Bioengineering (UCSF/UCB joint). Having challenged several established paradigms, Bissell is a pioneer in breast cancer research and her body of work has provided much impetus for the current recognition of the significant role that extracellular matrix (ECM) signalling and microenvironment play in gene expression regulation in both normal and malignant cells. Her laboratory developed novel 3D assays and techniques that demonstrate her signature phrase: after conception, “phenotype is dominant over genotype.” Bissell earned her doctorate from Harvard Medical, won an American Cancer Society fellowship, and soon after joined LBNL. She was founding Director of the Cell and Molecular Biology Division and later Associate Laboratory Director for all Life Sciences. Bissell has published more than 400 publications, received numerous honours and awards and is one of the most sought-after speakers in the field. She is not only an elected Fellow of most U.S. honorary scientific academies, but she also sits on many national and international scientific boards.
Burkitt Medal Awardee 2017 – Mariano Barbacid, PhD
Mariano Barbacid is AXA-CNIO Professor of Molecular Oncology at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid. Born in Madrid, Mariano Barbacid was awarded his PhD from the Universidad Complutense in 1974. Having trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Bethesda, Maryland, USA, in 1978 he started his own group to work on the molecular biology of human tumours. Dr Barbacid’s work led to the isolation of the first human cancer gene, H-RAS, in the spring of 1982 and to the identification of the first mutation associated with the development of human cancer. These findings, also made independently by two other groups, have been seminal to establish the molecular basis of human cancer. Dr Barbacid’s achievements have been recognised widely. In 2012, he was inducted to the National Academy of Sciences of the US as a Foreign Member and in 2014, elected Fellow of the AACR Academy. He holds three Honorary degrees, and apart from being acknowledged for his achievements in Spain, Dr Barbacid received several international awards including the Steiner Prize (Bern, 1988), Ipsen Prize (Paris, 1994), Brupbaher Cancer Research Prize (Zurich, 2005), the Medal of Honour of the International Agency for Cancer Research (Lyon, 2007) and an Endowed Chair from the AXA Research Fund (Paris, 2011). He has received two Advanced Grants from the European Research Council since their inception in 2008. To date, Dr Barbacid has authored a total of 300 publications, including 221 original research articles in journals with impact factor, 32 invited reviews in refereed journals and 47 book chapters.
Burkitt Medal Awardee 2016 – Paul Brennan, PhD
Paul Brennan is the Head of the Genetics Section of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Lyon, France. IARC is the specialised cancer agency of the World Health Organization (WHO) with the objective to promote international collaboration in cancer research. Dr Brennan's primary area of work is conducting very large multi-partner studies that aim to use genetics to understand the causes of cancer. This is done by exploring the genome of individuals who develop cancer, in order to identify clues as to why they are more susceptible. It also involves investigating the genomes of the tumours, in order to identify what triggered the tumour in the first place. His group works with colleagues in many different parts of the world, with active studies underway in central and eastern Europe, central and south-east Asia, and Latin America. Among others, Dr Brennan has collaborators in Trinity College Dublin. Dr Brennan and his colleagues at IARC have made an outstanding contribution to promoting international collaboration in the study of cancer for the ultimate benefit of those affected by the disease.
Burkitt Medal Awardee 2015 – Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD, MSc
Riccardo Dalla-Favera is Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology and Director, Institute for Cancer Genetics at Columbia University, New York, USA. Professor Dalla-Favera’s career started with his pioneering work on the cloning and chromosomal mapping of human proto-oncogenes, including c-MYC. This work established the basis for the seminal work on the involvement of c-MYC in chromosomal translocations in Burkitt’s lymphoma. His research has continued to yield new insights into the pathogenesis of human B cell lymphomas, and, in particular, on the identification of the genetic lesions and biological mechanisms responsible for the development of these diseases.
Burkitt Medal Awardee 2014 – John L. Ziegler, MD, MSc
John Ziegler, Founding Director, Global Health Sciences Graduate Program University of California San Francisco (UCSF), USA, received his undergraduate degree (BA, English Literature) from Amherst College, Amherst Massachusetts, and his MD from Cornell University Medical School in New York City. Following medical house staff training at Bellevue Hospital in New York, he joined the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1966, beginning a life-long career in cancer research and care. In 1967 he was assigned to begin a long collaboration with Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, studying Burkitt’s lymphoma and other indigenous cancers. Together with Ugandan counterparts, he developed curative therapies for lymphoma and established a cancer institute that today has expanded to a major center of excellence in sub Saharan Africa. After five years Ziegler returned to NCI to head clinical oncology, and in 1981 moved to UCSF. The AIDS pandemic made its first appearance in San Francisco, heralded by opportunistic infections and two malignancies – Kaposi’s sarcoma and non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Ziegler and colleagues made important contributions to this field both in California and back in Uganda. In his later career, earning an MSc in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Ziegler headed a cancer genetics clinic at UCSF, and most recently was founding director of a global health Master’s degree.
Burkitt Medal Awardee 2013 – Murray F. Brennan, MD
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Dr. Murray Brennan received a degree in mathematics from the University of New Zealand and a medical degree from the University of Otago in 1964. In 1970 he worked at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and at the Joslin Research Laboratories. After residency at the Brigham, Dr. Brennan joined the National Cancer Institute. In 1981, he joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) as Chief of Gastric and Mixed Tumor Service. Dr. Brennan was Chairman of the Department of Surgery at MSKCC from 1985 until June of 2006. He currently holds the Benno C. Schmidt Chair in Clinical Oncology and is Director of the International Center and Vice President for International Programs at MSKCC. He has lectured throughout the world and authored and co-authored more than 1,000 scientific papers and book chapters focusing on surgical oncology, endocrinology, metabolism, and nutrition, and is the author of a book on soft tissue sarcoma. Dr Brennan received numerous honours for his contribution to oncology. Dr. Brennan’s interest, in addition to patient care and research, has been the development of young surgeons.
Consultant/PI/Industry €200
Post-doctoral/registrar €150
Student/nurses €75
Online Registration https://ti.to/tcdAlumni/11th-tcd-international-cancer-conference-2019
The registration fee includes morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea, reception on both days of the conference.
Burkitt award dinner in Trinity College Dining Hall is €50 (additional to the registration fee).
To submit abstracts visit https://bytesizedhost.co.uk/tcdc/
The deadline for abstract submission has been extended to August 4th 2019
Abstract submission guidelines - 300 words max (excluding title and affiliations) structured under the following headings: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. No tables or figures should be inserted to the abstract title or text.
Should you have any queries throughout the abstract submission process, please contact Professor Jacintha O'Sullivan
If you are interested in sponsoring the 2019 International Cancer Conference, please contact:
Patricia Doherty
Tel: 00353 1 896 3376
Email: Patricia.Doherty@tcd.ie