'Harnessing Fundamental, Translational and Clinical Research for the Benefit of Cancer Patients'
13-14th October 2022
Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute
Trinity St James's Cancer Institute
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. On October 14th there will be a public symposium open to interested parties, patients, carers and family members. Register on this Eventbrite link
CPD POINTS
CPD application in process.
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’s Dining Hall located in Front Square Trinity College Dublin https://www.tcd.ie/Maps/map.php?b=22&i=a66
Patricia Doherty
Tel: 00353 1 896 3376
Email: Patricia.Doherty@tcd.ie
08.30-09.00 | REGISTRATION plus Tea/Coffee |
09.00-09.20 | WELCOME ADDRESS AND CONFERENCE OPENING |
SESSION 1: | Cancer Screening and Prevention |
Chairs: | |
09.20 | |
George Hanna - Imperial College London | |
09.45 | Inherited Cancer Susceptibility: Novel Opportunities for Precision, Interception and Prevention Oncology |
Zsofia Stadler – MSKCC | |
10.10 | |
Karen Cadoo – Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute | |
10.35 | |
Proffered paper 1 | |
10.45 | |
Proffered paper 2 | |
10.55-11.25 | Coffee Break and Poster Viewing |
SESSION 2: | Molecular and Precision Oncology 1 |
Chairs: | |
11.25 | Precision in localised prostate cancer radiotherapy – Biomarkers and Stereotactic radiotherapy’ |
Suneil Jain - QUB | |
11.50 | Breast cancer radiation therapy as paradigm of precision oncology: past, present and near future |
Icro Meattini – U Florence | |
12.15 | title |
Selina Chen-Kiang - Cornell | |
12.40 | title |
Profferd paper 1 | |
12.50 | title |
Proffered paper 2 | |
13.00-14.00 | Lunch and Poster Viewing |
SESSION 3: | Molecular and Precision Oncology 2 |
Chairs: | |
14.00 | title |
Jude Fitzgibbon - Barts, London | |
14.25 | Cancer evolution through chromatin plasticity |
Giovanni Ciriello – U. Lausanne | |
14.50 | An asthma target in cancer: rethinking roles for IL4R |
Barbara Fingleton – Vanderbilt University | |
15.15 | title |
TBC | |
15.40 | title |
Proffered paper 1 | |
15.50 | title |
Proffered paper 2 | |
16.00-16.20 | Coffee Break and Poster Viewing |
16.30 | Introduction to Burkitt awardee |
16.40 | Burkitt Lecture |
17.30 | Reception |
19.00 | Conference dinner/presentation of 2021 Burkitt Medal: Dining Hall, Trinity College Dublin Front Square [additional to registration fee] |
SESSION 4: | Public Symposium: Patient Care Post COVID |
Chairs: | |
08.55 | Welcome: John Kennedy |
09.00 | Don't let Cancer become the Forgotten "C" in the Fight against COVID |
Mark Lawler - QUB | |
09.15 | Cancer care after the end of the beginning |
Seamus O’Reilly - CUH | |
09.30 | title |
Bettina Ryll - Melanoma Patient Network Europe |
SESSION 5: | Living with and beyond cancer |
Chairs: | |
09.50 | Exercise for people living with cancer: A nice to have? Or standard of care? |
Kristin Campbell – U. British Columbia | |
10.50 | Living your best life after cancer |
Catherine O’Brien – ANP Cancer Survivorship, TSJCI | |
10.15 | title |
Pernilla Lagergren – Imperial College London | |
11.15 | title |
Proffered paper 1 | |
11.25 | title |
Proferred paper 2 | |
11.25-11.55 | Coffee break and Poster viewing |
SESSION 6: | Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy |
Panel: | |
11.55 | Immune landscape of rhabdoid tumors: non genetic mechanisms of tumor immunogenicity |
Eliane Piaggio – Institut Curie. | |
12.20 | Where T cells and surgery meet – immunologic, genomic, and pathologic correlates of immune checkpoint blockade for early stage cancers |
Patrick Forde – Johns Hopkins | |
12.45 | Cytotoxic immune cells kill by programmed cell death, not magic |
Anthony Letai – Dana Farber | |
13.05 | TBD |
13.25 | Proffered Paper 1 |
13.35 | Proffered Paper 2 |
13.45-14.30 | Lunch and poster viewing/judging |
SESSION 7: | Comprehensive Cancer Centres of the Future |
Panel: | |
14.30 | Future of healthcare innovation |
Michael Dowling/Robert Barakat – Northwell Health NY | |
15.00 | Improving cancer care through improving data. |
Xose Fernandez – Institut Curie | |
15.30 | What will the Comprehensive Cancer Centres and Infrastructures of the next decade look like? |
Simon Oberst, OECI. | |
16.00 | Panel Discussion |
16.30 | Concluding session followed by awards ceremony |
17.00-18.00 | Cheese and wine reception |
Biography
Kristin Campbell, BSc, PT, PhD is a licensed physical therapist and a Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She also an Affiliated Scientist in the Cancer Control Program at the BC Cancer Research Institute.
Her research focus is on the role of exercise in cancer rehabilitation and survivorship has been funded by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and Physiotherapy Foundation of Canada and others. She is the co-lead of the 2019 exercise guidelines for cancer survivors from the American College of Sports Medicine and in 2020 received a Distinguished Achievement Award for Overall Excellence Mid-Career from the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. She is a member of the Oncology Division of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association and a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. She is also an associate editor for Physical Therapy, the journal of the American Physical Therapy Association, and the Translational Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine (TJACSM).
Biography
Dr. Selina Chen-Kiang isaffiliated to Department of Pathology and Laboratory medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, where Dr. Selina Chen-Kiang is currently working as Professor. Dr. Selina Chen-Kiang has authored and co-authored several national and international publications and also working as a reviewer for reputed professional journals. Dr. Selina Chen-Kiang is having an active association with different societies and academies around the world. Dr. Selina Chen-Kiang made his mark in the scientific community with the contributions and widely recognition from honourable subject experts around the world. Dr. Selina Chen-Kiang has received several awards for the contributions to the scientific community. Dr. Selina Chen-Kiang major research interest involves Microbiology and Immunology.
Biography
Giovanni Ciriello obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2009 from the University of Padova, Italy, and was a visiting scholar during this period at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GeorgiaTech) in Atlanta, US. Here, Giovanni worked in the bioinformatics group headed by Concettina Guerra on algorithmic approaches to characterize RNA 3D structural elements and biological networks.In 2010, he joined the computational biology group of Chris Sander at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York.
During his post-doctoral studies, Giovanni investigated complex dependencies between genetic alterations in cancer and how these could be used to define tissue-independent tumor classes. His work revealed that functionally related alterations rarely co-occur in the same tumor and that these mutually exclusive patterns could be used to discover functional redundancies and synthetic lethal interactions. On the other hand, signatures of concurring alterations highlighted unexpected anti-correlation between the accumulation of mutations and copy number changes within genomically unstable tumors. Importantly, oncogenic signatures inform the design of targeted therapeutic strategies. Giovanni is a member of the TCGA research network where he contributed to numerous large-scale cancer genomics projects, with a particular focus on Breast Cancer.
Since April 2015, Giovanni has been appointed as Tenure-track Assistant Professor within the Department of Computational Biology (DCB) of the University of Lausanne (UNIL) where he heads the Computational Biology and Cancer Genomics group.
Biography
Michael J. Dowling is president and chief executive officer of Northwell Health, which delivers world-class clinical care throughout the New York metropolitan area, pioneering research at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and a visionary approach to medical education highlighted by the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the Hofstra Northwell School of Graduate Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. Northwell Health is the largest integrated health care system in New York State with a total workforce of more than 70,000 employees — the state’s largest private employer. With 23 hospitals, 6,675 hospital and long-term care beds, more than 750 outpatient physician practices and a full complement of long-term care services, Northwell is one of the nation’s largest health systems, with $12 billion in annual revenue. Prior to becoming president and CEO in 2002, Mr. Dowling was the health system’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. Before joining Northwell Health in 1995, he was a senior vice president at Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Mr. Dowling served in New York State government for 12 years, including seven years as state director of Health, Education and Human Services and deputy secretary to the governor. He was also commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Services. Before his public service career, Mr. Dowling was a professor of social policy and assistant dean at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Services, and director of the Fordham campus in Westchester County. Mr. Dowling is past chair of the Healthcare Institute and the current chair of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences and the North American Board of the Smurfit School of Business at University College, Dublin, Ireland. He also serves as a board member of the Long Island Association. He is past chair and a current board member of the National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL), the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA), the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) and the League of Voluntary Hospitals of New York. Mr. Dowling was an instructor at the Center for Continuing Professional Education at the Harvard School of Public Health. Mr. Dowling grew up in Limerick, Ireland. He earned his undergraduate degree from University College Cork (UCC), Ireland, and his master’s degree from Fordham University. He also has honorary doctorates from Queen's University Belfast, University College Dublin, Hofstra University, Dowling College and Fordham University.
Biography
Xosé M Fernández trained in molecular biology and bioinformatics. A computational biologist with extensive experience in clinical research and practical innovations ranging from clinical trials to cancer research. He joined Institut Curie as Chief Data Officer in 2017 in this his role, he provides scientific, programmatic, and administrative leadership for a portfolio in data science to support the institutional mission of transforming the understanding and treatment of cancer. Dr Fernandez’s team is working with a wide range of partners from inside and outside the healthcare sector to bring the most advanced forms of big data and analytics to Institut Curie, enhancing areas such as clinical trials; improving the use of data, analytics, and digital engagement; and making internal processes more efficient.
Biography
https://www.bartscancer.london/staff/professor-jude-fitzgibbon/
Jude Fitzgibbon, PhD, is a Professor of Personalized Cancer Medicine at the Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London where he leads the Centre for Cancer Genomics and Computational Biology. His research is focused on the genetic and epigenetic changes responsible for the development and progression of leukaemia and lymphomas and the evaluation of therapeutic strategies to reverse these changes. His team has uncovered a highly complex pattern of lymphoma evolution, consistent with the existence of a common progenitor B cell from which each new episode of disease is thought to arise and has an internationally recognised programme on familial forms of myeloid leukaemia. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Genetics from Trinity College Dublin in 1989 before going on to receive his Doctor of Philosophy at University College London in 1993. He holds numerous leadership roles including the Chair of the UK’s National Cancer Research Institute Lymphoma Science Subgroup, the Chair of the Danish Cancer Grants Committee, is a member of the Blood Cancer UK Grant Committee, member of the Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC) international fellowship committee, is an Associate Editor for the British Journal of Haematology and a Male Change Champion, for the international alliance, Woman in Lymphoma and received a Special Commendation in the Cancer Research-UK Flame of Hope Awards for public engagement.
Will commence as VP in Haematology with Astra Zeneca in Sept 2022.
Biography
Barbara Fingleton Ph.D. is a tenured Associate Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and Surgery in the School of Medicine in Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. She has been running an independent research lab for the past 10 years and has trained multiple PhD students and post-docs. Dr. Fingleton earned her Ph.D. in Dublin, Ireland before moving to Nashville for post-doctoral training and her subsequent faculty position. Dr. Fingleton’s research program is centered around finding targets to thwart metastatic disease in solid tumors. She has served on the editorial boards for the AACR journals Cancer Research and Clinical Cancer Research, serves on study sections for NIH and DOD and is currently the Secretary of the Board of the Metastasis Research Society.
Biography
Dr. Forde is co-director of the division of upper aerodigestive malignancies and director of the thoracic oncology research program at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. He has led the development of immune checkpoint blockade for resectable cancers culminating in the recent FDA approval of neoadjuvant immuno-chemotherapy for stage 1-3 lung cancer, this approval was based on his 2018 and 2022 publications in the New England Journal of Medicine. He leads several international phase 1-3 clinical trials including the phase 3 DREAM3R trial of immuno-chemotherapy for mesothelioma - this study builds on his 2021 publication in Nature Medicine reporting the longest survival to date for patients with unresectable mesothelioma. Dr. Forde is principal investigator for the Johns Hopkins Immunobiology Biorepository and has published widely on molecular and immunologic correlates of response and resistance to immunotherapy for cancer including key co-authored publications in Nature, Nature Cancer and Cancer Discovery among >100 peer-reviewed manuscripts
Biography
Professor George Hanna is head of the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College and Consultant Upper Gastro-intestinal surgeon at Imperial College NHS Trust. Professor Hanna leads NIHR programme for point of care diagnostics in cancer and gastrointestinal diseases (NIHR London IVD). The current interests of his laboratory revolve around volatile organic compounds analysis for biomarker discovery and understanding the molecular drivers of volatile compounds in an attempt to develop non-invasive breath test to detect gastrointestinal cancers. His surgical research aims to develop competency assessment tools for training and quality assurance of surgical performance in randomised controlled trials.
Biography
Professor Jain is a Full Professor at Queens University Belfast and Consultant Clinical Oncologist at the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre. His PhD was in the use of gold nanoparticles as sensitisers for radiation therapy, his international fellowship was carried out at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto. He is an expert in advanced radiotherapy and systemic therapies for the treatment of localised and advanced prostate cancer. Professor Jain leads multiple clinical trials in Northern Ireland; his research interests include radiomic and genomic biomarkers to improve risk stratification in prostate cancer, the utilisation of nanotechnology to enhance the effects of radiation therapy, stereotactic radiotherapy and brachytherapy in high-risk prostate cancer and drug-radiotherapy combination studies in early metastatic disease.
He has been instrumental in introducing innovative healthcare to Northern Ireland including: transperineal prostate biopsies, high dose rate brachytherapy, gold fiducial makers, peri-rectal spacer gels and stereotactic radiotherapy for prostate cancer and oligometastases.
He is Chief Investigator of the SABRE study, a global phase III RCT investigating the use of SpaceOAR Vue in patients treated with stereotactic radiotherapy for prostate cancer. He is clinical lead for the PACE NODES trial which compares prostate only SBRT to prostate and nodal SBRT in high risk localised prostate cancer. This study will run at 25 UK and Irish cancer sites.
He is Co-Director of the Belfast-Manchester Movember/PCUK Prostate Cancer Centre of Excellence, a member of the NCRI Localised Prostate Cancer Clinical Research Group, a member of the ASCO Genitourinary Guidelines Advisory Group and past-Chair of the Irish Radiation Research Society.
Biography
Pernilla Lagergren is professor of Surgical Care Sciences at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and at Imperial College London, United Kingdom. Professor Lagergren is a registered nurse and holds a PhD in surgery. Professor Lagergren leads a multidisciplinary research group at Karolinska Institutet. At Imperial College London she is chairing the Healthcare Professional Academic Group (HPAG). Her main research area is cancer survivorship in patients with cancer of the upper gastrointestinal tract, with a focus on health-related quality of life and other patient-reported outcomes in patients who undergo surgery for oesophageal cancer. She is an elected member of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences (EACS) where she is involved in the Academy’s work on cancer survivorship.
Biography
Prof Mark Lawler (Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor of Digital Health, and Chair in Translational Cancer Genomics, Queen's University Belfast) is an internationally renowned scientist whose work has been recognised by numerous national/international awards. He is Scientific Director of DATA-CAN, the UK’s National Health Data Research Hub for Cancer and Chair of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership, an international collaborative employing data-driven approaches to improve outcomes for cancer patients. He is passionate about the use of data to provide the intelligence that underpins better care for our patients.
Mark has a strong commitment to patient-centred research and care and to addressing cancer inequalities. He was architect of the European Cancer Patient's Bill of Rights, launched in the European Parliament on World Cancer Day 2014. The Bill of Rights received The 2018 European Health Award, a prestigious award for partnerships that yield real health impact in Europe. Mark’s work on addressing inequalities formed the centrepiece in the development by the European Cancer Organisation (E.C.O) of the European Code of Cancer Practice, co-created by patients and health professionals, and launched (virtually) with EU Health and Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides in Brussels. Mark is a member of the Board of E.C.O and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Cancer Patient Coalition.
Mark’s work on Covid-19 and its impact on cancer services and cancer patients has received international acclaim. He co-chairs E.C.O’s Special Focussed Network on Covid-19 and cancer, which launched its 7-Point plan to Build Back Smarter from Covid. He presented data on Covid’s impact on cancer in Europe to the Europe Beating Cancer Committee in the European Parliament and launched E.C.O’s pan European Time To Act Campaign to ensure that Covid-19 does not stop us from tackling cancer. This work received the prestigious Royal College of Physicians Excellence in Patient Care Award.
In 2021, Mark received the Irish Association for Cancer Research’s Outstanding Contribution to cancer research award, for his pioneering work on cancer research and cancer care on the island of Ireland. In 2022, he was elected to Fellowship of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences /p>
Dr Anthony Letai graduated from Princeton University with and A.B. in Physics, then received his MD and PhD at the University of Chicago, completing clinical training in Hematology and Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. After a post-doctoral fellowship with Stanley Korsmeyer, since 2004 Dr. Letai has run a laboratory at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to study how apoptosis can be evaded by cancer cells. Key to these studies is a novel assay - BH3 profiling. He has led efforts to translate BCL-2, BCL-XL, and MCL-1 antagonists into the clinic. These include venetoclax, a BCL-2 antagonist approved by the FDA for CLL and AML and now being tested across nearly all blood cancers, in combination with other drugs and with immune-oncology agents. The laboratory is also testing whether BH3 profiling can be used as a broad predictive biomarker to assign clinical cancer therapy. In an attempt to unite others across the world who also pursue ex-vivo functional testing, in 2018, he founded the Society of Functional Precision Medicine, and serves as its President. He is a recipient of the European Cell Death Organization Career Award, the Smith Family Prize for Outstanding Scientific Contributions and the National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award.
Biography
Associate Professor at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Biomedical Sciences “M. Serio” of the University of Florence (Florence, Italy), Icro Meattini works as Clinical Oncologist since 2011 at the Radiation Oncology Unit of the Oncology Department at the Florence University Hospital, where is responsible for the Outpatient Clinics Unit, Clinical Trials Unit, and leader of the Clinical Oncology Group of the Breast Cancer Multidisciplinary Team. Active member of the European Society for Radiation Oncology (ESTRO), the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), and the Italian Association of Radiotherapy and Clinical Oncology (AIRO). He is actively involved in ESTRO and EORTC network, currently he is member of the Steering Committee of the EORTC Breast Cancer Group (BCG) and of the Radiation Oncology Scientific Council (ROSC), Chair of the Breast Cancer Group of AIRO and Chair of the Clinical Oncology Breast Cancer Group (COBCG) cooperative network. Authors of over 185 peer-reviewed international papers and PI/co-PI of several phase 2-3 trials, his main fields of interest are breast cancer, multimodal treatments, oligometastatic disease, health-related quality of life, cardiac prevention toxicity, hypofractionation, partial breast irradiation, clinical trials research.
Biography
Dr. E. Piaggio obtained the diploma of clinical biologist and the PhD in Immunology at the National University of Rosario, Argentine. She did her post-doctoral studies in France and actually is research director of INSERM. She directs the "Translational Immunotherapy team” at Institut Curie, in Paris. Her team is part of the first French Center for Cancer Immunotherapy. Her main contributions have been in the field of regulatory T-cell based immunotherapy of infectious diseases (Chagas' disease), autoimmunity (type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis/EAE), alloreactivity (GVHD and transplantation) and more recently, cancer. Her team is interested in the development of novel immunotherapies, translatable to patients. She is co-founder of Egle-Therapeutics, a biotech developing Treg-based immunotherapies.
Bibliography
Simon Oberst is Director of Quality and Accreditation, Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI). He was until recently Director of Clinical Development, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre; and concurrently Chair of the Accreditation and Designation Board of the OECI.
Simon is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales, and a specialist in quality systems and organisational development in cancer. After graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge, he worked in the London and Newcastle with KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers. After spells in industry and charities, he moved to being Director of Improving Cancer Services with the UK’s leading cancer patient charity, Macmillan Cancer Support.
As Director of Clinical Development for the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre for 10 years, Simon Oberst was working with University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospital leaders on plans to deliver a state of the art 25,000 M2 Cancer Research Hospital on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. The vision is to integrate teams of clinicians, biologists, mathematicians, physicists, chemists and engineers to develop innovative care pathways that diagnose cancer early and treat patients personally and precisely.
As chair of the Accreditation Board of OECI since 2015 he has overseen the accreditation of 50 of the leading Cancer Centres in Europe, as well as establishing consensus quality standards for cancer centres, and networks. He has been a key author on subjects such as: bridging research and clinical care – the comprehensive cancer centre. As Director of Quality and Accreditation for OECI, Simon will direct the quality and accreditation programmes as these grow within and outside Europe, and enable OECI’s involvement with some of the EU Actions in cancer arising from Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and Horizon Europe.
Biography
Catherine has been working in Cancer Care since qualifying in Cork University Hospital in 1993. She spent some time in University Hospital London and St Vincent’s Hospital Dublin before coming to St James’s Hospital in 2001. In 2002 she completed a 3 month clinical trials module in the National Cancer Institute in Washington DC. Following completion of her Masters in Clinical Practice (UCD) in 2010, Catherine had a secondment to Memorial Sloane Kettering in New York which evoked her keen interest in cancer survivorship. She completed her Advanced Practice Certificate (UCD) in 2017 and took up position as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner(ANP) in Cancer Survivorship in St James’s Hospital in the same year. The role involves providing a nurse-led service to patients with Lymphoma, Breast and Testicular cancers following the completion of their treatment in dedicated cancer survivorship clinics. Catherine has a keen interest in nursing research and has led on a number of local and International studies.
Biography
Prof O’Reilly graduated from the National University of Ireland (Galway) (BSc 1985, MB BCh BAO 1988, MD 1997) and completed basic specialist training in Trinity College Dublin (MRCPI 1991) and higher specialist training in Medical Oncology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and completed a PhD in Clinical Investigation at Johns Hopkins University where he was Assistant Professor of Medicine focusing on Phase I Drug Development. He was a Principal Investigator in the Gynecologic Oncology Group and on return to Ireland established Cancer Clinical Trials units in Waterford and Cork allowing patient participation in pivotal breast cancer trials such as RespondX, PALLAS, SOLE, and HERA. He is currently Consultant Medical Oncologist at Cork University Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at University College Cork. In 2020 was appointed Vice Clinical Lead of Cancer Trials Ireland and elected to the Executive Board of the Breast International Group in 2021. He is a member of the National Research Ethics Committee, the Advisory Council of the National Cancer Registry and the Early Drugs Taskforce of the Breast International Group.
From 2013-2021 he was National Specialty Director in Medical Oncology at the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and has co-developed an online multidisciplinary course in Cancer Medicine for General Practice with University College Cork. In 2021 he organised the first National Cancer Retreat and has instigated a National Green Cancer Clinical Trials Initiative with Cancer Trials Ireland. He is founding editor of the journal Cancer Professional. In the community, he is a founding trustee of Cork ARC Cancer Support House, a cofounder of the South Eastern Cancer Foundation, and has led and developed nurse education and financial hardship patient funds at CUH Charity, and the CUH-India appeal for Unicef in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In society, he has spoken at the European Parliament about the impact of the pandemic on patients and healthcare workers.
He has over 100 peer reviewed publications related to cancer therapeutics. Ongoing research projects at the present time include secondary prevention assessment in breast cancer survivors, the impact of expanded access programs in Oncology, cybersecurity and cancer care and the impact of litigation on breast cancer care in Ireland.
Bibliography
Dr Bettina Ryll is the current chair of the ESMO Patient Advocates Working Group (PAWG).
Dr. Ryll holds a medical degree from the Free University of Berlin, Germany and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from University College London, UK. After losing her husband to melanoma, she founded the Melanoma Patient Network Europe and developed a special interest in patient-centric clinical research, in particular, innovative trial designs and novel drug development concepts, such as MAPPS (medicines' adaptive pathways to patients), previously known as Adaptive Licensing. Lately, her focus has moved to sustainable healthcare models ensuring access to innovative therapies for cancer patients and incentives for sustainable innovation.
Dr. Ryll is involved in numerous initiatives promoting evidence-based advocacy. She is fascinated by the enormous potential and capacity of patient networks to both educate and support patients as well as to capture data at the primary data source – the patients themselves – and to generate evidence at a granular level non-accessible to outsiders.
Since 2015, Dr. Ryll has chaired the ESMO Patient Advocates Working Group, the first time this position has been held by a non-oncologist. The PAWG is responsible for the Patient Advocacy Track at the annual ESMO meeting, organises workshops of interest to the wider advocacy and medical community and has an advisory function for ESMO activities.
She has also been member of the ESMO Quality of Care Task Force since 2015.
Biography
Dr Stadler is Clinic Director of the Clinical Genetics Service with a primary appointment in Clinical Genetics and a secondary appointment in the Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She completed her medical training at Cornell University followed by internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and medical oncology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where her research focused on clinical cancer genetics and hereditary cancer syndromes. Dr. Stadler joined MSKCC in 2008, where she is now an Associate Attending Physician and is also appointed as an Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Her clinical focus is on the diagnosis, treatment, and management of patients and families with an inherited genetic predisposition to cancer. Her research interests focus on the identification of new cancer susceptibility genes through the use of genomic technologies and the development of novel approaches to cancer screening and prevention in high-risk families. She serves as co-PI of MSK’s tumor-normal IMPACT sequencing (12-245 PI: D. Solit) protocol overseeing the germline sequencing aspects of the study. She has been the PI of numerous projects with funding from the National Institute of Health, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Cycle for Survival, Marks Foundation, Starr Cancer Consortium, and the Romeo Milio Lynch Syndrome Foundation. She is also Associate Director of the Precision Interception and Prevention Program at MSKCC. She has published and lectured internationally on cancer genetic syndromes and has served as Co-Chair of the Genetics and Genomics Committee of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
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.
The 2022 Burkitt Awardee will be announced shortly.
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.
Burkitt Medal Awardee 2019 – Mina Bissell, PhD
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: aft er conception, “phenotype is dominant over genotype.” Bissell earned her doctorate from Harvard Medical, won an American Cancer Society fellowship, and soon aft er 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-aft er 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 board
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.
The International Cancer Conference is a biennial event hosted by Trinity College Dublin to bring together national and international clinical and scientific leaders from the cancer field. The theme of this conference is “Harnessing Fundamental, Translational and Clinical Research for the Benefit of Cancer Patients”. Sessions include cancer screening and prevention, molecular and precision oncology, cancer immunology and living with and beyond cancer. The Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute is Ireland’s first OECI (Organisation of European Cancer Institutes)-accredited cancer centre. As part of the conference an international leader in cancer research who is selected through a separate nominating process gives the Burkitt Lecture and is awarded with a Burkitt Medal.
Conference dinner is not included in the conference registration fee and needs to be booked separately (see Registration link). The dress code for the dinner is business attire.
To submit abstracts visit https://bytesizedhost.co.uk/tcd/
The deadline for abstract submission is Friday July 29th 2022
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 Dr Patricia Doherty on patricia.doherty@tcd.ie
If you are interested in sponsoring the 2022 International Cancer Conference, please contact:
Patricia Doherty
Tel: 00353 1 896 3376
Email: Patricia.Doherty@tcd.ie