Irish Cancer Society researcher shines at RCSI Research Day

The RCSI in Dublin held their annual Research Day on Wednesday, March 7, with cancer research to the fore of the projects showcased.

Among the research highlighted was the work of Louise Walsh, an Irish Cancer Society-funded PhD student at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, RCSI. Louise’s work, under the supervision of Principal Investigators Dr Tríona Ní Chonghaile and Dr Darran O'Connor, discovered a new potential treatment to target an under-studied form of breast cancer.

Their study found that patients who did not respond well to treatment had high levels of a protein called BRD3 in their tumours. The research team then showed that combining two existing drugs may be a potential therapeutic strategy to treat this form of breast cancer.

In a type of breast cancer called invasive lobular carcinoma, 1 in 3 patients do not respond well to traditional anti-hormonal treatment options. These patients are described as having 'resistant' cancer. Invasive lobular breast cancer is under-studied compared to other types of breast cancer, however, if it was taken as a cancer type on its own it would be the sixth most common cancer in women.

Dr Tríona Ní Chonghaile commented: "Currently, there are limited treatment options for breast cancer patients who do not respond well to traditional treatment. This study has identified a promising new potential treatment for patients with resistant invasive lobular breast cancer. We found that using two drugs in combination resulted in a greater increase in cancer cell death. These results are an important finding to inform future research to further understand this type of breast cancer and to improve treatment options."

The research is funded by Breast Cancer Now, the European Commission under the FP7 Health programme RATHER (ratherproject.com) and the Irish Cancer Society Collaborative Cancer Research Centre BREAST-PREDICT (breastpredict.com).

For further information on RCSI Research Day 2018 visit: rd.rcsi.ie