The Irish Cancer Society was delighted to award Claire Hughes with one of our 2020 Translational Biomedical Research Summer Studentships; unfortunately, due to Covid-19 restrictions Claire’s project was postponed until summer 2021, having just completed a BSc in Cell and Molecular Biology in UCD. Claire worked under the supervision of Dr Sharon O’Toole in Trinity College Dublin, investigating “Cellular Senescence: A target for disruption in ovarian cancer”.

Claire gave us an overview of her research project:

"In Ireland, over 400 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, with 65% dying within 5 years of their diagnosis. Ovarian cancer is treated with two chemotherapy drugs, carboplatin and paclitaxel. However, despite these treatments, ovarian cancer can often come back (recurrence). When ovarian cancer recurs, it may not respond to treatment (resistance). This resistance to treatment is a major cause of the significant mortality rate of ovarian cancer.

"A number of recent studies in ovarian cancer identified that when patients have low levels of a protein called MAD2, their cancer is going to come back quicker than others and they may not survive as long. Suppression of the MAD2 protein is a mechanism used by cancer cells to become resistant to the chemotherapy drug, paclitaxel. Metformin is a drug historically used to treat diabetes, however it may play a role in overcoming this resistance to paclitaxel. Furthermore, metformin has already been shown to enhance survival rates in ovarian cancer. We think that specific subsets of patients with low levels of the MAD2 protein will benefit especially from use of metformin in conjunction with normal chemotherapy.

"For my research project, I grew ovarian cancer cells in the lab that have low levels of the MAD2 protein. I treated these ovarian cancer cells with different amounts of metformin and established the amount of metformin required to kill the cancer cells. I also established that when the cancer cells are treated with small amounts of metformin, this increases the activity of the cancer cells when compared with cancer cells that received no treatment. The next step for this research would involve treating these cancer cells with metformin in conjunction with the chemotherapy, paclitaxel to determine if the combination of these two drugs can stop these cancer cells becoming resistant to paclitaxel."

Claire will be continuing her research, as she has recently started her Ph.D. project. We look forward to following Claire’s research journey in years to come!

This programme gives undergraduate students the insight into life in a high-quality research environment, Claire especially learned the importance of biobanking:

“I learned about the importance of biobanks, and how precious patient samples are for translational cancer research. This was an incredible learning experience, feeling immense gratitude and appreciation for the patient's choice to donate a sample to research at an extremely difficult time in their life.”

Claire found the experience extremely valuable in applying and preparing for her PhD:

“The laboratory research experience I gained during this summer studentship has prepared me exceptionally well for my PhD in ovarian cancer… the grant writing process, as well as successfully obtaining this summer studentship no doubt played a role in successfully obtaining my PhD scholarship. For this, I am incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity to undertake this studentship which has led me into the career in ovarian cancer research that I aspired to for so long”.

The Irish Cancer Society is delighted that Claire found the summer studentship so valuable, and we wish Claire all the best with her Ph.D!