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Conway Research Fellow wins 9th St Luke’s Young Investigator award

Conway Research Fellow, Dr Darran O’Connor has been awarded the 9th St Luke’s Young Investigator medal from the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland on Wednesday, 25th January 2012 for his scientific presentation on ‘Antibody based proteomics: Fast tracking molecular diagnostics in oncology’.

Darran was one of four early-stage career scientists shortlisted to present their research and his presentation focused on a protein named CART (cocaine-and-amphetamine-regulated transcript), a potential breast cancer biomarker.

This research is part of a body of work being carried out under the auspices of the Science Foundation Ireland-funded strategic research cluster, Molecular Therapeutics for Cancer Ireland. 

Dr O’Connor and his colleagues examined CART expression in breast cancer tissue from over 1,000 patients. They found that those patients with high levels of CART  had a significantly poorer outcome when treated with tamoxifen compared to those patients with zero or low levels of the protein.

Commenting on the work, Dr O’Connor said ”Identifying early stage breast cancer patients who need additional chemotherapy is a matter of intense clinical interest. We believe that CART profiling will facilitate the stratification of lymph node-negative breast cancer patients into high- and low-risk categories and allow for the personalisation of therapy.”

This is the second time that Dr O’Connor was nominated for the award, having previously been shortlisted in 2010.

Pictured (L-R): Dr James Jones, Editor in Chief IJMS; Prof Tom Walsh, Past President RAMI; Dr Darran O'Connor, winner of the 9th St Luke's Young Investigators award; Dr Ken O'Halloran, General Secretary RAMI.

References:
Brennan DJ*, O’Connor DP*, Laursen H, McGee SF, McCarthy S, Rexhepaj E, Culhane AC, Hewitt SM, Bernards R, Martin FM, Duffy MJ, Landberg G, Millikan RC, Crown JP, Jirström K & Gallagher WM. The Cocaine and Amphetamine Regulated Transcript mediates Ligand-Independent Activation of ERα and is an Independent Prognostic Factor in Node-Negative Breast Cancer. Oncogene 2011 Dec 5. doi: 10.1038/onc.2011.519.
*Equal Contribution

Brennan DJ*, O’Connor DP*, Rexhepaj E, Ponten F & Gallagher WM. Antibody-based proteomics: Fast-tracking molecular diagnostics in oncology. Nature Reviews Cancer, 2010 Sep;10(9):605-17. *Equal Contribution.