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2012 UCD Conway Festival medal winner

Doctoral candidate, Kate Byrne was awarded the 2012 UCD Conway Festival of Research & Innovation gold medal, sponsored by Roche for her research to develop a mathematical model describing the signalling network activity controlling cancer cell migration.

Kate is carrying out her studies under the supervision of Professor Boris Kholodenko in Systems Biology Ireland, a SFI-funded Centre for Science, Engineering & Technology within UCD Conway Institute. Kate impressed the judging panel with her concise overview of this research project and its innovative potential.

Cell migration is vital for cancer cells to invade and metastasise. This process is governed by the dynamic interaction between two members of the RhoGTPase family of signalling proteins; Rac1 and RhoA, via an intermediary named PAK. Kate developed a mathematical model that describes how these two signalling proteins interact and validated this model using experimental data from a breast cancer cell line.

Commenting on the results, she said “We were able to arrest cell migration completely by causing PAK inhibition, which locked the cells into a high RhoA state. This arrest can be maintained at low inhibitor concentrations due to the bistable nature of the network.”

Early indications are that PAK is a desirable drug target given that cell migration is completely dependent on PAK activity. It may even be possible to reduce the dosage of the inhibitor after an initial treatment as, once PAK is inhibited, it remains locked in this state even if the concentration of the inhibitor is decreased.

This work was one of thirty research abstracts shortlisted for presentation to judging panels in the six moderated poster sessions held during the 2012 UCD Conway Festival of Research & Innovation in the Institute on September 20th.

After winning the systems biology moderated poster category, Kate joined the other five category winners for a Dragons’ Den style finale. Each presenter had ninety seconds in which to persuade the judges of the importance of their research and its innovation potential. 

Delegates at this year's conference heard plenary lectures from Professor Zena Werb, University of California San Francisco; Professor Finian Martin, University College Dublin and Eileen Furlong, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg. There were also invited presentations from Conway Fellows whose research programmes have resulted in high quality peer-reviewed publications, attracted substantial competitive funding awards or, in some cases, sparked the journey from bench to commercialisation.

There were new additions to this year’s festival programme schedule with two open forum sessions. The early career researcher open forum raised many of the issues facing young women in science today, and in academia in particular. This type of discussion on gender-science relationship is of strategic relevance in the context of the EC proposed framework for Horizon 2020. If we are to achieve the objectives of Europe2020, namely smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, the potential and the talent pool of women need to be used more extensively and more effectively.

The second open forum session on fostering industry-academia engagement was also particularly relevant given the increasing emphasis that funding agencies are placing on industry collaboration in academic research. Hearing the experiences of successful entrepreneurs such as Dr Conor Hanly, ResMed Inc and Dr Ivan Coulter, Sigmoid Pharma as well as practical advice from consultant Dr Elaine Harris, Innovation21 gave great insight into how scientists can work with industry successfully.

The primary sponsors of the 2012 UCD Conway Festival of Research & Innovation were Cruinn Diagnostics Ltd, Roche Diagnostics Ltd and Bio-Sciences.

Moderated poster category winners:
Systems Biology & 2012 UCD Conway medal: Kate Byrne, Bistability in the Rac1, PAK and RhoA network governing cancer cell motility

Neurobiology & Cell Biology : Monica de Gaetano, Conjugated linoleic acid regulates β2 integrin expression to suppress monocyte adhesion

 Cancer: Miguel Cavadas, The Repressor Element-1 Silencing Transcription Factor (REST) regulates the Hypoxia Inducible Factor (HIF) network through a novel negative feedback loop

Diabetes & Vascular Biology: Orla Finucane, Macrophage migration inhibitory factor deficiency ameliorates high-fat diet induced insulin resistance coincident with reduced macrophage infiltration, adipose tissue inflammation and hepatic steatosis

Infection, Inflammation & Repair: Richard Jennings, Putting on the brake: The GTPase RhoA in the neutrophil immune response

Biochemistry & Structural Biology: Xuejing Yu, The production of non-natural amino acids for drug industry using transaminases