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International award for Conway cancer researcher

Conway Clinical Fellow, Professor Joe Duffy , UCD School of Medicine & Medical Science and St Vincent’s University Hospital is the recipient of the 2012 Abbott Award of the International Society of Oncology and BioMarkers (ISOBM). This award is made annually to investigators who have made an outstanding contribution in the field of basic or clinical oncology.

Professor Duffy has made several important contributions to cancer research and has published in excess of 100 papers in international peer-reviewed journals on this topic. One of his main contributions was the development of a test for identifying patients with breast cancer who may not need chemotherapy. This test, which involves measurement of the urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) marker, is now recommended for clinical use by several expert groups including the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Professor Duffy presented his award winning plenary lecture entitled The War on Cancer: Are We Winning? at the 40th ISOBM Anniversary Congress in Jerusalem, Israel during October 13- 17, 2012.

Previous winners of this award have included R. Bast (Houston) for the discovery and pioneering studies on the ovarian cancer marker, CA 125; P. Gold (Montreal) for the discovery and early clinical studies on CEA; R. Levy (Stanford) for his work on the immunotherapy of cancer; G. Abelev/Y Tatarinov (Moscow) for their discovery of AFP and D. Goldenbeg (Newark) for his work on radiotargeting of tumours.

Professor Duffy has previously received several awards including the St Luke’s Medal Lecture of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, the National Committee for Biochemistry Award Medal Lecture of the Royal Irish Academy, and the Conway Review Medal Lecture of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland. He is currently Chairman of the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (USA) Panel for the preparation of guidelines on the use of biomarkers in breast cancer and Head of the European Group on Tumour Markers (EGTM) Gastrointestinal Focus Group for the preparation of guidelines on the use of biomarkers in colorectal cancer.