Prostate Supernova image by Jenny Orr
Dr Deirdre Fanning of the UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research has been recognised by the American Association Cancer Research (AACR) for her research in validating a panel of protein biomarkers for prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the developed world. Over 2,200 Irish men throughout the country will be diagnosed with the disease this year. Dr Fanning’s work may ultimately improve patient outcomes by helping clinicians to identify those patients who would benefit from radical prostatectomy.
Dr Fanning received the AACR-AstraZeneca research award at a recent AACR special conference on prostate cancer in San Diego, California. No single biomarker exists that can accurately diagnose the presence of prostate cancer, identify the extent of the disease and predict how it will progress in an individual patient. Contemporary prostate cancer research is seeking to identify a panel of protein biomarkers that can act as a prognostic tool in parallel to clinical evaluation.
Dr Fanning is undertaking her MD within the research group led by UCD Conway Fellow, Professor R. William G. Watson as part of the Prostate Cancer Research Consortium (PCRC), an initiative established under Molecular Medicine Ireland to improve the detection, prognosis and treatment of the disease. This research is being funded through the Irish Cancer Society.
Commenting on the award, Professor Watson said: “This novel panel of markers were identified from our multi-disciplinary approach to biomarker discovery at the UCD Conway Institute, which has recently been published. The current validation study is an important step to bring these markers to clinical utilisation. In collaboration with our current international consortium partners in Austria, Australia and the US, we will now bring these markers into an international validation study.”
