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Sep'12 Conway Festival Medalist
Mon, 20 August, 20122012 UCD Conway Festival medal winner
SBI student 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.
SBI was lucky enough to have another up and coming researcher, Miquel Cavadas, win an award in the moderated poster session. Miquel is another SBI PhD
candidate working with post doctoral researcher Alex Cheong in Cormac Taylor's research group.
Moderated poster category winners:
Systems Biology & 2012 UCD Conway medal: Kate Byrne, "Bistability in the Rac1, PAK and RhoA network governing cancer cell motility"
Cancer: Miguel Cavadas, "The Repressor Element-1 Silencing Transcription Factor (REST) regulates the Hypoxia Inducible Factor (HIF) network through a novel negative feedback loop"