Launch of the ARC Hub for Therapeutics
Research Spotlight
Dec 2025
A major new national initiative, the €31.6 million ARC Hub for Therapeutics, has been officially launched, marking a significant milestone for Ireland’s biomedical research and innovation ecosystem and reinforcing the strategic role of Systems Biology Ireland and University College Dublin in translating discovery science into new therapies.
Funded through Research Ireland’s Accelerating Research to Commercialisation (ARC) Programme, with co-funding from the Government of Ireland and the European Union via the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the ARC Hub for Therapeutics is designed to accelerate the development of breakthrough biomedical research into commercially viable therapies, licences and spin-out companies.
Hosted by Trinity College Dublin, the national Hub brings together leading expertise from University College Dublin and RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, creating a collaborative pipeline from academic discovery to market-ready therapeutics. The initiative builds on an existing portfolio of approximately 22 translational research projects spanning areas such as gene and RNA therapies, oncology, vaccines, small-molecule drugs, haemostasis, inflammatory diseases and advanced therapy medicinal products.
UCD occupies a prominent leadership position within the ARC Hub, with Prof. William Gallagher appointed Academic Deputy Director, alongside Prof. Catherine Godson (UCD School of Medicine), Prof. Keith Murphy (UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science) and Prof. Siobhán McClean (UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science) serving as co-PIs.
SBI's internationally recognised expertise in systems biology, precision medicine, biomarker discovery and data-driven therapeutics also play a major role, with SBI researchers leading on two projects within the Hub's overall portfolio.
One such project, RAF-RAS Pathway Inhibition, is led by Prof. Jens Rauch and Prof. Walter Kolch alongside Research Scientist Andrew Aylward. Hyperactivation of the RAS-RAF signalling pathway underpins tumour growth in diverse cancer types, and the project aims to inhibit RAF and RAS signalling by targeting critical scaffold proteins, disrupting the oncogenic signalling at its core. This approach seeks to move beyond traditional therapies to novel strategies that can impact cancers driven by RAS/RAF dysregulation, which has been a long-standing therapeutic challenge in oncology.
Another SBI-anchored initiative, the Small Molecule Platform for Resistant Cancers, focuses on highly resistant and aggressive cancers. Led by Prof. Boris Kholodenko and Prof. Oleksii Rukhlenko, and supported by Researcher Dr. Thomas Sevrin, this project is developing novel combinations of small molecule compounds that act synergistically to deliver enhanced treatment performance while reducing toxicity. Using advanced in silico simulations for compound optimisation and potency prediction, the work exemplifies the power of systems-level modelling to guide drug discovery, a key area of strength for SBI researchers.
The ARC Hub for Therapeutics provides a powerful new platform for SBI and UCD researchers to translate world-class science into tangible societal and economic outcomes, amplifying the impact of Irish research and enabling discoveries to reach patients, industry and global markets more rapidly than ever before.
You can hear directly from some of the ARC Hub's leaders in their launch video below.
Read more about SBI researchers' ground breaking work in our series of "Spotlight" articles