About AICRIstart
The AICRIstart programme is a Foundation Stone for the All-Island Cancer Research Institute (AICRI) and will build critical mass in Precision Cancer Medicine on the island of Ireland. In March 2022, the programme was awarded €4 million in funding under the HEA North South Research Programme.
Ten academic institutions (UCD, TCD, RCSI, TU Dublin, DCU, QUB, UU, NUIG, UL and UCC) are involved in the project and UCD is the administrative lead.
AICRIstart is an all-island doctoral and post-doctoral research training programme, which will create a unique network of excellence in cancer research, as well as an exceptional training environment for emerging researchers.
Ten PhD Students (one per academic institution) have started to work on innovative projects in precision cancer medicine over four years. The majority of the PhD students began to work on their projects in the autumn of 2022. PhD students will spend 12 months outside of their host institution (which is supported by a mobility grant, and can be broken into different stays). Partner institutions for research visits can be any of the other AICRI-affiliated academic institutions indicated above, as well as relevant industry or other third parties (e.g. clinical sites), as needed.
Ten AICRIstart PhD students met online on 15th March 2023 with AICRIstart’s Project Manager to get to know each other better.
Top Ten PhD Projects in the 10 Academic Institutions
Institution: Queen’s University Belfast
Title of Project: Use of tumour associated antigen nanoformulations to drive potent anti-tumour CD4 and CD8 T cell responses
Principal Investigator: Prof Chris Scott
Email address: c.scott@qub.ac.uk
Institution: Ulster University
Title of Project: Developing epigenetic synergistic drug combinations with albendazole in paediatric acute myeloid leukaemia
Principal Investigator: Dr Kyle Matchett
Email address: k.matchett@ulster.ac.uk
Institution: University of Galway
Title of Project: NEO-TIL – Developing durable novel TIL therapies for solid tumours with high tumour mutational burden (TMB-H)
Principal Investigators: Dr Laura Barkley and Prof Michael Kerin
Email address: laura.barkley@nuigalway.ie
Institution: University of Limerick
Title of Project: Identifying metabolic vulnerabilities to designing new treatment options for aggressive KRAS driven non-small cell lung cancer
Principal Investigator: Dr Catríona Dowling
Email address: Catriona.Dowling@ul.ie
Institution: University College Cork
Title of Project: Microproteins and long, non-coding RNAs as novel biomarkers in ovarian cancer
Principal Investigator: Dr Kellie Dean
Email address: k.dean@ucc.ie
Institution: Trinity College Dublin
Title of Project: A Functional Investigation of Non-Coding Driver Mutations in Breast Cancer and Associated Pathophysiological Impact
Principal Investigator: Prof Adrian Bracken
Email address: Adrian.Bracken@tcd.ie
Institution: Dublin City University
Title of Project: Exploration of therapeutic response prediction to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in homologous recombination deficient (HRD) pancreatic cancer
Principal Investigator: Dr Naomi Walsh
Email address: naomi.walsh@dcu.ie
Institution: Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Title of Project: Molecular dissection of gene co-expression module associated with brain metastasis
Principal Investigator: Dr Damir Vareslija
Email address: damirvareslija@rcsi.ie
Institution: University College Dublin
Title of Project: Exploring Microenvironmental Changes in Early-Stage Breast Cancer Influencing Immune Infiltration and Reaction
Principal Investigator: Prof William Gallagher
Email address: william.gallagher@ucd.ie
Institution: Technological University Dublin
Title of Project: Chemical imaging and transcriptomic data fusion for rapid precision subtyping and recurrence prediction in colorectal cancer (CHEM-SENTIENCE)
Principal Investigator: Dr Aidan Meade
Email address: aidan.meade@tudublin.ie
The 1st AICRIstart Symposium was held in the University of Galway from 30 November - 1 December 2023. This in-person event brought together the AICRIstart PhD students and Postdoctoral Fellows, their associated Principal Investigators and other key stakeholders, including cancer patients, clinicians and Cancer Trials Ireland. Dr Louise Callinan, Head of Research at the HEA, presented at this event along with many other excellent and engaging speakers. See the full agenda here