INNOVATION PROFILE: Cancer research at NUI Galway:FOR REASONS which are still a matter of conjecture and research, the people in the west of Ireland have significantly higher rates of breast and prostate cancer than the rest of the Irish population.

So many families in the west of Ireland have been affected by these cancers that it has proved to be a catalyst for an ambitious programme of research based at NUI Galway.

NUI Galway identified biomedical science and engineering as a major priority as far back as the 1990s with a view, not to “blue-skies” thinking, but to bringing forward practical applications which will benefit people suffering from cancer and other intractable illnesses.

The National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science (NCBES) set up at the turn of the millennium is the present hub of an endeavour to understand cancer – the most malignant of all foes.

In both prostate cancer and breast cancer, two of the commonest forms of cancer in Ireland, researchers at NUI Galway are attempting to develop treatments which will go some way to treating those patients who respond poorly to existing therapies.

The teams working on cancer at NUI Galway have access to an estimated one million people through UCHG, which is one of the eight centres of excellence for cancer in Ireland and the only one in the west. There is also a well-established bio-banking system which is a valuable source of tissue for testing new therapies.

The scale of the ambition in biomedicine is exemplified in plans for a €11.5 million Clinical Research Facility/Translational Research Facility in a four-storey building on the grounds of UCHG, construction on which is due to start this year.

It will ensure that patients get access to the newest treatments being developed locally.

A sign of NUI Galway’s growing success in the field of cancer research is the recent award given by the Irish Cancer Society to Dr Róisín Dwyer for her work in developing stem cells which carry cancer drugs to the site of breast tumours.

Successful experiments with cancer cells in the laboratory on mice have shown that the stem cells deliver the drugs to the site of the tumour successfully. Such a breakthrough, if repeated on humans, could lead to breast cancer therapies which are less invasive and more successful than current therapies.

Dr Dwyer’s team can see the drug is successful using an imaging system developed in partnership with the University of Arizona.

The approach has been shown to reduce tumours to a fifth of their original size in mice and though a human treatment is a long way off, there have been no side-effects at all.

Galway has long had a tradition in breast-cancer research, stretching back to the foundation of the National Breast Cancer Research Institute (NBCRI) in the city more than 20 years ago.

This was set up by a group of volunteers at a time when breast cancer was a much more deadly disease than it is now, although it is still a major killer.

Like other Irish universities, NUI Galway has developed a tight-knit approach between town and gown, but it is not just the town of Galway but the whole region that is involved.

Recently, the NBCRI handed over a cheque for €1 million for the Clinical Research Facility. Money has been raised from many quarters, ranging from individuals who just want to help out to the Taoiseach, who has participated in many fundraising events.

NBCRI medical director Prof Michael Kerin says the elevated levels of breast cancer in the west of Ireland are a major focus of their studies.

One of the strategies of the research is to be able to assess the risks of breast cancer through the individual genetic profile of the women involved.

“We’ve identified a lot of genetic aberrations specific to the west of Ireland population, which are tiny changes in the chromosomes,” he explained.

He believes such an approach might mean that a “broad brush” breast screening programme could be replaced by something more targeted.

Last year NUI Galway with the support of the Galway University Foundation established a Prostate Cancer Institute directed by Prof Frank Sullivan. Prof Sullivan is at the coal-face of treatment in the field, seeing between 10 and 15 men a week who have been diagnosed with the condition.

Though outcomes are good for men who are diagnosed early, it is often forgotten that some 550 Irish men die from the disease every year. Most of those die from metastasized prostate cancer which has spread from the prostate organ to the bone.

Prof Sullivan and the director of laboratory research Dr Sharon Glynn, who previously worked at the US National Cancer Institute, are engaged in a worldwide effort to find out why cancer metastasizes (spreads) to the bone and on to other organs in the body.

Dr Glynn explains: “If you can understand that interaction, if there is a particular receptor that facilitates that reaction, you can potentially make a drug against it.”

It is, as Prof Sullivan says, “an enormous challenge”. There are already effective treatments for metastasized prostate cancers, but it can always return and there is no cure.

At present, the institute is testing two drugs from a German company called Elara and an American company called Cognosci based in North Carolina.

The researchers are also looking at potential biomarkers as to why certain men are easily cured of prostate cancer and others die from the disease.

Prof Frank Giles, the newly appointed director of the clinical research facility in Galway, says it is a tremendous time to be involved in cancer research. He is currently involved with a two-pill trial for a rare but devastating type of cancer called meleofibrosis (a form of leukemia).

NUI Galway is involved in medical research at a time when therapies are moving from a “one-size-fits-all approach” to approaches based on the genetic make-up of individuals.

“Our role is to deliver therapies that work and are seen to work. It is an exciting time from the patients’ point of view, a more productive time than we have ever seen before,” he said.

“What’s on our list of protocols are beginning to include viruses redirected against cancers, our own stem cells and vaccines which have changed the behaviour of infectious diseases. We have the same ambitions in cancer.”

Prof Kerin believes the work being carried out at NUI Galway is comparable with anywhere in the world.

“We have a process in place where we are trying to bring the whole therapeutic and research strategy around cancer to marry up the clinical services with the science,” he said. “That is really working. It is taking off here better than any place, in my view, in the British Isles.”