Therapies to target cancer cell growth

Prof Rosemary O'Connor, a specialist in cell biology at UCC, is one of a number of leading Irish scientists leading the battle against cancer. She is developing targeted therapies that can inhibit the growth of cancers of all kinds.

There are still some types of cancer which are not receptive to any drug treatment. The focus of Prof O'Connor's team is on insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I) systems that cells use to communicate with their environment.

IGF, a protein structure similar to insulin, plays a role in the promotion of cell growth and the inhibition of cell death and is regarded as important for the regulation of a number of diseases, including cancer.

"We're trying to understand how these signal systems work and trying to find new parts that we can inhibit," she explains. Some elements have been identified by research teams in UCC working with scientists in other countries, but there is still some way to go.

The first generation of inhibitors is on trial but not commercially available, and work is beginning on developing the next generation.

Prof O'Connor, who presented her research to Science Foundation Ireland's science summit in Dublin yesterday, started this work when she was employed by a biotechnology company in Boston. "Work like this requires enormous resources and there aren't enough people in Ireland for such a task, which is why it's important that the work we do here is internationally relevant."