Team/Members of the group:
Dr Amara Naseer (Postdoctoral researcher) 
Maeve Kearney. PhD Student
Graham Kelly, PhD Student

Close Collaborators:
European Cancer Patient Coalition, Oncoradiomics SA 

Main Funders: 
EIT Health, Irish Cancer Society, Trinity College Dublin  

Active research programmes: 
Prof. Leech’s research group works in 3 main areas in the field of radiation oncology:

Radiomics: Radiomics is the high throughput extraction of imaging biomarkers from medical images.  There are more data hidden in medical images than the human eye can appreciate and using statistical methods, we can extract imaging biomarkers or ‘features from these images and use them for predicting, for example, response to radiation therapy or other endpoints.  I am currently preparing a Horizon Europe bid with an international consortium on this topic.

Patient and carer education: My group produced the EIT-Health funded project ‘Empowering European Patients in Radiation Oncology’ which educates patients about radiation oncology and empowers them to take part in shared decision making.  This course has been translated into 6 European languages and can be found at: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/radiation-therapy 

Guideline production: I have led international guidelines on head and neck radiation therapy with the European Society of Radiotherapy and Oncology and my group is currently funded by the Irish Cancer Society to produce consensus (including patient perspective) guidelines on the management of osteoradionecrosis for head and neck cancer patients

Additional Information:
Prof. Leech’s research is underpinned by the patient perspective.  Every project in my group is for and includes patients from the design through to the implementation and publication phases.