Urological Cancers, Molecular Cancer Biology, Radiation Biology, Drug-Radiation Treatment Combinations
Molecular and Precision Oncology
Team/Members of the group:
Ms Amy Kinsella, PhD student
Professor Thomas Lynch, Urology Clinical Lead
Main Funders:
SFI, Irish Cancer Society, Trinity College Dublin
Active research programmes:
Professor Marignol’s lab focuses on growing solutions for the optimal destruction of cancer cells (www.marignol-lab.org) . The body of work expands across three branches:
Branch 1 focuses on the barriers to cancer cell destruction. My lab has extensively examined the impact of tumour hypoxia. Striving to further elucidate the molecular response driving treatment resistance, the lab created a unique isogenic model of radioresistant prostate cancer through repeated exposure to fractionated radiation doses.
Branch 2 focuses on predicting cancer cell destruction. My lab has cross-examined the molecular response to hypoxia and ionising radiation to identify key drivers of treatment resistance in prostate cancer cell lines. In prostate cancer patient biopsies, the presence of these markers was associated with poor response to radiation therapy.
Branch 3 focuses on innovation in cancer cell destruction. Earlier work produced gene therapy vectors and ongoing work examines gene silencing strategies for the therapeutic manipulation of the molecular response to hypoxia and ionising radiation. This work has attracted partnership with nanomaterials research terms to advance the development of diagnostic and therapeutic anti-cancer strategies.