Team/Members of the group:

• Dr Claire Fergus, Transgenics Commercial Manager 
• Tania Bezak, Transgenics Commercial Manager
• Magda Ghanim, Postdoctoral fellow
• Callum McGreneghan, Postdoctoral fellow
• Fiona Roche, Postdoctoral fellow
• Lyubomyr Burtnyak, PhD student 
• Ben Shovlin, Research Assistant 

Close Collaborators:
Prof. John O’Leary 

Main Funders: 
Health Research Board, Leo Pharma 

Active research programmes: 
Gynaecological cancers have been associated with high rates of thrombosis which is exacerbated by pelvic surgery and chemotherapy. Identifying high risk patients can make prophylaxis more personalised minimising the risk of bleeding. Our work focusses on combining biomarkers for thrombosis with clinical risk factors to better predict thrombosis in these patients,  

Coagulation activation and thrombin formation are also thought to play a role in tumorigenesis and metastasis. Data from our group has shown that a key inhibitory pathway of blood coagulation, the aPC pathway is dysregulated in ovarian cancer. This is particularly pronounced in the rarer cancers eg  clear cell cancers. Using the DISCOVARY biobank, we are working to determine the role of this pathway in the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer which may lead to the development of prognostic markers and novel therapeutics in ovarian cancer.

Additional Information:
Dr Norris’s group have produced a patient information leaflet explaining the risk of thrombosis in gynaecological cancer patients. The leaflet has been distributed to all centres treating gynaecological cancer patients in Ireland and is available in all Irish Cancer Society Daffodil Centres. This initiative was funded by the Health Research Board under its knowledge exchange program (KEDS)