CLuB Annual Symposium 2025
Each year CLuB holds an Annual Symposium which is an opportunity to showcase the collaborative efforts of the consortium partners in cancer research, and includes scientific and lay presentations from CLuB-funded researchers. The first event took place in Dublin in 2023, and CLuB hosted its second Annual Symposium at Queen’s University Belfast in October 2024. The 2025 Annual CLuB Symposium took place on Friday 12 December and was hosted by Dr Pilib Ó Broin at the University of Galway.
The programme opened with a presentation by Dr Eimear Dolan, Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering, University of Galway on ‘Long-term access to the peritoneal cavity to understand and treat ovarian cancer'. This was followed by presentations by CLuB Researchers on their work:
Mr Michéal Ryan, PhD Candidate: 'The development of a blood test for improving the diagnosis and monitoring of Breast Cancers’
Dr Alex McIntyre, Postdoctoral Researcher: 'MeDIP-seq of ascites uncovers Integrin A4 as a Tumour Suppressor Gene silenced by DNA methylation and PRC2 in Ovarian Cancers'
Dr Syed Umbreen, Postdoctoral Researcher: 'Using Organoids as Patient Avatars to support Liquid Biopsy Based Assays'
Dr Brian Henderson, Postdoctoral Researcher: 'Screen - Scan - Select - Sequence: Single-Cell CTC Sequencing in Ovarian Cancer’
Ms Faye Lewis, PhD Candidate: 'Circulating tumour cell detection in epithelial ovarian cancer’
Top row L-R: Dr Brian Henderson, Ms Faye Lewis; Centre: Dr Alex McIntyre; Bottom row L-R: Mr Michéal Ryan, Dr Syed Umbreen
In the afternoon CLuB postdoctoral researcher Dr Stephen Smith led a Bioinformatics workshop on 'Using cBioPortal to analyse cancer genomics data’. This was followed by an Invited speaker, Dr Gregory Wheeler, Assistant Professor in Bioinformatics, University of Galway who presented on 'Personalised liquid biopsy for early recurrence detection in paediatric brain tumours'. Bright Sparks awardees (more on this here) gave an update on their work, and the final presentation was 'Mesenchymal stromal cell extracellular vesicles for immunomodulation and tissue regeneration' by Invited speaker Dr Meadhbh Brennan, Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering, University of Galway.
L-R: Mr Michéal Ryan & Dr Alex McIntyre; Dr Szilárd-Krisztián Belényesi & Ms. Faye Lewis; Dr Stephen Smith leading the Bioinformatics workshop; Ms Volga M. Saini, Dr Christina Cahill & Ms Hannah O’Toole.
Invited speakers Dr Eimear Dolan, Dr Gregory Wheeler and Dr Meadhbh Brennan
Thank you to everyone who presented and attended, to Dr Ó Broin and the University of Galway for hosting it, and to the HEA for funding the work of CLuB under North South Research Programme.