DCU Life Sciences Institute announces PhD funded through Educational Trust
The positions were offered to top scoring candidates from a shortlist of twelve following interviews. The projects will be supervised by a range of researchers from across the DCU Life Sciences Institute.
Prof Anne Parle-McDermott, Director of the DCU Life Sciences Institute said
“After a rigorous selection process, we are pleased to have secured such excellent PhD students. Our mission to ‘Transform Challenges into Impact’ is more than evident in the selected projects which are addressing challenges in Cancer, Tuberculosis, and Wound infections.”
In one of three funded PhDs announced by the LSI this week, Órla Cremen will investigate immune related side effects of anti-cancer treatment under the supervision of Dr Denis Collins and Dr Neil Conlon.
This PhD project aims to investigate and manage immune-related side effects associated with antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), a new type of drug treatment that is used to treat a variety of cancers. While ADCs effectively target cancer cells, they can also cause harmful immune interactions, leading to the release of potent drugs in immune cells instead of cancer cells. The project will explore mechanisms behind these immune interactions and evaluate how certain immune-modulating drugs might reduce side effects without compromising the anti-cancer efficacy of ADCs. We hope that this research can give insights to improve the quality of life for people with cancer.
Dr Neil Conlon and Dr Denis Collins, the co-supervisors of the project, said “We are delighted to welcome Órla Cremen to the LSI, DCU, and excited to launch this research project”.
Both Collins and Conlon’s recent work in the area has been well publicised, with coverage in Silicon Republic and the Irish Independent respectively.
Cian Ennis will be undertaking a PhD entitled “Applying Genomics to the Challenge of Ending Tuberculosis in Ireland” which will be funded through a scholarship secured by the Research Development and Support Office. Ennis’ project will be supervised by Dr Ronan O’Toole and Dr Gaetan Thilliez.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of death worldwide due to infectious disease with 1.3 million mortalities in 2022 according to the World Health Organization. The growing problem of multi-drug resistance (MDR) is making the disease more difficult to treat with fewer therapeutic options available. New tools need to be applied to reverse the incidence of TB and MDR. Computational biology represents a powerful set of technologies which can detect antibiotic resistance in clinical isolates of the causative pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis and map the transmission of this microorganism in populations. The aim of this DCU Life Science Institute funded PhD is to track the international movement of thousands of isolates of M. tuberculosis in tandem with their acquisition of antibiotic resistance mutations using a combination of computational genomic and epidemiological analyses.
Principal investigator on the project, Dr. Ronan O’Toole said
“This approach can potentially map global networks of M. tuberculosis and help determine whether locally-emergent versus internationally-translocated strains are the main driver of MDR among TB cases in different countries including Ireland. The project may inform efforts to strengthen the control of TB and we are delighted to have recruited a high calibre PhD student, Cian Ennis, for this research.”
Muhammad Shehroz will work on a project investigating wound infections with volatile organic compounds. He will be supervised by Dr Linda Holland, Dr Aoife Morrin, and Dr Emma Finlay.
The positions were offered to top scoring candidates from a shortlist of twelve following interviews.