Scientific research is the driving force behind humankind’s advancement, but how much do any of us actually know about it, or its nuances?
Here, Dr Denis Collins, a cancer research scientist at the National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology (NICB) at Dublin City University (DCU), gives us some insight into his work, talking us through an average day in the role.
What is your role within NICB?
I am an oncology research fellow and principal investigator running the cancer biotherapeutics programme at the NICB, DCU. The cancer biotherapeutics programme is part of the Molecular Therapeutics for Cancer group, led by Dr Norma O’Donovan and Prof John Crown.
If there is such a thing, can you describe a typical day in the job?
A typical day for me is spent in the NICB, divided between the office and the lab.
A day can consist of a mix of tasks, including lab work, supervision, meetings, paper drafting, grant writing, presentations, email correspondence, administration, teleconferences or lecturing. Multitasking means time management and planning, and weekly schedules are dictated by project timelines and priority deadlines.
The job can be a little seasonal. For instance, annual grant application deadlines mean long days writing at a computer with reduced lab time at various times of the year.
Today, correspondence was the first thing on the list. Once the emails were taken care of, we had our fortnightly lab meeting with updates on individual projects. The arrival of a new international student required administrative attention and time given to safety induction and training in basic cell culture techniques.
In the afternoon, I prepared cancer cell samples for analysis of cell signalling proteins by western blot and reverse phase protein array.
The afternoon and evening is the time I find writing the easiest so, following the lab work, I concentrated on revision of a manuscript, editing an abstract for a collaborative research application and this piece for Siliconrepublic.com.
What types of project do you work on?
The last 15 years have seen the development of targeted therapies for breast cancer. These drugs are designed to hit a target specific to certain breast cancers, therefore reducing side effects associated with classical chemotherapies. For example, antibody therapies like trastuzumab and pertuzumab are targeted therapies used for treating patients with breast cancer that over-express the HER2 protein.
A main focus of my work is examining the immune response to trastuzumab and pertuzumab in breast cancer. The goal is to find the combination of antibody therapy and HER2-targeting TKIs (tyrosine kinase inhibitors) such as lapatinib that will result in the best immune response in breast cancer patients.
Genomic instability and mutation is a hallmark of cancer. Mutations in genes can be a potent driver of the disease and can also render tumours resistant to targeted therapies. A project examining the impact of gene mutations on response to antibody therapies is also underway.
‘The importance of fostering good relationships, open communication and multidisciplinary networking would not have been as apparent to me in former positions’
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (such as ipilimumab and nivolumab) are a new class of chemotherapy, revolutionising cancer treatment. Immune checkpoint inhibitors activate cancer-specific white blood cells, potentially restarting the body’s own anti-cancer defences. Nicola Gaynor, a PhD student under my supervision, is examining the expression of PD-L1, an immune checkpoint protein, in multiple cancer types.
These projects use cancer cells grown in the lab, white blood cells and plasma from patients enrolled in Cancer Trials Ireland clinical trials, and data generated from next-generation sequencing of tumour DNA. The ultimate aim of our work is to improve breast cancer patient outcomes through translational research, identify biomarkers of response, and find new treatment strategies employing established and new therapies.
The projects above would not be possible without our collaborators in the Irish Cancer Society-funded research centre Breast-Predict, and funding from the Cancer Clinical Research Trust, the Irish Research Council and Roche.
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