Irish Cancer Society Awards 2024
The annual Irish Cancer Society Awards were held recently to highlight some of the truly excellent work being done by Irish Cancer Society funded researchers in Ireland.
We were delighted to see the prize for "PhD of the Year" go to POI PhD researcher Chowdhury Arif Jahangir, who's research looks at tissue biomarkers in early-stage breast cancer. Speaking on his work, Chowdhury Arif Jahangir said: “My work focuses on a biomarker panel for early-stage breast cancer patients. Breast cancer patients are often prescribed chemotherapy after surgery to prevent cancer from returning to the body. In most cases, however, conventional tests in hospitals alone are not enough to reliably predict the likelihood of tumour reappearance. Therefore, many early-stage breast cancer patients who will not benefit from chemotherapy, still have to undergo this toxic treatment, with considerable side-effects.
“To solve this problem, our lab has identified a panel of tissue biomarkers. In this case, measuring the abundance of these biomarkers in the patient’s biopsy samples can help us to successfully differentiate between high-risk patients who may stand to benefit from chemotherapy and low-risk patients who do not. Our hope is that through this testing, we will be able to prevent some patients from experiencing the often debilitating side effects of chemotherapy. ”
We were also delighted to see Dr. Arman Rahman featured as part of the winning team of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Champion of the Year Award. Alongside his colleagues, Arman worked to include under-represented voices from the Bangladeshi community in ovarian cancer research in UCD. We work closely with Arman each year on our annual Invisible Spectrum event, which also seeks to promote dialogue between minority communites and researchers.
Arif and Arman were joined by Senior Researcher of the Year Award Winner, Dr Luke Jones (SBI, UCD) and Dr Erin Crowley, who won Support Staff of the Year Award.
Congratulations again to all winners!
* The quote and photos above was originally featured in a news article from the Irish Cancer Society which can be found here
