Investigators > Annette Byrne > Research

We are concerned with the pre-clinical development of novel anti-cancer therapeutics with a particular interest in applying a multi-modality molecular imaging approach towards elucidation of drug mechanism of action in vivo. We also have a particular interest in the identification and screening of novel targets in vivo with specific expertise in identifying anti-angiogenic targets. Technologies include optical and nuclear imaging approaches and the development of imageable disease models.

GLIOTRAIN: Exploiting Glioblastoma intractability to address European research training needs in translational brain tumour research, cancer systems medicine and integrative multi-omics

OBJECTIVE: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most frequent, aggressive and lethal of all brain tumours. 85% of patients die within two years. Thus, new treatment options are urgently required.  To address this deficit, RCSI is leading a major new programme “GLIOTRAIN”  that aims to identify new therapeutic strategies, while implementing state of the art genomics and systems medicine approaches to unravel resistance mechanisms. Here, we introduce the GLIOTRAIN initiative.

METHODS: The GLIOTRAIN consortium (launched in September 2017) comprises 23 international organisations including leading international academics, clinicians, private sector and not-for-profit partners across the fields of brain tumour biology, multi-omics, drug development, clinical research, bioinformatics, computational modelling and systems biology.  Fifteen GLOTRAIN sub-projects  will employ systems medicine, integrative multi-‘omics and translational cancer biology  platforms accessing clinically relevant  models and patient data-sets. GLIOTRAIN will identify and interrogate novel therapeutic strategies for application in GBM, while simultaneously implementing state of the art next generation sequencing to unravel disease resistance mechanisms. The programme will implement systems-based analysis of known contributors of disease progression, as well as perform unbiased molecular profiling and computational modelling. GLIOTRAIN  will address currently unmet translational research and clinical needs in the neuro-oncology field by interrogating innovative therapeutic strategies and improving the mechanistic understanding of disease resistance. GLIOTRAIN has received funding from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme (Grant Agreement No. 766069)