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From Target-Breast to Target-Melanoma Prof. William M. Gallagher

Marie Curie IAPP/ITN 29 th September 2010, Royal Irish Academy. From Target-Breast to Target-Melanoma Prof. William M. Gallagher Vice-Principal of Research and Innovation, UCD College of Life Sciences Associate Professor of Cancer Biology , UCD School of Biomolecular & Biomedical Science

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From Target-Breast to Target-Melanoma Prof. William M. Gallagher

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  1. Marie Curie IAPP/ITN 29th September 2010, Royal Irish Academy From Target-Breast to Target-Melanoma Prof. William M. Gallagher Vice-Principal of Research and Innovation, UCD College of Life Sciences Associate Professor of Cancer Biology, UCD School of Biomolecular & Biomedical Science Conway Fellow, UCD Conway Institute Co-Founder/Chief Scientific Officer, OncoMark Ltd. william.gallagher@ucd.ie

  2. Tumour Growth and Spread Intravital Microscopy HT1080 fibrosarcoma tumour cells Courtesy of Prof. Robert Hoffman (Anti-Cancer Inc.)

  3. Biomarkers in Cancer Management

  4. Target-Breast: Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnership ToK Programme (FP6) • 3 academic centres • UCD • Lund U. • NKI • 2 industrial partners • SlidePath • Agendia • Focus on converting omic datasets into clinically relevant assays www.targetbreast.com

  5. Lessons Learned and Comments - I • Programme was of considerable value to consolidate and strengthen pre-existing/new industry-academic interactions • Provided great opportunities for advanced training of researchers in different sectors • Administration of programme complex, with reporting process difficult in parts (e.g. ambiguous nature of online versus hard copy submissions, EC timeline for sign-off of Annual report – delay of funds) • Turnover of contact staff at EC (now REA) appears to be quite high; therefore, difficult to maintain relationship • Difficult to recruit good candidates for exchanges: ‘best laid plans!’ • Support for proposal preparation was key to drive process (Enterprise Ireland), as well as feedback/advice from Marie Curie/FP contact points (Dagmar Meyer/Caitriona Creely) • Useful to complement with other large-scale national (HRB Programme Grant, SFI Cluster Grant) and international (EU IAPP and Collaborative grant) initiatives • Need to identify key driver in the process for next initiative

  6. Marie Curie Industry Academia Partnership and Pathways Programme (FP7) • Acronym: Target-Melanoma • Title: Molecular Dissection of Melanoma Progression: An Integrated Pan-European Approach • Original Partners: 9 partners (4 SMEs, 5 Academics) • Current Partners: 7 partners (2 SMEs, 5 academics) • Funding: 1.73 M euro Why TARGET-MELANOMA? • One of the fastest rising cancers • Poor prognosis for advanced disease • Current therapeutic strategies modestly successful • Insight into molecular basis of this disease is lacking

  7. Partners • UCD, Ireland (Coordinator) • University of Maastricht, Netherlands • University of Leuven, Belgium • IDIBELL, Barcelona, Spain: • University of Upsalla, HPR, Sweden • OncoMethylome, Belguim • Slidepath, DCU, Ireland • Cellix, St.James, Ireland • OncoMark, UCD, Ireland Academic SME

  8. LEUVEN

  9. LEUVEN

  10. LEUVEN ER1(18-36) Methylation profiling of Melanoms

  11. Time-Line July 08 Results: On reserve list 2nd Life Sci 3rd overall Dec 07 Initial contact with Partners Aug 09 Start of Project Feb 09 Negotiate with Commission 19 Dec 08 Invitation to negotiate Feb/Mar 08 1st draft & feedback Jan/Feb 09 Annex1, Gantt Chart & GFPs Oct 09 Kick Off meeting.... June 09 Grant Agreement Signed Mar 25th 08 Submit full application Jan 08 First meeting Nov 08 1st Life Sci 2rd overall

  12. Lessons Learned and Comments - II • Driver was indeed key; in this case, Dr. Mairin Rafferty (formerly Senior Research Fellow in UCD; now Chief Operations Officer in OncoMark) • Need complete buy-in from prospective partners – interactions need to make sense • Template information forms can facilitate retrieval of necessary data from prospective partners • Preferable to keep number of partners to a modest level for this programme; can be complex to arrange secondments • Useful mechanism to progress spin-out activities (e.g. OncoMark) and create new product opportunities • Face-to-face meetings, preferably as a group, are highly recommended – people need time to bed down concepts/format of grant

  13. Current Activities IHC-MARK RATHER Dr. Mairin Rafferty Products Products R+D Angiotox Services Target Melanoma TMA Construction FP7 Consultancy Pre-clinical Studies Slide Scanning Automated Analysis Mr. Stephen Penney Dr. Dara FitzGerald

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