Our Research

A scientist in safety gloves and glasses looks through a microscope in a laboratory.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Despite curative-intent surgery, recurrence rates remain high at 24 % in stage I lung cancer and 50 % overall. Alternative surveillance strategies and better biomarkers for treatment response prediction are urgently needed to identify patients at risk of relapse more accurately. 

Liquid biopsies have emerged as a non-invasive and complementary alternative to traditional tissue biopsies. They involve testing bodily fluids, mainly blood, for circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and tumour-derived nucleic acids, proteins, and extracellular vesicles (EVs). This project, co-created by patients, clinicians and scientists, has established a TransAtlantic Cancer Alliance between liquid biopsy experts from the All-Ireland Cancer Liquid Biopsies Consortium (CLuB) and Johns Hopkins University. Together, we aim to: 

  1. Evaluate circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) methylation and fragmentomic profiles in a longitudinal cohort of 100 patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer 

  2. Assess the predictive value of these profiles individually and in combination with CLuB’s CTC and EV data using multimodal bioinformatic pipelines 

  3. Educate patients and the public on project results, while training the next generation of scientists and healthcare professionals in the growing field of liquid biopsies