speakers

Prof. Gallagher, whom is a cell and molecular biologist, has extensive experience in application of transcriptomic and proteomic approaches for biomarker discovery. Of particular relevance, his group has been actively involved in utilising tissue microarray technology for biomarker validation studies, with a particular focus on breast cancer and melanoma. Prof. Gallagher hosted the EMBO Molecular Medicine Conference for 2006 in Dublin (www.targetbreast.com). Finally, Prof. Gallagher is Co-Ordinator of a Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge Industry-Academia Partnership programme, entitled Target-Breast, which is centred on validation of putative biomarkers arising from transcriptomic analysis of human breast tumours via tissue microarray technology.

Prof. Kay is a highly research active clinical pathologist, with a demonstrated track record in construction and application of tissue microarrays in biomarker validation. She is also involved, together with Prof. Gallagher and Dr. O’Shea, in a multi-institutional effort to advance online assessment of tissue microarray data. Prof. Kay’s research interests are in the area of bladder, breast and colorectal cancer.

Dr. Brennan is a Clinical Research Fellow within the laboratory of Prof. Gallagher. He has been instrumental in applying novel informatic approaches for automated analysis of tissue microarray data. Dr. Brennan also has considerable hands-on expertise in tissue microarray construction that will be afforded to the practical course.

Dr. Hewitt, a clinician-scientist and practicising pathologist, is an acknowledged world-leader in the field of tissue microarrays. He currently heads the Tissue Array Research Program (TARP) at the US National Cancer Institute. Dr. Hewitt has been directly involved in key technological developments within this arena, including the pioneering use of infrared spectroscopy for assessment of histological specimens (Fernandez et al., Nature Biotech, 2006).

Dr. Jirstrom, a pathologist, has extensive experience in tissue microarray construction and analysis. She has created several large-scale tissue microarrays of breast cancer tissue, amongst other tumour types. Dr. Jirstrom actively collaborates with Prof. Gallagher and Dr. Brennan in the above-mentioned Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge Industry-Academia Partnership programme.

Dr. Caroline Kampf, an Associate Professor, has extensive experience in tissue microarray production and digitalisation of immunohistochemically stained slides. Dr. Kampf is one of the team leaders in the Human Proteome Resource project, a project set to generate antibodies towards the entire human proteome. Her team is working with annotation and evaluation of the protein distribution in human tissues and cells. Right now, Dr. Kampf is setting up a new team focusing on biomarker discovery.  

Dr. McCann is a molecular biologist whom has an established background in cancer biology, with a particular emphasis on the study of breast and bladder cancer. Moreover, Dr. McCann has been also key to establishment of the Tissue Microarray Construction and Image Analysis facility at the UCD Conway Institute, together with Prof. Gallagher. In addition, Dr. McCann collaborates actively with Prof. Kay regarding the application of tissue microarray technology in the context of bladder cancer.

Dr. Quigley, a computational scientist, has an expert knowledge of mathematic and informatic approaches to image analysis. He is also very interested in the development of improved human-computer interfaces, a novel area that will be highlighted within the current practical course.

Dr. O'Shea, a bioinformatician, has an extensive track record in telepathology. His group has instrumental behind the development of the online tissue microarray management tool, Virtual Tissue Matrix, which was previously mentioned (Conway et al., BMC Bioinformatics, 2006).

is a pathologist with long-standing relevant expertise in endometrial and breast cancer, along with application of tissue microarray technology.