Professor Tracy Robson
Principal Investigator & Head of School
Tracy Robson obtained her PhD in Cancer Biology from Imperial College, London. Her first academic post was as Lecturer in Radiation Science at Ulster University in 1997; she was promoted to Reader in 2001. She then moved to the School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University of Belfast in 2004 to take up the post of Reader in Molecular Pharmacology; she was promoted to Professor in 2010. In 2016, she took up position as Professor and Head of Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics at RCSI. In 2019 following the merging of MCT and School of Pharmacy, she became Head of the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences. Her major focus was the development of novel approaches for sensitizing tumours to therapy using personalised medicine approaches. She led a major programme of research aimed at the identification and functional characterisation of genes that alter tumour response to anti-cancer agents. In particular, she cloned and characterized a novel human gene, FKBPL. Her group has demonstrated an extracellular role for FKBPL as a naturally secreted, anti-angiogenic protein. Together with Almac, she led the development of therapeutic peptide derivatives (AD-01 and ALM201) based on FKBPL’s active anti-angiogenic domain. Based on the robust efficacy and excellent safety profile, ALM201, a ‘first-in-class’ FKBPL-based anti-angiogenic therapeutic peptide has completed formulation and toxicology testing and has entered phase I/II cancer clinical trials (EudraCT number: 2014-001175-31). More recently, ALM201 was granted Orphan Drug Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the treatment of ovarian cancer. More recently, through the development of genetically modified mouse models, she has also demonstrated a role for FKBPL in protection against obesity, with FKBPL deficient mice becoming severely obese. Like cancer, obesity is associated with vascular regulation and inflammation.Her research is now focussing on unravelling the associated mechanisms driving FKBPL’s protective activity in obesity and obesity –induced cancer so that the clear translational potential of FKBPL-based therapeutics can be fully harnessed and FKBPL’s diagnostic potential in these disease settings can be scrutinized.
Current Researchers
Dr. Stephanie Annett, POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER & HONORARY LECTURER
Dr. Gillian Moore, postdoctoral researcher & Honorary Lecturer
Gillian Moore (PhD) obtained a first class honours B.A. (mod) in Molecular Medicine from the School of Biochemistry and Immunology, Trinity College Dublin in 2012. It was during this time that she developed a keen interest in cancer research. She went on to be awarded an Irish Research Council PhD scholarship to carry out a her PhD thesis research entitled ” Exploring the role of lipoxygenases in oesophageal cancer and the anti-angiogenic potential of novel lipoxygenase inhibitors”, in the Department of Surgery, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute (TTMI), St. James’ Hospital Dublin. After graduating in 2016, Gillian carried out a post-doctoral research project in the Thoracic Oncology Research Group, based in the Department of Clinical Medicine, TTMI, where she investigated novel mechanisms of resistance to PI3K/mTOR inhibitor therapies in lung cancer. Gillian then joined the Robson Lab in 2017, where she is carrying out research to further unravel the cancer biomarker potential of FKBPL and the mechanism of action of the FKBPL-based drug therapeutic, ALM201, developed by the Robson Lab, in collaboration with Almac Discovery.
Gillian’s research interests include biomarker discovery, personalized medicine, novel small molecule and biological therapeutic strategies for the treatment of cancer, tumour-associated angiogenesis and stemness.
Email: gillianmoore@rcsi.com
Twitter: @GillMooreBirch
Previous rESEARCHERS
Aisling O’Hagan
Charlotte Mallindine
Jamie Arkley
Sharon Potts
Meabh Cassidy
John Conor Doyle
Rachel Lennox
Rami Abu Mousa
Ahmed Salah Elmasoudi
Amy Slater
Margaret Murray, PhD
Jenny Worthington, PhD
Stephen Moore, PhD
Marie McIlroy, PhD
Hayley McKeen, PhD
Karl Butterworth, PhD
Sheila Young, PhD
Catharine Adams, PhD
Jonathan Coulter, PhD
Kerry McAlpine, PhD
Keeva McClelland, PhD
Christopher Byrne, PhD
Hayder Dyer, PhD
Kim Cherry, PhD
Alek Zholobenko, PhD
Christopher Donley, PhD
Nuala Mulgrew, PhD
Wendy Hyland, PhD
Ahlam Ali, PhD
Ashley Davison, PhD
Lana McClements, PhD
Chris Armstrong, PhD
Rachel Bennett, PhD
Laura Nelson, PhD
John McBride, PhD
Tara Byrne, PhD
Amy Short, PhD
Nermeen Moustafa, PhD
Shannon O’Neill, PhD
Hannah Thompson, PhD
Phil Chambers, PhD
Cian McCrudden, PhD
Anita Yakkundi, PhD
Lynn McCallum, PhD
Andrea Valentine, PhD
Martin O’Rourke, PhD
Claire Murphy, PhD
George Burke, PhD
Helen McCarthy, PhD, Prof
