THE STATE’S first dedicated prostate cancer institute is to be opened at NUI Galway (NUIG) today by President Mary McAleese.
Galway University Foundation has provided initial funding for the institute, which will be directed by leading consultant radiation oncologist Prof Frank Sullivan.
It aims to develop better therapies for patients with prostate cancer and will work closely with clinical services offered to these patients at Galway University Hospital (GUH) and other regional hospitals. The hospital is one of eight specialist centres established under the national cancer control plan. The new institute will collaborate with research programmes at NUIG’s national centre for biomedical engineering sciences.
Galway has the highest rate of prostate cancer in the west, which in turn has a higher rate of the condition than other areas of the island, according to Prof O’Sullivan. More than 2,000 cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed in Ireland annually.
While medical advances have ensured better outcomes, the cancer still claims about 550 lives in Ireland each year – similar to the number of deaths due to breast cancer, he notes.
Prof O’Sullivan previously worked at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, US, where the model of “bench to bedside” ensured new therapies were developed rapidly. “Clinical programmes that are intimately driven by research tend to be excellent, as research is a well-known quality driver of care,” he said.
Dr Sharon Glynn has already been appointed director of laboratory research as one of four posts already filled. The institute’s early work will involve the collection and “bioprocurement” of prostate tissue, which will provide the base for its primary and collaborative research programme.
NUIG/Trinity College Dublin professor of cancer therapeutics Frank Giles will serve as the institute’s scientific director.
The development has been welcomed as “unique” by former GUH consultant gynaecologist and clinical lecturer Dr Michael Mylotte, who was treated successfully for prostate cancer more than five years ago in both Galway and in the US.
NUIG president Dr James J Browne has described the institute as marking “a new direction for translational research at the university”.
