Focus on research: Prof Sharon Glynn, University of Galway
Prof Sharon Glynn is a Professor in Pathology at the University of Galway working with Cúram, the Research Ireland centre for medical devices. In this interview she talks about advancements in the understanding of breast cancer.
Can you tell me about your background?
I studied biotechnology in DCU, including a summer scholarship in cancer research in the then University College Galway (now University of Galway). This inspired me to do a PhD on cancer biology, with a focus on breast cancer. After my PhD, I went to the US to do a training course on cancer prevention at the US National Cancer Institute. That really opened up my eyes to what cancer is, who gets it, how it varies, what the risk factors are, and how genetics and lifestyle all contribute to it.
I came back from the US and realised that I wanted to find a way to pursue research that was closer to the patient. About a year later, I returned to the US to take up a cancer prevention fellowship at the NCI. It was there that I really learned how to do research – we followed a large group of ladies with breast cancer to better understand what contributed to their disease. Were there biomarkers that indicated they were likely to have more or less aggressive diseases? And then we would take these findings back into the lab, to understand the underlying biology driving their disease.
What’s the key focus area of your research?
Right now I’m focused on breast cancer, particularly triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), which is a type of breast cancer where the cells don’t have oestrogen or progesterone receptors and also don’t overexpress a protein called HER2. Because of that it limits the types of treatments that we can give.
Here in Ireland, about 10-15% of breast cancer patients are diagnosed with triple negative, and their treatment is limited to surgery and chemotherapy. I’m focused on trying to understand TNBC and its inflammation pathways, specifically a protein called inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), and we’re looking at how we can use that to target TNBC.
How will your research be applied to the treatment of breast cancer?
Once we understand how iNOS works in the tumour, we can try to build a series of drug approaches to that target. We have been funded by the EU with a MSCA-DN grant called NO-CANCER-NET. This funds 10 PhD candidates focused on developing iNOS therapy for TNBC patients. One of my colleagues in Italy, for example, is developing drugs that can be delivered directly to the site of the tumour, which doesn’t become active until you activate it with infrared beams. Typically, drugs are delivered via the bloodstream or orally. While very effective, these drugs go all over the body, and can cause a lot of unwanted side effects. So we’re trying to tailor these drugs and deliver them in a much more precise manner directly to the tumour. Additionally, I’m working with Cúram, the Research Ireland centre for medical devices, to develop medical devices that can help with that tailored delivery.
You mentioned working closer with the patient, how are you doing that?
I have begun working with the Metaplastic Breast Cancer Global Alliance, a patient advocacy and support group to understand what kinds of research they want to see with respect to cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment for metaplastic breast cancer. As scientists we tend to assume that the main interest for patients in research is into therapies that would give them the best survival chances, but they have indicated to us that while this is important, so also is quality of life, more tolerable treatments and better evidence-based treatment decisions. So that got me thinking, could we develop drugs that will specifically target the cancer while protecting the normal tissue around the cancer and throughout the body, so that people don’t get these side effects. And also can we develop a programme to better understand the uniqueness of metaplastic breast cancer. You often have a preconceived ideas as a scientist, but to talking and working with our patients really opens up what is important.
Are there any future directions that interest you in your area?
While I was on a Fulbright Award in the US last year I got to know more about a rare form of triple negative called metaplastic breast cancer. There’s no specific treatments for this cancer, and because it’s so rare (10-12 cases per year here in Ireland), oncologists may have never or seldom seen this cancer before. So I’ve started a new strand of research to understand this tumour type, and what makes it really unusual.
Normally, when we look at a breast tumour, you see epithelial tumour cells, and surrounding fibroblasts. But with metaplastic tumours, we see a rapidly growing tumour, which contains cell types we don’t expect to see in the breast. These cancers can have strange tumour cells that look like cartilage or bone. It’s reminiscent of mechanisms we would see in regenerative medicine.
Here in Galway, where we have a lot of regenerative medicine and we as we also have Cúram we have access to tools to try and explore this. So that’s one of my new focus areas right now, because it’s a serious area of unmet needs.
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