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Connecting Molecular Networks of Cancer to Other Diseases

In 2019, the Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and University College Dublin (UCD) signed a 5-year agreement to i) reinforce the links between scientists in San Francisco and Ireland and ii) broaden their collaborative ability to strengthen scientific research and innovation. The universities are working together to identify opportunities to promote co-operative biosciences research and training activities between the US and Ireland. This began with a series of joint virtual events (2020 – 2022) which have paved the way to a joint workshop in Dublin in October 2023, that will focus on molecular networks of cancer and other diseases. The workshop will include 20 speakers from across Ireland, the QBI and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The aim is to provide a forum for attendees to talk about their research and explore opportunities for joint research and training activities in the future. To promote US/Ireland collaboration, the organisers have partnered with the nationally funded Precision Oncology Ireland (POI) programme, a consortium of five Irish universities, six cancer charities and ten companies aiming to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics for the personalised treatment of cancer. POI members from the academic, clinical, industry and charity sectors will participate in a series of lunchtime sessions held over three days at O’Reilly Hall in UCD. The goal is to move beyond what has already been considered in the fields of cancer, metabolism, obesity and inflammation by combining expertise, ideas and tools to push biomedical research forward. There will be a focus on personalised medicine, which is timely given the recent launch of the National Strategy for Accelerating Genetic and Genomic Medicine in Ireland. Representatives from national and European funding agencies in addition to policy makers will be invited to participate in a session focusing on future actions.