Aoife Ryan is a Senior Lecturer in Nutrition & Dietetics at University College Cork.  For the past 20 years she has focused her dietetic practice and research in oncology. She is a CORU Registered Dietitian and completed her PhD at the Dept of Surgery, Trinity College Dublin on the topic of nutrition an upper gastrointestinal cancer. She has been awarded INDI Research Dietitian of the Year (2009) and both the Julie Wallace (2015) and Cuthbertson medal (2019) from the Nutrition Society. In addition to scientific papers, Aoife has published five cookbooks for cancer patients which have all been professionally endorsed and have received a number of awards. She has taught nutrition and dietetics at New York University (2008-2010), and UCC (2011 to present) and is the current Programme Director of the MSc Dietetics at UCC. 

Research

Dr. Ryan's current research programme at UCC focuses on:

(1) Computed tomography diagnosed cancer cachexia and sarcopenia and the impact on quality of life, toxicity to chemotherapy treatment and survival

(2) clinical trials in the prevention/attenuation of cancer-induced muscle loss

(3) role of nutrition in the prevention and treatment of cancer.  

Dr. Erin Stella Sullivan RD is a Registered Dietitian at the Clinical Nutrition & Oncology Research Group, in the School of Food & Nutritional Sciences, University College Cork. In 2020 she completed her PhD entitled "Malnutrition & Altered Body Composition in Oncology: Prevalence, Aetiology, Consequences & Potential Therapies", during which she worked closely with IrSPEN to conduct national survey of cancer patients’ experience of nutritional care and has recently joined the IrSPEN Cancer Working Group.

As a postdoctoral researcher, Erin coordinated the Irish Cancer Society Alternative Therapies Scoping Award and in 2021, under the mentorship of Dr. Aoife Ryan, Erin was awarded an Enterprise Partnership Scheme Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Irish Research Council (IRC), to investigate the impact of early access to dietitian-led multimodal nutrition care in advanced cancer, in upper GI and lung cancer patients receiving treatment in the Lee Clinic, Mercy University Hospital. She is also co-supervising a PhD student, Clodagh Scannell RD, who is conducting research in the treatment of cancer-related malnutrition and is developing a Cancer Myths booklet for patients, funded by Breakthrough Cancer Research.