Professor Roisin Connolly was appointed as the Professor Gerald O’Sullivan Chair in Cancer Research at UCC and Cork University Hospital in September 2019. Roisin joined the university from the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center (SKCCC) at Johns Hopkins, US, where she was an Associate Professor of Oncology and Co-Director of the Developmental Therapeutics Program. She graduated with a 1st class honors medical degree from Trinity College, Dublin in 2001 and completed medical oncology fellowship training in both Ireland and at Johns Hopkins. She joined the Breast and Ovarian Cancer Program faculty at Hopkins in 2011. 

Research

Professor Connolly has expertise in the development of biomarkers of response to anti-cancer therapies, and the design and conduct of clinical trials that test investigational new drugs in the treatment of patients with both early- and late-stage cancers. She has led numerous multicenter clinical trials in collaboration with the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC), and the Eastern Co-operative Oncology Group (ECOG)-ACRIN in the US. Professor Connolly is Study Chair for the international phase III ECOG-ACRIN study (E2112) investigating the epigenetic agent entinostat in combination with hormonal therapy in patients with metastatic breast cancer. She recently received the prestigious ECOG-ACRIN Young Investigator Award 2019 for excellence in clinical investigation. 

Roisin is Director of Cancer Research @UCC and a Principal Investigator with Cancer Trials Cork at Cork University Hospital, which brings new treatments through clinical trials to patients with cancer in the region. She collaborates with Cancer Trials Cork, Cancer Trials Ireland and the HRB-Clinical Research Facility in Cork for her investigator-initiated projects. She recently received an Irish Cancer Society grant to support a Women’s Cancer Survivorship Clinic in Cork, which she is leading with Professor Josephine Hegarty (School of Nursing) and multiple collaborators across the region. Her goal is to improve outcomes for patients in the region through innovative clinical and translational research, in collaboration with UCC, national and international researchers.

Funders

Health Research Board

Breakthrough Cancer Research

Pfizer