In September 2022 Professor Aisling Barry became the first Professor and Chair of Radiation Oncology at University College Cork. She is also a consultant radiation oncologist at Cork University Hospital. Dr Barry returned from Toronto, Canada, where she worked as a radiation oncologist in the Radiation Medicine Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (PMCC) and Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto. She was clinical lead of the Palliative Radiation and Oligo-metastatic Program and a member of the breast and gastro-intestinal groups prior to her departure. 

Prof. Barry received her undergraduate education at Trinity College Dublin (2005) and completed her radiation oncology specialty training through the RCSI/St. Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network. She subsequently completed fellowships in breast cancer radiotherapy (2014-2015) and stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) – specifically for liver and lung cancers, at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (2015-2016). She has also completed a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto on health-related quality of life outcomes in patients with oligo-metastatic disease. Prof. Barry is a recipient of numerous awards including a Dr. Richard Steevens’ HSE award which enabled her to complete dedicated SBRT fellowship training at PMCC, a Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Merit Award at GI ASCO for her work on the use of SBRT as a bridging therapy to liver transplant and an Annual Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium Award.

Research

Prof. Barry has expertise in the delivery of SBRT, specifically in the setting of primary and secondary liver malignancies, and oligo-metastatic disease. She is currently a member of the liver radiotherapy clinical guideline group at the American Society for Radiation Oncology, co-authoring the first radiotherapy guidelines on the use of radiotherapy for the management of primary liver cancer.  She has delivered multiple invited national and international talks on this topic. 

She is an accomplished researcher and has led numerous studies at PMCC, including investigator-initiated studies on the use of SBRT in the setting of oligo-progressive cancers, and the use of virtual biometric monitoring in patients receiving palliative radiotherapy. Prof. Barry has also led and been co-investigator on a number of grants applying her research interests in the clinical setting. She is heavily involved in education and previously co-lead of the internationally renowned liver SBRT/IGRT educational course in the Accelerated Education Program at PMCC, and has supervised numerous resident and fellow research projects.