Blood Cancer Network Ireland and Cancer Research @UCC

The Blood Cancer Network of Ireland (BCNI) is a collaborative network of clinicians, scientists, and population health experts with a shared interest in blood cancer research. This national unit, combined with biobank and patient registry, will create the infrastructure necessary to make Ireland more competitive internationally in blood cancer research, attracting more clinical trials and ultimately leading to improvements in patient outcomes.

The Cork arm of the BCNI Biobank is housed here in Cancer Research @UCC. Together with National University of Ireland, Galway and Trinity College Dublin, over 300 blood cancer specimens are available for use in research. Collaboration with the National Cancer Registry Ireland (NCRI) has also been ongoing since 2014 and has achieved templates for extended data registration in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) and Multiple Myeloma. A data set of 142 patients with AML is available.

Harmony is an EU wide public–private partnership established in 2017 to help gather blood cancer ‘big’ data. Currently there are 53 partners including nine pharmaceutical companies and seven European Patient Umbrella Organizations. BCNI have joined Harmony in 2021 and will participate in Harmony led projects such as “Risks associated with COVID-19 in patients with haematological malignancies”.