2007 Press Releases

UCC welcomes the first SFI-PIYRA funded researcher
07.12.2007

President Mary McAleese recently named Dr Karen Keeshan as one of only four winners of this year’s Science Foundation Ireland-funded President of Ireland Young Researcher Award (PIYRA).

The PIYRA, Science Foundation Ireland's (SFI's) most prestigious honour, was launched four years ago and is awarded to outstanding early career scientists and engineers.  Dr Keeshan, who becomes the first SFI-funded PIYRA in UCC, received €1 million to establish her research programme at UCC.
 
Dr Karen Keeshan, originally from Cork, is currently at the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Centre where she has been conducting her post-doctoral research into acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a common and aggressive form of leukemia. Dr Keeshan has been in the USA since 2002, completing postdoctoral work in Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr Keeshan is a graduate of UCC, having received her BSc and PhD in the biochemistry department of UCC in 2002. Her PIYRA proposal is to continue work on AML, specifically on a gene called Trib2, that Dr Keeshan recently linked for the first time to human cancer. She has published in the world's most presitgous cancer journal, Cancer Cell, as well as other top-tier peer-reviewed journals.

AML is a malignancy that arises in white blood cells and develops when there is a defect in immature immune cells in the bone marrow. In AML, the uncontrolled, exaggerated growth and accumulation of white blood cells leads to anemia and a deficiency in normal white blood cells resulting in "cancer of the blood". Dr Keeshan's studies have shown that when this gene "Trib2" is expressed in the blood cells, it leads to AML, and can mark a cancer cell in humans. Specifically, Trib2 can degrade other proteins in the blood that act as tumour suppressors. Understanding how these genes function in blood cells and lead to AML is the basis of Dr Keeshan's research proposal. She brings with her a unique research programme on leukemia with new technology. This will lead to a better understanding of the disease, which is currently incurable, and should have direct clinical application.
 
Dr Keeshan's research programme will strongly complement the existing research programmes in the UCC Cancer theme, which is a designated research theme in UCC. The work will be conducted in the Biochemistry Department of UCC, and affiliated with the Cancer Research strategic theme in the Biosciences Institute. Dr Keeshan will begin her transition to UCC in March 2008.

The PIYRA is a rigorous competition open to Researchers in Ireland and abroad, who must carry out the proposed research in Irish third level institutions. The PIYRA proposals are peer-reviewed by international experts who then choose the candidates for interview by eminent international scientists, which occurred last March in Dublin. SFI has awarded only 12 awards since its launch in 2004, with only 3 female recipients until this year. This award is the first PIYRA for UCC, and Munster.

Dr Mary Stapleton of the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics was a PIYRA fellow for the period 1996-1998.

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