OvaLoad: Enhanced targeted treatments for ovarian cancer

Luna Stockmann

Luna Stockmann has been awarded the Research Ireland’s Enterprise Partnership Scheme in partnership with Breakthrough Cancer Research. She is a PhD student in Dr. Neil Conlon’s lab at the Life Sciences Institute at Dublin City University, working on a project focused on ovarian cancer (OC), a gynecological cancer with a very poor prognosis. The team aims to investigate drug treatments that have the potential to improve patient survival from OC while minimising drug side effects.

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are a type of targeted cancer treatment. They deliver the chemotherapy drug specifically to cancer cells, minimising damage to healthy cells. This approach can lead to better outcomes and fewer side effects. The project evaluates an ADC that is currently used to treat some breast cancers. We have already seen that this ADC can prevent the growth of OC cells in the lab. Therefore, we are now investigating if combining this ADC with PARP inhibitors, a type of drug already used to treat certain types of OC, is even more effective. Together, these drugs should cause damage to the cancer cell’s genetic material, which would trigger the cancer cell to die. In order to test this treatment in conditions similar to cancer in the body, we are growing OC cells in the lab in small tumour-like structures.