Dr. Maria Prencipe was awarded her Degree in Biology with a major in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from L’Aquila University, Italy. After 3 years as a research scientist in the research hospital “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza”, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, she moved to Ireland where she was awarded her PhD in Cancer Biology from University College Dublin, studying the mechanisms of resistance to taxane treatment in breast and ovarian cancer. As a postdoctoral fellow within the SFI funded Molecular Therapeutic for Cancer Ireland (MTCI) research cluster, she studied the molecular mechanisms of resistance to advanced prostate cancer treatments, identifying novel transcription factors as potential new therapies.

She was awarded an Irish Cancer Society research fellowship in 2012 to carry on her work on transcription factors’ role in hormone-driven cancers such as prostate and breast cancer. Maria recently joined the UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science (SBBS) as an SFI Starting Investigator. Her research interests focus on the mechanisms of resistance to hormone therapy in breast and prostate cancer with the goal of identifying novel and more effective treatments especially for the advanced stages of these diseases.