Dr. Joanne Lysaght is an Associate Professor at Trinity College Dublin and leads the Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Group in the Trinity Translational Medicine Institute at St. James’s Hospital. She is course coordinator for the M.Sc. in Translational Oncology.

Her research group focuses on the impact of obesity on anti-tumour immune responses in gastrointestinal cancer patients, with a particular focus on T lymphocytes. We also examine the impact of obesity on hepatic inflammation and post-operative recovery and elucidating the role of adaptive immunity in the progression of pre-malignant conditions to cancer.

In addition, a large component of our research is focused on identifying and developing new immunotherapeutic strategies and targets for gastrointestinal cancers, through targeting chemokine pathways and cellular metabolism, identifying the impact of standard therapies such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy on immune cells and the best combination approaches with immunotherapy. This work mainly focuses on immune checkpoint inhibitors and developing approaches to circumvent immune evasion in order to boost response rates to immunotherapy.

In addition, we are also investigating the role of inflammation in conditions such as cancer cachexia and the use of inflammatory markers such as CRP as a diagnostic tool. Dr. Lysaght’s research is funded by grants from HRB, Irish Research Council and the Irish Cancer Society.