Dr. Naomi Walsh

Associate Prof Naomi Walsh is Head of the School of Biotechnology. Dr Walsh holds a BSc. in Analytical Science and PhD in Biotechnology/ Cancer Research from Dublin City University, and a Master's of Public Health (MPH) from University College Dublin. Her PhD research focused on the mechanisms of invasion, metastasis and drug-resistance in pancreatic cancer. Dr. Walsh was awarded the prestigious Cancer Prevention Fellowship Programme (CPFP) where she undertook post-doctoral research at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), USA. On her return to Ireland, Dr. Walsh was awarded the Irish Cancer Society Re-integration Grant, and subsequently an SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant (2016-2020). In 2017, Dr. Walsh was awarded the Irish Cancer Society Researcher of the Year. Dr. Walsh's current research is focused on developing organotypic 3D cancer models to define and validate the biological consequences of genomic variants of pancreatic cancer.

Her lab uses genomic and functional NGS approaches to identify the mechanisms of genomic and immunological diversity to develop prognostic/predictive signatures and therapeutic strategies to overcome cancer treatment resistance.

Research Interests

Therapeutic resistance remains a major challenge across many solid tumours, limiting the long-term effectiveness of chemotherapy, targeted therapies, and immunotherapies. Traditional two-dimensional cell culture systems fail to capture the complexity of the tumour microenvironment (TME), where interactions between cancer cells, stromal cells, and immune cells play critical roles in disease progression and treatment response.

My focuses on the development of advanced three-dimensional (3D) co-culture models that integrate patient-derived tumour organoids (PDTOs), cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), and immune cells to more accurately recapitulate human tumour biology. These physiologically relevant platforms are used to investigate mechanisms of drug resistance, identify synthetic lethal vulnerabilities, and develop strategies to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy and targeted therapy strategies.

Currently funded research projects

Functional evaluation of therapeutic strategies to enhance anti-
tumour immunity in periampullary cancer organoid co-cultures
Synthetic lethality CRISPR/Cas9 approach to expand the benefit of DNA damage repair and protein kinase inhibitors in pancreatic cancer
Centromere amplification as markers of exceptional response in metastatic HER2+ breast cancer
Novel methods for detection and treatment of uveal melanoma

Teaching Interests

PHS1000 - Introduction to Physiological Systems

BIO1006 - Advanced Cell Biology

BTE1021 - Animal Cell Biotechnology

BIO1024 - Molecular Diagnostics

Funding Highlights

https://breakthroughcancerresearch.ie/research/all-ireland-cancer-research-network-allcan-pancreatic-cancer/