Dr. Kathy Gately

Research Description:

Dr Kathy Gately is a PI in the Department of Clinical Medicine, at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and a Clinical Scientist at St. James’s Hospital Dublin (SJH). She has extensive experience in molecular diagnostics, biobanking and clinical research and leads a trans-disciplinary team of postdoctoral scientists, research nurse/assistants, PhD, MSc and MD students. Her translational research program focuses on circulating tumour cells (CTCs), tracking minimal residual disease (MRD) in lung cancer and elucidating drug resistance mechanisms to targeted cancer treatments. Her group utilises 3D models, including patient-derived organoids (PDOs), and liquid biopsies for biomarker discovery and drug screening. She lectures both undergraduate and postgraduate students on Modules in Molecular Medicine and Translational Oncology at TCD. She leads several industry collaborations and is a scientific advisor of Translational Oncology at Inflection Biosciences Ltd advising on oncology drug pipeline programs. She established and co-manages the St. James’s Hospital lung biobank and co-founded the Target Lung Cancer initiative at the SJH Foundation to raise public awareness of lung cancer. She also developed the first EGFR mutation screening program for NSCLC at SJH. She is an expert member of the HSE midlands area and corporate division research ethics committee (RREC). She sits on journal editorial boards and reviews grants for multiple funding agencies.

Key Research Projects:
1) CLuB – All-Ireland Liquid Biopsy Consortium
2) Developing a living biobank of matched normal/tumour PDOs from different tumour types & molecular profiles to use for biomarker discovery and drug testing
3) Novel PROTAC strategies to overcome drug resistant KRAS mutant cancers