Professor Roisin Connolly

Professor Roisin Connolly is the Chair in Cancer Research at University College Cork (UCC) and Cork University Hospital since September 2019, and Director of Cancer Research @UCC. Prof Connolly leads the HRB-funded UCC Cancer Trials Group, which brings together the three Oncology Clinical Trials Units in Cork and Waterford.

As a medical oncologist and clinical investigator with expertise in the design and conduct of phase 1-3 clinical trials that test predictive biomarkers of response to therapy and novel treatment approaches, her goal is to improve outcomes for patients with a cancer diagnosis.

Prof Connolly has led numerous multicenter clinical trials in collaboration with the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC), and the Eastern Co-operative Oncology Group (ECOG)-ACRIN in the US. She is Co-Chair for the EA1211/DIRECT trial which investigates the role of imaging as a predictor of response to HER2-directed therapies. As a Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF)-funded investigator, she leads the MINA clinical trial in Cork investigating predictors of response to neoadjuvant therapy in triple-negative breast cancer. Prof Connolly is co-PI with Professor Mark Tangney of OncoBioMaps, a project within the Research Ireland funded Precision Oncology Ireland (POI2) consortium.