Sir, – With around one in seven women in Ireland affected by breast cancer, the need to develop new approaches to understanding and treating the disease remains critically important.

As we approach World Cancer Research Day (September 24th) , the opening of the MELODY clinical trial at Cork University Hospital is a reminder of what it takes to move research towards patient care.

The trial, which opens for recruitment on October 1st, will explore whether a simple blood test, known as a liquid biopsy, can provide additional information about the genetic changes in advanced breast cancer and help inform more personalised treatment decisions. Until now in Ireland, this type of testing in breast cancer has only been possible using tumour tissue biopsies.

But the significance of MELODY goes beyond the trial itself. It was developed through Dr Emer Lynch’s Breakthrough Clinical Cancer Research Fellowship at UCC, with Prof Roisin Connolly as her supervisor. The fellowship gave Lynch protected time to develop the study and build her expertise in clinical research.

That protected time matters. Clinicians have demanding responsibilities caring for patients, but developing research requires time and training to ask questions, build expertise and develop a study to the point where it can be trialled with patients.

For me, this highlights why investment in cancer research needs to be about both programmes and people. Funding research is essential, but so too is investing in the clinicians and researchers who have the expertise and time to develop it.

The evidence is clear that patients in research-active hospitals do better. We need to build this expertise and capacity to embed research in all our Irish cancer centres.

Not every project will progress to a clinical trial, but without the opportunity to develop that research, it cannot reach that stage. MELODY is a practical example of where that investment can lead.

As we approach World Cancer Research Day, we should recognise the importance of creating the conditions for clinicians to develop research alongside their clinical work, and to explore how that research can ultimately contribute to patient care. – Yours, etc,

ORLA DOLAN,

CEO,

Breakthrough Cancer Research,

Cork.