Bioengineering Cancer Microenvironment and Developing New Therapeutics for Neuroblastoma

Dr Olga Piskareva is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Anatomy and Regenerative Medicine and is the Foundation Year cycle director. Her academic background is in Biochemistry, Cell Biology (MSc), Molecular Biology (PhD), Science Communication (MSc) and Health Profession Education (PgDip). As a Fulbright-HRB Health Impact Scholar Awardee, she was trained in tumour organoids methodology at Johns Hopkins University (2018/19, USA). She represented RCSI on several professional occasions (Treasurer and Council member of the Irish Association for Cancer Research, Matrix Biology Ireland) and the Life and Medical Sciences Committee of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), Ireland’s foremost body of experts in the Sciences and Humanities.

Dr Piskareva established her independent Cancer Bio-Engineering research group in 2019. Her research is focused on elucidating how the tumour microenvironment works together with genetic and epigenetic changes to affect the cell behaviour of neuroblastoma, an embryonal malignancy of the sympathetic nervous system. Olga’s goal is to get a systems-level understanding of information flow in the neuroblastoma microenvironment and to utilise those insights to identify targetable nodes for novel anti-cancer immune therapy in neuroblastoma.

Olga's full research profile can be found at https://people.rcsi.com/olgapiskareva

Her research group blog can be read at http://neuroblastomablog.com/category/childhood-cancer-awareness/