On Wednesday 26^th February 2014 a lecture on the subject of cancer therapies will be delivered free of charge to the public and will be held in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, 123 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin from 7-9pm

The lecture will be given by Dr David Murray, and Dr Annette Byrne, Head of the Laboratory of Tumour Biology & Molecular Imaging, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physiology and Medical Physics and AngioPredict coordinator. The Talk is entitled 'Tackling Cancer by Targeting Tumour Blood Vessels'.

The process of 'angiogenesis' is a unifying hallmark of all cancers where blood vessels are provided to tumours to supply nutrients and oxygen, thus allowing them to develop from a few cells to a life-threatening mass that can grow and spread. Dr Murray will discuss how a better understanding of angiogenesis has allowed the development of targeted therapies (anti-angiogenics) to compromise tumour blood vessels, and in so doing, starve and shrink the tumour.

Speaking ahead of the RCSI MiniMed lecture, Dr Byrne said, 'The team at RCSI's Laboratory of Tumour Biology and Molecular Imaging are focused on developing and improving anti-angiogenic therapies for the treatment of human cancers. This work has in particular, been funded by large EU project grants such as the Angiopredict (www.angiopredict.com) and AngioTox (www.angiotox.com) initiatives. During this talk, we will present an overview of angiogenesis and give an update on our research which is largely focused on improving patient treatment response. We will also highlight recent exciting data that supports the use of a new 'nanoparticle' treatment approach to improve response to anti-angiogenics for patients bearing untreatable malignant brain tumours.'

The RCSI MiniMed Open Lecture Series is free of charge; however registration is essential in order to guarantee a place. Previous lecture series have attracted widespread public interest with demand for places far outstripping availability. Register online at www.rcsi.ie/minimed and you can join the conversation online, on the night, on Twitter at #RCSIMiniMed. To view previous RCSI MiniMed lectures from the last series on the RCSI YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/TheRCSI123.