Annett, Stephanie
Moore, Gillian
Short, Amy
Marshall, Andrea
McCrudden, Cian
Yakkundi, Anita
Das, Sudipto
McCluggage, W. Glenn
Nelson, Laura
Harley, Ian
Moustafa, Nermeen
Kennedy, Catherine J.
deFazio, Anna
Brand, Alison
Sharma, Raghwa
Brennan, Donal
O’Toole, Sharon
O’Leary, John
Bates, Mark
O’Riain, Ciarán
O’Connor, Darran
Furlong, Fiona
McCarthy, Helen
Kissenpfennig, Adrien
McClements, Lana
Robson, Tracy
Funding for this research was provided by:
Department of Education and Learning, Northern Ireland
RCUK | Medical Research Council
Almac | Almac Discovery
Article History
Received: 5 April 2019
Accepted: 29 October 2019
First Online: 27 November 2019
Competing interests
: T.R. is an inventor and patent holder for ALM201. T.R. has received research funding from Alamc Discovery Ltd. A.de.F. has received a grant from AstraZeneca (unrelated to work in this paper). The remaining authors declare no competing interests.
: Solid ovarian and omental samples were removed during cytoreduction surgery and were collected from ovarian cancer patients with fully informed consent (NIB13-0073, Northern Ireland Biobank). In vivo experiments were carried out in BALB/c severe compromised immune-deficient (SCID) mice in accordance with the Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and conforming to the current UK Co-ordinating Committee on Cancer Research (UKCCCR) guidelines. The experiments were completed under the Project Licence Number 2794, and Personal Licence Number 1598. All TMA tissue used as part of this study was acquired ethically, with the appropriate material transfer agreements (MTAs) and import licenses completed, in line with QUB and RCSI policy. Only persons with Human Tissues Act training handled the tissue. Tissue was received, stored, handled and disposed of according to the Human Tissue Act, 2004, and all data shared between collaborators was password protected. Pseudo -anonymised individual patient data were obtained, including survival and relapse information, treatment, tumour size and grade where available. The institutional committees to approve the studies include QUB Animal Ethics Committee (in vivo studies) and QUB Research ethics committee (TMA), NI Biobank Scientific Review Committee (clinical samples) and RCSI research ethics committee (TMA). The samples used in this research were received from the Northern Ireland Biobank that has received funds from HSC Research and Development Division of the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland and the Friends of the Cancer Centre. The studies were conducted in accordance with the Declarations of Helsinki.
: S. Annett was awarded a PhD studentship from the Department of Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland under the supervision of T. Robson; G. Moore was funded by Almac Discovery Ltd. grant awarded to T. Robson; L. McClements was funded through an MRC Proof of Concept grant awarded to T. Robson. We acknowledge the Gynaecological Oncology Biobank at Westmead in Sydney, a member of the Australasian Bio specimen Network-Oncology group, which was funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Enabling Grants ID 310670 and ID 628903 and the Cancer Institute NSW Grants ID 12/RIG/1–17 and 15/RIG/1–16.
: Not applicable.
: All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its additional files]. The authors can confirm that additional data are available on reasonable request.