The St Vincent’s UCD Cancer Centre and UCD Conway Institute were delighted this week to host Dr Sundus Shalabi, Assistant Professor at the Arab American University (AAUP), for a week-long visit through the Erasmus+ programme. Dr Shalabi is a physician-scientist whose work focuses on mammary gland biology, aging and breast cancer risk, with a particular interest in how these processes play out in Palestinian women.

 The visit spanned both institutions – at the Conway Institute, Dr Shalabi toured the multiplex imaging facilities and met with our researchers in areas of medical education, liquid biopsies, and extracellular vesicles. At St Vincent’s, she toured the histopathology labs, met with our high-risk familial cancer services team and genetics services team, and attended specialist multidisciplinary team meetings and clinics. She also met UCD’s Cancer Research Programme Office and visited St James’s Hospital to meet the Breast Family Risk Service.

Dr Shalabi’s seminar, delivered to the Conway Institute, was titled “Accelerated Aging in Human Mammary Epithelia of Women Who Carry Predisposing Germline Mutations to Breast Cancer.” Published in Nature Ageing, her research shows that histologically normal breast tissue from women carrying BRCA1, BRCA2 or PALB2 mutations displays hallmarks of accelerated biological aging years before cancer develops, adding to evidence that biological age may better predict cancer risk than chronological age.

The visit reflects the breadth of work underway across UCD and St Vincent’s University Hospital in breast cancer research and care. Visits of this kind give researchers a chance to see how findings from the laboratory bench connect to the clinics and services that support high-risk patients, and open the door to future collaboration between UCD, St Vincent’s and the Arab American University. The Cancer Centre thanks Dr Shalabi for sharing her work and looks forward to continuing the conversation.