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Staff Profiles

Dr John Nolan

PhD, BA

Contact Details

Post Doctoral Researcher
M: +353 860675176
E: jnolan@nuigalway.ie

Biography

John Nolan completed his undergraduate studies in biochemistry and cellular biology at Trinity College Dublin in 2012. He attained his Ph.D. in the Cancer Genetics group (headed by Prof. Ray Stallings) at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in 2017, investigating the genetic factors driving drug resistance in the paediatric cancer, neuroblastoma.

From 2017 to 2020, John worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Cancer Bio-Engineering Group (headed by Dr. Olga Piskareva) at the Royal College of Surgeons, funded by the National Children¿s Research Centre. This research focused on the identification of biomarkers for the prediction of response to chemotherapy from neuroblastoma patient-derived extracellular vesicles. During this time his research also involved the development and characterisation of in vitro tissue-engineered 3D models for the investigation of neuroblastoma and melanoma in collaboration with the Tissue-Engineering Research Group (TERG) at RCSI.

Since 2021, John has been conducting postdoctoral research as part of Dr. Meadhbh Brennan¿s multi-disciplined research group in the Regenerative Medicine Institute and the School of Biomedical Engineering. This research is focused on the study and genetic characterisation of MSCs and their secreted factors, incorporating biomechanical and tissue-engineering strategies to advance the clinical application of MSCs for bone regeneration.

Research Interests

Mechanisms of drug-resistance development
miRNA expression profiling
Extracellular vesicle isolation, characterisation, and profiling
Tissue-engineered 3D models
Bone marrow stem cell isolation and characterisation
Lentiviral and CRISPR based techniques for genetic manipulation of primary human stem cells

Peer Reviewed Journals

	Year	Publication
	(2021)	'Evaluation of the Chemotherapy Drug Response Using Organotypic Cultures of Osteosarcoma Tumours from Mice Models and Canine Patients' Brulin, BÃ©nÃ©dicte and Nolan, John C. and Marangon, Tecla and Kovacevic, Milan and Chatelais, Mathias and Meheust, Pierre and Abadie, JÃ©rome and Le Nail, Louis-RomÃ©e and Rosset, Philippe and Brennan, Meadhbh Ã. and Layrolle, Pierre (2021) 'Evaluation of the Chemotherapy Drug Response Using Organotypic Cultures of Osteosarcoma Tumours from Mice Models and Canine Patients'. Cancers, 13 (19) [DOI] [Details]
	(2020)	'A Context-Dependent Role for MiR-124-3p on Cell Phenotype, Viability and Chemosensitivity in Neuroblastoma in vitro' Nolan, John C. and Salvucci, Manuela and Carberry, Steven and Barat, Ana and Segura, Miguel F. and Fenn, Justine and Prehn, Jochen H. M. and Stallings, Raymond L. and Piskareva, Olga (2020) 'A Context-Dependent Role for MiR-124-3p on Cell Phenotype, Viability and Chemosensitivity in Neuroblastoma in vitro'. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 8 [DOI] [Details]
	(2020)	'Preclinical models for neuroblastoma: Advances and challenges' J.C. Nolan and T. Frawley and J. Tighe and H. Soh and C. Curtin and O. Piskareva (2020) 'Preclinical models for neuroblastoma: Advances and challenges'. Cancer Letters, 474 :53-62 [DOI] [Details]
	(2019)	'A combined experimental and computational study on peptide nucleic acid (PNA) analogues of tumor suppressive miRNA-34a' Valerio Piacenti and Emma Langella and Ida Autiero and John C. Nolan and Olga Piskareva and Mauro F.A. Adamo and Michele Saviano and Maria Moccia (2019) 'A combined experimental and computational study on peptide nucleic acid (PNA) analogues of tumor suppressive miRNA-34a'. Bioorganic Chemistry, 91 [DOI] [Details]
	(2018)	'Endogenous exosome labelling with an amphiphilic NIR-fluorescent probe' Monopoli, Marco P. and Zendrini, Andrea and Wu, Dan and Cheung, Shane and Sampedro, Gonzalo and Ffrench, Brendan and Nolan, John and Piskareva, Olga and Stalings, Raymond L. and Ducoli, Serena and Bergese, Paolo and Oâ€™Shea, Donal F. (2018) 'Endogenous exosome labelling with an amphiphilic NIR-fluorescent probe'. Chem. Commun, 54 :7219-7222 [DOI] [Details]
	(2018)	'A physiologically relevant 3D collagen-based scaffoldâ€“neuroblastoma cell system exhibits chemosensitivity similar to orthotopic xenograft models' C. Curtin and J.C. Nolan and R. Conlon and L. Deneweth and C. Gallagher and Y.J. Tan and B.L. Cavanagh and A.Z. Asraf and H. Harvey and S. Miller-Delaney and J. Shohet and I. Bray and F.J. O'Brien and R.L. Stallings and O. Piskareva (2018) 'A physiologically relevant 3D collagen-based scaffoldâ€“neuroblastoma cell system exhibits chemosensitivity similar to orthotopic xenograft models'. Acta Biomaterialia, 70 :84-97 [DOI] [Details]
	(2015)	'The development of cisplatin resistance in neuroblastoma is accompanied by epithelial to mesenchymal transition in vitro' Olga Piskareva and Harry Harvey and John Nolan and Ross Conlon and Leah Alcock and Patrick Buckley and Paul Dowling and Michael Henry and Finbarr O'Sullivan and Isabella Bray and Raymond L. Stallings (2015) 'The development of cisplatin resistance in neuroblastoma is accompanied by epithelial to mesenchymal transition in vitro'. Cancer Letters, 364 (2):142-155 [DOI] [Details]

Book Chapters

	Year	Publication
	(2016)	'Assessment of Basic Biological Functions Exerted by miRNAs' Nolan J., Stallings R.L., Piskareva O. (2016) 'Assessment of Basic Biological Functions Exerted by miRNAs' In: Methods in Molecular Biology. New York, NY: Humana Press. [DOI] [Details]

Professional Associations

Association	Function	From / To
American Association for Cancer Research	Member	/
Matrix Biology Ireland	Member	/
Extracellular Vesicles Network of Ireland	Member	/
European Association for Cancer Research	Member	/
International Society of Extracellular Vesicles	Member	/
Irish Association for Cancer Research	Member	/

Employment

	Employer	Position	From / To
	Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland / National Children's Research Centre	Postdoctoral Research Fellow	01-APR-17 / 31-JUL-20
	National University of Ireland, Galway	Postdoctoral Researcher	24-NOV-20 /