Professor Samali is a leading cancer biologist with expertise in the field of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and cell deathsurvival signaling in cancer, with a successful research career spanning over 30 years. Prof. Samali and his team are working to understand the unfolded protein response (UPR), an adaptive signaling pathway induced by ER stress, with the goal of developing targeted anti-cancer therapies. Prof. Samali graduated with a B.Sc. in Biology from Maynooth University (NUIM) in 1993, followed by a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University College Cork (UCC) in 1997. After a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at Karolinska Institute in Sweden (1997-2000), he was appointed as a lecturer in Department of Biochemistry at NUI Galway, becoming Professor of Biochemistry in 2007, and Professor and Chair of Cancer Biology in 2020. In 2010 he established the Apoptosis Research Centre (ARC) (a target=_blank rel=nofollow href=http:www.apoptosis.iewww.apoptosis.ie ) and he continues to serve as Director of ARC, which currently comprises 7 Principal Investigators and more than 40 research staff. Prof. Samali is also the co-founder of 3 spin-out companies and the Director of one of these companies, Cell Stress Discoveries Ltd. In 2014, Prof. Samali was awarded the NUIG Presidents award for Research Excellence- Research Supervisor of the Year. He has supervised 33 Ph.D. students, 9 M.Sc. students and 23 post-doctoral researchers. To date, he has published over 160 peer-reviewed Public - No restrictionations and currently has a h-index of 63, with over 28,000 citations. He has also filed 7 patent applications. He has been successful in obtaining over 23 million in competitive grant funding over the past 20 years for cell stresscell death research, including EU (Horizon 2020), Higher Education Authority of Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Health Research Board, Irish Cancer Society, Irish Research Council, Breast Cancer Now (previously Breast Cancer Campaign), and Industry, as well as being the recipient of a prestigious SFI Investigator Award (2006-2011). Prof. Samali is a member of European Cell Death Organisation (ECDO), Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (RAMI), Royal Irish Academy (MRIA) and co-founder of the Endoplasmic Reticulum Society. He is Editor of Int J Cell Biol, Senior Associate Editor of J Cell Mol Medicine (JCMM) and Review Editor for Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biol (Cell Death and Cell Survival, Molecular and Cellular Oncology).

The main focus of my research is to understand the molecular mechanisms that control the cellular response to ER stress. ER stress causes unfolded proteins to accumulate in the ER and this activates a cellular signaling network called the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR). The UPR aims to reduce the load of unfolded proteins in the ER and restore ER homeostasis by a number of mechanisms, however, if the stress is too severe or prolonged the UPR can induce cell death. There are three ER transmembrane proteins, PERK, ATF6 and IRE1, involved in the initiation of downstream UPR signaling. ER stress and UPR have been implicated in the development of conditions such as neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory disorders, diabetes and cancer. Currently my lab are studying (1) UPR signaling in tumorogenesis, tumor metastasis and therapy resistance; (2) UPR drug discovery, in particular drugs targeting IRE1 or PERK; (3) biomarker discovery as companion diagnostics and for stratification of patients based on UPR activation in tumors.