Translating Discovery Into Care Professor Stephen Maher On The Future Of Cancer Therapy

Finding Genius Podcast

Richard Jacobs

Health, Extracellularvesicles, Crisprcas9, 3dbioprinting, Medicine, Cancer, Health & Fitness, Biotech, Bioscience, Microbiome, Ketogenicdiets

4.4 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today's episode, we are joined by Professor Stephen Maher, an expert in translational oncology and radiation research at Trinity College Dublin, where he also serves as the Director of Postgraduate Studies for the School of Medicine.

Stephen's work focuses on understanding why some cancers respond to treatment while others resist it — particularly in relation to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. His research explores how factors like microRNAs, the DNA damage response, and tumor hypoxia influence treatment sensitivity, with a strong emphasis on oesophageal and pancreatic cancers.

Hit play to explore:

The future of anti-cancer therapeutics.
The ways that radiation research is evolving.
Why translational oncology is so important for improving patient outcomes.

After completing his Ph.D. in Oncology at RCSI and a fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland, Stephen has built a career dedicated to bridging lab-based discovery with patient-focused care. He leads national and international collaborations in cancer biology and has helped develop cutting-edge radiotherapy and hypoxia research cores at Trinity's Translational Medicine Institute.

Click here to learn more about Stephen and his important work!

🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9C

🛍️ Recommended Books from This Episode:

📖 The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee – A sweeping and deeply human history of cancer, from ancient times to the modern era of targeted therapies.
👉 Get it here

📘 The Biology of Cancer by Robert A. Weinberg – The definitive textbook on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of cancer, used across graduate‑ and medical‑school curriculums.
👉 Check it out

📙 The Cancer Chronicles: Unlocking Medicine's Deepest Mystery by George Johnson – A personal and provocative journey into cancer research, exploring how scientists are redefining the disease and our fight against it.
👉 Explore it here

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Forget frequently asked questions.
0:02.3	Common sense.
0:03.1	Common knowledge.
0:04.1	Or Google.
0:04.7	How about advice from a real genius?
0:06.9	95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified in license.
0:11.3	5% go above and beyond.
0:13.1	They become very good at what they do.
0:14.8	But only 0.1% are real geniuses.
0:18.2	Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you.
0:22.2	He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field.
0:25.1	Sleep science, cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more.
0:28.6	Here come the geniuses.
0:30.3	This is the Finding Genius podcast with Richard Jacobs.
0:37.5	Hello, this is Richard Jacobs, the Finding Genius podcast host.
0:41.3	Today, my guest is Stephen Mayer.
0:43.1	He's a professor in translational oncology.
0:45.8	We were talking about the role of microRNA and random mitochondrial DNA mutations in cancer.
0:51.5	Professor Mayer graduated from RCSI to the PhD in oncology. And then in 2004,
0:56.8	you got a fellowship from the National Cancer Institute in Maryland. Spent three years working on
1:00.9	novel immunotherapeutics for cancer. 2007 went back to Ireland and Department of Surgery
1:06.3	at Trinity College of Dublin, St. James Hospital as the research fellow. And on and on.
	...

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