Larissa bLESS

Larissa earned her B.Sc. in Molecular Biology from Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg in 2022. During her undergraduate studies, she was awarded a prestigious DAAD-Worldwide travel grant, facilitating a three-month research internship at Dublin City University (DCU). Under the supervision of Dr. Neil Conlon, she focused on characterizing drug-resistance mechanisms in breast cancer. Following her degree, Larissa served as a Research Assistant in Prof. Patrick Walsh’s lab at Trinity College Dublin, where she investigated the drivers of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease. Currently, Larissa is a third-year Ph.D. candidate at Dublin City University, working within the Life Science Institute under the mentorship of Dr. Neil Conlon. Her doctoral research, funded by Research Ireland and the Clinical Cancer Research Trust, aims to enhance targeted therapies for triple-negative breast cancer. Her work specifically explores the investigation of combination therapies and innate and acquired resistance to Antibody-drug conjugates.

As a visiting researcher within the Iorio Group, supported by the Biological Research Society (DCU) EOLAS funding, Larissa is leveraging genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 screens to map genetic dependencies in in vitro models, identifying novel therapeutic strategies to overcome drug resistance in triple-negative breast cancer.