Up to 60 Irish patients are to take part in an international trial that is testing a new leukaemia treatment.
The trials are open to patients being treated for a form of the cancer known as CLL in hospitals in Cork, Waterford, Galway and Dublin.
The trial aims to test treatments that have fewer side effects than standard chemotherapy treatments.
Professor Patrick Thornton from Beaumont Hospital says around 200 people are affected by the disease every year.
"CLL is chronic lymphocytic leukemia.it's a cencer of the blood, and it's the commonest leukemia that we see in the western world," he said.
"It affects the blood, the bone marrow and the lymph glands and it's generally a leukemia or a blood cancer of older people"