Welcome to the Research and Innovation section of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology website.
The School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology has a long history of considerable achievement in research and innovation. The school is currently comprised of 24 academic, 18 technical and 4 administrative staff. We have around 30 post-doctoral fellows and 100 postgraduate students are enrolled in PhD or MSc programmes.
By 2011 the School's research will be housed in over 4000 m2 of high specification, modern laboratories within the UCD Science Centre.
Research Initiatives
The School’s research is underpinned by several national initiatives, which have involved over €50M in infrastructural development and investment in human capital since 2002, including the:
- PRTLI 3-funded Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology, a joint research institute involving the School and colleagues from across the chemical sciences from Trinity College Dublin and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland;
- SFI-funded strategic clusters in the areas of: (a) solar energy, (b) bionano interactions and (c) drug delivery;
- PRTLI 4-funded thematic doctoral programmes in (bio)pharmaceutical and pharmacological sciences and bionanointeractions;
- PRTLI 5-funded programme on Nanomechanical Approaches and Functional Materials for Regenerative Medicine.
In addition to these national initiatives, the School has been awarded research funding from a range of other national (SFI, IRCSET, Enterprise Ireland, pharmaceutical industry, Marine Institute, Teagasc, EPA) and international (EU – Marie Curie Action, ERC, COST, Era-Net) sources.
Research Facilities
The School maintains a number of core facilities at internationally competitive levels, including:
- an NMR centre with 5 spectrometers (300, 400, 2 x 500 and 600 MHz);
- a Mass Spectrometry/Chromatography centre with a range of GC, LC and direct injection instruments;
- an X-ray crystallography centre, comprising a dual source microfocus instrument for small molecule and protein diffraction analysis;
- a microanalytical centre providing elemental analysis
School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Facilities
In addition to its core facilities, the School has state-of-the-art instrumentation for atomic force microscopy, ultrasonic spectroscopy, ultrasonic rheology, classical rheology, dynamic light scattering, densitometry, titration and differential scanning calorimetry, differential thermal analysis, electrochemistry, high performance liquid chromatography, electron spin resonance spectroscopy, UV-visible, infrared and Raman spectroscopies, high pressure batch reactors and atmospheric pressure plug flow reactors and analysis equipment for the monitoring of catalysed reactions and catalyst characterisation equipment including TPD, TPR, SSITKA, TGA and in situ FTIR and Raman spectroscopy.
Research and Industry
The SCCB is committed to fostering entrepreneurship, supporting technology transfer and developing strong partnerships with industry. Researchers work closely with NovaUCD, which is the innovation and technology centre at UCD, to facilitate successful commercialisation of the research programmes.
Representative campus companies developed by SCCB staff include:
- Celtic Catalysts, a company that has developed ground-breaking chemistry of relevance to the pharmaceutical, biotech and fine chemicals industries;
- Ntera, a leading developer of advanced, fully printable electrochromic materials;
- Cytrea, a biotechnology company which focuses on the development of modified cyclodextrins as delivery systems for the controlled release and targeted delivery of bioactive entities.
Research Staff
For a brief summary of the research interests of staff members, with selected recent publications, please see our School Brochure and the more detailed descriptions / information available from each Staff Member’s Web Page.
Pat Guiry
School Director of Research and Innovation
Director of the Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology
