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5 Conway Fellows receive SFI funding awards
University College Dublin has received almost €8 million of the €25 million funding announced by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O’Keeffe TD under the Science Foundation Ireland, Principal Investigator Programme.
UCD Conway Fellows, Professors Grace Mulcahy, Declan Gilheany, Ronan O’Connell, Jeremy Simpson and Dr Evelyn Murphy received awards under the programme at the official announcement on 28 April 2010. Eight UCD research projects received awards ranging from about €630,000 to €1.6m. A total of 27 projects from across all higher education institutions received funding under the initiative.
Speaking at the announcement, Minister O’Keeffe said that the selected projects have “the capacity to create new jobs in the ‘smart’ economy because they targeted high-growth areas at the cutting-edge of innovation”.
Director General of Science Foundation Ireland, Professor Frank Gannon, said the Principal Investigator Programme has been “the cornerstone of the agency’s work agenda”. “The track record shows that by selecting excellent researchers, we can develop key partnerships with leading industries in Ireland, as well as producing high-quality publications and highly-skilled workers.”
Science Foundation Ireland directly supports more than 3,200 researchers who are collaborating with almost 400 indigenous and multinational firms in Ireland.
Professor Jeremy Simpson from UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science will receive €1,588,726 for his proposal to use microscopy-based methods and cells growing in the laboratory to discover how pathways between cellular compartments are controlled. This may better inform the design of drugs that can more accurately target various sub-compartments of the cell.
Professor O’Connell and Dr Winter from UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science were awarded €842,072 for their research to identify a potential role for sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB) in the development of ulcerative colitis. Their study aims to clearly define the relationship between SRB and inflammation in ulcerative colitis in an effort to provide new therapeutic options for the treatment of the illness.
Dr Evelyn Murphy from UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine hopes to better understand the events and mechanisms involved in switching cells during the inflammatory response. Her €631,223 award for the functional analysis of NR4A receptor activity during distinct phases of acute and chronic inflammation may potentially open new avenues in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic inflammatory disease.
Also from the UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine, Professor Grace Mulcahy aims to understand how parasitic helminth (worm) infections affect the ability of the host to initiate an immune response to a simultaneous infection (co-infection) by another pathogen, such as a bacterium. The €866,190 award will fund research to specifically investigate how Fasciola hepatica (liver fluke) infection alters bovine tuberculosis disease progression and may impact on the control of animal disease and public health.
Professor Declan Gilheany, UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology will receive €1,609,890 for his research project to construct a large library of potentially important drug candidates. His group have already perfected a route that allows certain specific phosphorus-containing compounds to be prepared in high yield and purity. These compounds have the ability to interact with other administered molecules within the human body to produce effective drug candidates for various disease types. They are now seeking to prove that their method can be applied more generally.
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