Event details
Event: AccesScience 2008
Date: March 3, 2008
Time: 13:30
Venue: O'Reilly Hall, UCD
The 2008 AccesScience competition will be the 11th event of its kind since the days of the Merville Lay Seminars, and will take place on 3rd March in O’Reilly Hall, UCD.
On that day, six postgraduate finalists from the UCD Conway Institute will each give a fifteen minute presentation on their research and its significance to a non-scientific audience. Their job will be to ‘unravel’ their research for all to understand and appreciate. We will have up to 500 second-level students in the audience, along with their teachers, and the event is also open to the public and to those from UCD itself.
Speakers
- Belinda Maher (SMMS), in Neutrophils - the Jekyll and Hyde of Inflammation, will focus on neutrophils as part of her presentation, and will explain how statins can be used to prevent excess neutrophil migration during cardiac surgery, thus preventing damage to the heart.
- Billy Fleming (CSCB), in The Nature of Chemistry, will be telling the AccesScience audience about the work being done to synthesise important molecules that will help to reduce our dependency on nature to supply drugs - showing some of the environmental benefits of scientific research.
- Jane Ferguson (SMMS), in You are what you Eat?, explores the role played by genes in determining our metabolic activity, helping us to understand how diet and genes interact when processing the food we eat.
- Shane Kenny (CSCB), in Hot Sands and Microbes, looks at ways of creating biodegradable plastics using chemical processes and microbes, helping to reduce the amount of plastics ending up in landfill.
- Jennifer Hickey (SBBS), in Scaffolding for a Healthy Heart, will talk about her work with two different drugs that can improve the way in which stents operate to prevent arteries thickening and blocking.
- Marco Monopoli (SBBS), in Learning and memory; revealing the secret, will describe his exploration into the way in which the brain learns new information and then forms memories that allow this information to be recalled the next time it is needed.
AccesScience '08 kicks off at 1.30pm on 3rd March in O'Reilly Hall. RTE's Pat Kenny will act as host again this year, and everyone is welcome. Come along and join the rest of the audience and the celebrity judging panel to vote for the winning speaker.
For more information contact Aideen Hartney, Communications and Education Officer, at aideen.hartney@ucd.ie, or 7166706.