The Health Research Board recently awarded 24 new Research Fellowships worth €4.5m. Hepatitis C infection, MRSA and modelling patterns of drug use to inform health services policy, are just some examples of what will be under scrutiny by the HRB Research Fellows over the next three years.
‘Supporting young researchers at the beginning of their career is essential to ensure we draw the best people into health-related sciences and develop a research ethos for health professionals,’ said Professor Desmond Fitzgerald, Chairman of the Health Research Board and UCD Vice-President for Research. ‘A key aim of these awards is to help the researchers to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to develop their careers.’
This year, competition for the fellowships was very strong with 24 HRB Fellows selected following an independent peer review process from 131 applications. The successful applicants come from a variety of disciplines in hospitals, health services and universities throughout the country.
Amongst those awarded to UCD researchers, Ms Kate Frazer, UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, will examine the knowledge and attitudes of primary care nurses with regard to Hepatitis C virus infection, which is relatively common in high-risk groups such as intravenous drug users, homeless people and prostitutes. This study will examine whether the attitudes of nurses towards these patients influences the care the patients receive. A pilot educational programme will aim to improve nurses’ knowledge of the disease and help change practices among primary care nurses.
Dr Eoghan O’Neill, UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, will study genetic differences between cases of MRSA bio-film infections found in Irish intensive care units. MRSA can be transmitted in a number of ways, one of which is through the formation of films on medical devices. Infections resulting from these bio-films are very difficult to control. It is anticipated that this work could help to inform appropriate infection control measures and aid the development of new drugs for the management of these serious hospital-acquired infections.
Other UCD recipients of HRB Fellowships include:
Dr Marina O’Kane, UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine
Title: Corticotrophin-releasing hormone mediated responses in Psoriasis.
Dr Aedin Culhane, Bioinformatics, UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research
Title: Application of multivariate methods to the analysis of a compendium of gene expression profiles in Leukaemia.
Dr Lisa Kelly, UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science, Mater Misericordiae Hospital
Title: Dementia following stroke: A sub-study of the North Dublin Population Stroke Study
Dr Tom Cawood, St. Vincent’s University Hospital (and UCD)
Title: Potential therapeutic targets in Thyroid Associated Ophthalmopathy
Four categories of research fellowships were awarded by Professor Desmond Fitzgerald, across the categories of Research Training, Clinical Research Training in Nursing and Midwifery, Post-Doctoral Research and Health Services Research. A full list of Fellowships awarded is available here. You will need Adobe Acrobat installed to view this file.
