Minister Trevor Sargent TD and Professor Mike Gibney at the launch of the UCD Institute of Food and Health
The UCD Institute of Food and Health has been officially launched, uniting 27 leading scientists, 55 postdoctoral fellows and 150 postgraduate students who will work towards the better scientific understanding of the relationship between food and health.
“With the dramatic rise of obesity in the Irish and EU populations, the latest Dioxin food scare in Irish pork, the advent of personalised nutrition (based on people’s genetic make-up) to tackle health conditions and the opportunity to develop functional foods to improve public health, this area of scientific enquiry and understanding has never been so crucial to the future health and welfare of our nation,” said Professor Mike Gibney, Director of the UCD Institute of Food and Health.
UCD identified food and health as a pivotal area for research development and set about bringing together scientists and experts from the fields of agricultural production, veterinary medicine, food development and biosystems, nutrition, food safety, public health, consumer behaviour, economics and food regulation. With competitively-achieved funding secured from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food , Enterprise Ireland, SFI, PRTLI and other public and private funders, food and health research income at UCD has grown from €3.4 million in 2001 to over €25 million in 2008 and accounts for almost 20 per cent of research income at the university.
Scientific research findings by the new UCD Institute of Food and Health will inform Irish Government and EU policy, and will help to promote public awareness of food and health issues.
The new institute is headed up by Professor Mike Gibney, a world leading scientific expert in food and health research. Research project leaders at the Institute include: Professor Pat Wall (Associate Professor of Public Health), Professor Cecily Kelleher (Professor of Public Health Medicine and Epidemiology), Professor Colin Scott (Professor of EU Regulation and Governance), and Professor John O’Doherty (Associate Professor of Animal Nutrition).
“One of the unique strengths of the new institute is its capacity to move scientific research from primary agricultural production through to food science and engineering, and from veterinary public health to food regulation and consumer research,” said Professor Gibney.
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