(l-r) Karen Hanrahan, Oisin Gough, Julie Worrell, Mark Jackson and Trudy Mc Garry are the UCD-based students participating in the CTRSP
Molecular Medicine Ireland’s innovative Clinical and Translational Research Scholars Programme (CTRSP) was launched recently by Minister Sean Sherlock TD. The programme prepares science graduates for jobs in Ireland’s knowledge economy, and was developed by MMI and its academic partners, UCD, NUI Galway, TCD and UCC. In addition to government funding of €4.3m, awarded under Cycle 5 of PRTLI, the CTRSP benefits from the extensive involvement of industry partners such as Amgen, Pfizer, Creganna-Tactx, Merrion Pharmaceuticals and the Irish Medicines Board.
The CTRSP is a four year structured PhD programme, which aims to address the deficit in the number of scientists in Ireland undertaking innovative patient and disease-focused research with the aim of understanding of how to translate the research results for the benefit of patients. During the first year of the programme, the 20 enrolled scholars - five each based in UCD, NUI Galway, UCC and TCD – will begin the programme with a four-week period of taught courses in UCD and Trinity College Dublin. This will be followed by placements in academic research groups, clinical research centres and in industry.
In launching the CTRSP, Minister Sherlock said, “I strongly believe this new programme will deliver more scientists in Ireland who are undertaking innovative patient and disease-focused research, and then crucially bringing their findings from the bench to the clinic.”
Minister Sherlock continued, “I am delighted to see further tangible evidence of how Ireland’s higher education sector, in developing this type of programme, is delivering for our enterprise needs. For me, a major source of encouragement to be taken from the CTRSP is the strong focus on commercialisation – on the critical need to translate our research discoveries into commercial outputs.”
The programme, which harnesses a combination of clinical and translational research expertise and resources from each of the four institutions, working together through MMI, is set to develop future leaders to bring innovative discoveries to the market and to patients. These scholars will be well trained to work with clinicians, in the pharmaceutical industry or to start up their own companies.
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