UCD Professor Dolores O‘Riordan receives the Enterprise Ireland 2012 LifeSciences Commercialisation Award from Seán Sherlock TD, Minister for Research and Innovation.
UCD Professor Dolores O’Riordan, Deputy Director of the UCD Institute of Food and Health and a leading researcher in the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science was presented with the Enterprise Ireland 2012 Lifescience Commercialisation Award by Seán Sherlock TD, Minister for Research and Innovation. The award was presented during Enterprise Ireland’s 2012 Big Ideas Showcase which took place in the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
Professor O’Riordan received the award in recognition of her exemplary contribution to innovation in the food sector through collaboration with industry. A teaching advocate in Food Science, she is highly regarded by industry and academia alike, having delivered numerous commercial projects for industry as well as being a Professor with an impressive publishing and patenting record at UCD. She and her research team have also developed a patented ‘health food technology’ which has recently been licensed to Largo Foods (owners of the Tayto Brand) by UCD’s technology transfer office at NovaUCD to bring a ‘healthy snack product’ to market.
Professor O’Riordan is a Principal Investigator in Food for Health Ireland, a large-scale collaborative research programme funded by Enterprise Ireland and four of Ireland’s largest dairy companies. The primary objective of this programme is to identify functional ingredients from milk which can form the basis of new products with defined health benefits for consumers.
Speaking at event, Minister Sherlock said, “This event is about turning publicly-funded research into companies, spin-outs, intellectual property and jobs. It’s about cultivating the investment by the taxpayer in our third level institutions, and harvesting the rewards. The Government is striving to create the right environment where ideas can be identified, protected and commercialised leading to the creation of much needed jobs for this economy.’
On receiving the award Professor O’Riordan said, “It is an exciting time to be involved in food research and I feel privileged to be part of the research community attempting to anticipate and satisfy the future needs of the food industry. I really enjoy the challenge of translating academic research into a commercial environment and feel very fortunate to receive Enterprise Ireland funding that helps foster industrial partnerships.”
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