Professor Helen Roche has been appointed to the Board of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) by the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill TD.
Director of UCD Conway Institute and a Full Professor at UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, Professor Roche is a leading expert in Nutrigenomics.
Professor Roche trained initially in Human Nutrition and Dietetics, then in Molecular Medicine at TCD. She was a Wellcome Fellow in Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge (UK) and returned to Ireland in 2001 to take up a Wellcome Trust Fellowship at TCD.
In 2007 she was appointed Associate Professor Nutrigenomics at the UCD Conway Institute and the UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science and since then has held a number of roles including VP of Research, Innovation and Impact for the College of Health and Agricultural Sciences. In 2017 she became Full Professor of Nutrition and Omics and in 2021 was appointed Director of the UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research. She also served as UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact from May 2023 to February 2024.
Her Nutrigenomics team focuses on Precision Nutrition – specifically the impact of diet on metabolism and inflammation, in obesity related type 2 diabetes (T2D), non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and more recently cancer.
She is co-PI in Precision Oncology Ireland (POI), where her team is investigating whether and how the ‘dietary environment’ influences obesity-related cancer risk. The ongoing research, part of the EU Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life (HDHL) Joint Programming Initiative (HDHL JPI), funded by the APPETITE Project, is examining the impact of personalised plant protein and exercise interventions on appetite and malnutrition in older people.
Professor Roche has chaired and advised on several major European initiatives in Food, Nutrition, and Health. Her research continues to be supported by Research Ireland, the EU Joint Programming Initiative, and Precision Oncology Ireland. Her research team is funded by several agencies. She has served on the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the European Healthy Life Healthy Diet (HDHL) Joint Programming Initiative (JPI).