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UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular & Biomedical Research

Driving Discovery, Impacting Health

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Research

Transforming Health Through Interdisciplinary Research

Our discoveries pave the way for earlier diagnoses, better treatments, and healthier lives.

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Technology

Behind every breakthrough is powerful technology.

Centrally managed core technology platforms equipped with leading tools to enable researchers ask bold questions—and find game-changing answers.

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Engagement

Connecting Science with Society

Actively involving patients, support-givers, teachers, and pupils to ensure research reflects public perspectives and has real-world impact 

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Education

Empowering the Next Generation of Biomedical Researchers

Join a vibrant, interdisciplinary community where innovation meets mentorship

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Innovation

Partnering to bring discovery to application

Enabling the translation of research in a world-class ecosystem for innovation that drives enterprise development.

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Latest News

Woman smiling 03Dec
Emerging Ocular Therapeutics Start-Up Wins UCD’s 2025 VentureLaunch Award

Dr Alison Reynolds accepts the winning trophy for the 2025 UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme on behalf of the team involved in OcuHealth, an emerging eye therapeutics start-up.
Women in front of hanging fabrics 19Nov
‘Cut From the Same Cloth’; The Fabric of our Lives opens in Roscommon Arts Centre

Ursula Ledwith, presenter of the Arts Programme on community radio station RosFM, opened the final leg of the 2025 exhibition tour merging art, science, and community.
People smiling 14Nov
Three Conway Fellows receive funding under Research Ireland Frontiers for the Future

Conway Fellows, Professors Geraldine Butler and Wenxin Wang and Dr Martina Wallace receive Research Ireland Frontiers for the Future programme awards
Woman smiling 08Oct
PhD student, Louise Keegan receives the inaugural Crean travel bursary award for neurotherapeutics research

PhD student, Louise Keegan received the inaugural Crean travel bursary award at the 2025 UCD Conway Festival of Research & Innovation for her work on the impact of cocaine exposure on the development of the prenatal brain.
Woman smiling 07Oct
Professor Helen Roche appointed to the Board of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland

Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill TD, has appointed Professor Helen Roche to the Board of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) with effect from 7 October 2025 until 6 October 2028.
Woman smiling 06Oct
2025 UCD Conway Festival gold medal for research on a new gene mutation in eye disease named after blind Irish poet.

Dr Tess McCann has won the 2025 UCD Conway Festival Gold Medal for published research describing the discovery of a mutation in a gene called emc1 that causes major vision problems in zebrafish.
Woman gazing at tapestry 11Sep
Launch of the 2023/2024 UCD Community Engagement report

Spotlighting 'Cut from the Same Cloth', a public engagement project led by UCD Conway Institute at the launch of the 2023/2024 UCD Community Engagement Report.
Woman smiling 27Aug
Evolution: Two small steps for human bipedalism

The findings of an international study including Prof. Niamh Nowlan is published in the current issue of Nature and lays the developmental and genetic groundwork for the human-defining trait of bipedalism.
Liquid dripping from spatula 31Jul
Different sources of dietary fat may influence cancer risk in obesity

Findings from a decade-long international study reported in Nature Metabolism has shown that the source of dietary fat can change how well key immune cells work in obesity. 
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Research Spotlights

Exploding cells in a twisted shape
Targeting RNA can produce less toxic new drugs

The development of new drugs based on targeting non-coding RNA can produce less toxic, and more specific therapies for cancers and diseases.

Fruit fly examination
Unlocking new treatments for MND inside fruit fly DNA 

Fruit flies are tiny creatures, but the questions we are asking – how do neurons fail, how to fix them – are massively important for MND research.

Measuring tape and pills
Tackling obesity as a brain disease

Deciphering the links between the brain, gut and obesity is challenging how obesity has been thought of and treated in our society. 
Circles on circular plates
Taking the fight to deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that by 2050, there could be 50 million deaths annually due to antibiotic resistance. Professor Siobhán McClean is fighting to tackle some of these drug-resistant pathogens threatening so many lives.

Bone cancer
New strategies to treat a deadly childhood cancer

Osteosarcoma, a rare, deadly paediatric bone cancer has defied new approaches to its treatment ever since chemotherapy was introduced in the 1970s. Dr Fiona Freeman aims to change that.
Woman in large facility
Safer, faster, better ways to image and diagnose disease 

Working in parallel on two new game changing technologies that will enable quicker, safer, less painful and more precise micro-biopsies and visualise changes in individual cells caused by disease. 

Weighing scales
Inflammation is a better indicator of health than BMI in obesity

The level of low-grade, chronic inflammation in the body is a better indicator of metabolic health than simply measuring body mass index, or BMI.

AI generated image human skeleton
Inflammatory bowel disease

Preventing the GI tract springing a leak by developing new drug treatments that reinforce the epithelial layer.

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Dr Nicola Fletcher image
Traditional pathology is labour-intensive. We want to change that completely using new technologies like micro-biopsies and soft x-ray microscopy in tandem.
Dr Nicola Fletcher, Conway Fellow, UCD School of Veterinary Medicine
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Events

Poster advertising seminar 16Dec
Prof Ben Wielockx, Dresden University of Technology

Oxygen sensing in health and disease: What have we learnt so far?

Poster advertising seminar 09Dec
Prof. Alessandro Podesta, University of Milan, Italy

Magnetic actuation of ferritin-functionalized micro-cantilevers: investigating the feasibility of magnetic ion channel gating
Poster advertising seminar 02Dec
Prof Adrian Mariño, UCD School of Medicine, St Vincent’s University Hospital

Genomic complexity as a therapeutic vulnerability in leiomyosarcoma
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UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research

University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
T: +353 1 716 6700 | E: conway@ucd.ie