2024 UCD Conway Festival gold medal for anti-inflammatory gut research

Dr Carlos Matellan from the UCD School of Medicine has won the 2024 UCD Conway Festival Gold Medal for anti-inflammatory research that could help people with gut diseases like Crohn's disease and prevent the damage caused by too much inflammation.

Dr Carlos Matellan, winner of the 2024 UCD Conway Gold Medal

Dr Matellan is a postdoctoral fellow in the groups of Dr Mario Manresa and Dr Stephen Thorpe. The research carried out by Dr Matellan looked at a protein called TWEAK. This protein can make certain cells in the gut (called fibroblasts) act in a way that makes inflammation worse. 

Inflammation usually occurs as a reaction to an injury or infection. Affected areas can appear swollen, red, and are sometimes painful.

When TWEAK interacts with fibroblasts, these cells start making signals that tell the immune system to cause more inflammation. This is similar to what happens in people with diseases like Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, which are types of gut diseases that cause a lot of discomfort.

The study found that when fibroblasts are affected by TWEAK, they also change how they talk to other cells called monocytes. These monocytes then also start causing more inflammation, making the problem even worse.

Describing the significance of the research findings, Dr Matellan said, “By understanding how TWEAK works, we may be able to find new medicines to stop these cells from making inflammation worse in the future. This could help people with gut diseases like Crohn's to feel better and prevent the damage caused by too much inflammation.”

The research findings were published in the Journal of Immunology in June 2024. Dr Carlos Matellan was awarded the Gold Medal sponsored by Cruinn Diagnostics at the closing ceremony of the 2024 UCD Conway Festival of Research and Innovation, which took place on 02-03 October.

Pictured (L-R): Dr Stephen Lalor and competition runners up: PhD students, Tanwi Vartak, Comsin Tudose, Dr Carlos Matellan, Ruth Haverty & (Hannah Brown not pictured) 

Professor Helen Roche, Director, UCD Conway Institute said, “I want to congratulate Carlos on winning the Festival Gold Medal for his work. It is exciting to see the potential of this protein as a therapeutic target to alleviate the symptoms of inflammation for patients living with inflammatory bowel disease.

Carlos competed against four other early career researchers who were shortlisted in the competition. They are Tanwi Vartek (PI: Dr Eoin Brennan) from the UCD School of Medicine, Hannah Brown and Ruth Haverty (PI: Dr Nicola Fletcher) from the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine; and Cosmin Tudose (PI: Prof. Walter Kolch, UCD School of Medicine and Director, Systems Biology Ireland).

The annual UCD Conway Festival of Research and Innovation featured research from 148 early career researchers, a panel discussion on communicating science as well as presentations from leading scientists including Professors Samir Mitragotri, Harvard University; Eileen Furlong, European Molecular Biology Laboratory and Elio Riboli, Imperial College London.

To view more images from the 2024 UCD Conway Festival, click the photograph below or visit https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBLXtc

Journal references:
Carlos Matellan, Ciarán Kennedy, Miren Itxaso Santiago-Vela, Johanna Hochegger, Méabh B. Ní Chathail, Amanda Wu, Christopher Shannon, Helen M. Roche, Seema S. Aceves, Catherine Godson, Mario C. Manresa; The TNFSF12/TWEAK Modulates Colonic Inflammatory Fibroblast Differentiation and Promotes Fibroblast–Monocyte Interactions. J Immunol 15 June 2024; 212 (12): 1958–1970. 

Haverty, R. et al. (2024). SARS-CoV-2 infects neurons, astrocytes, choroid plexus epithelial cells and pericytes of the human central nervous system in vitro. The Journal of General Virology, 105(7), 10.1099/jgv.0.002009. 

Vartak T. et al (2024). Induction of let-7d-5p miRNA modulates aortic smooth muscle inflammatory signaling and phenotypic switching. Atherosclerosis. Aug;395:117573. doi: 10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2024.117573. Epub 2024 May 6. PMID: 38796407.

Tudose, C. et al (2023). Gene essentiality in cancer is better predicted by mRNA abundance than by gene regulatory network-inferred activity. NAR cancer, 5(4), p.zcad056. 

Brown HM. et al. Polarisation enhances hepatitis E virus infection of hepatocytes in vitro. Journal of Virology (submitted).