Posted 04 May 2010
€8 million for UCD researchers under SFI Principal Investigator Programme
University College Dublin has received almost €8 million of the €25 million funding announced by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O’Keeffe TD under the Science Foundation Ireland, Principal Investigator Programme.
Eight UCD research projects received awards ranging from about €630,000 to €1.6m. A total of 27 projects from across all higher education institutions received funding under the official announcement on 28 April 2010.
Science Foundation Ireland’s Principal Investigator Programme supports strategic work in the life science, information communications technology and sustainable energy sectors.
According to Minister O’Keeffe the selected projects have “the capacity to create new jobs in the ‘smart’ economy because they targeted high-growth areas at the cutting-edge of innovation”.
“Their focus on turning ideas into commercialised products and services is meeting the challenge of the Innovation Taskforce Report which is rooted in the promise of human capital and our capacity to forge a future for tomorrow's workers,” said the Minister.
“By investing on a sustained basis in pioneering work, the Government is demonstrating our determination to support the emerging talent pool of scientists and engineers and create the jobs of tomorrow.”
“Today’s Science Foundation Ireland awards are a very important contribution to our innovation ecosystem and a core component of the Government’s economic recovery project.”
Professor Des Fitzgerald, Vice-President for Research at UCD congratulated the awardees and added “It is critical that the government continues to support Ireland’s top researchers as these are the leaders of the knowledge economy. The UCD PIs recognised in this funding are working on major challenges in energy, animal and human health and drug development, key areas in the UCD strategy for research and innovation”.
Director General of Science Foundation Ireland, Professor Frank Gannon, said the Principal Investigator Programme has been “the cornerstone of the agency’s work agenda”.
“The track record shows that by selecting excellent researchers, we can develop key partnerships with leading industries in Ireland, as well as producing high-quality publications and highly-skilled workers.”
“That is the promise of the Government’s strategic investment in high-value research and human capital,” said Professor Gannon.
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O’Keeffe TD with Dr Evelyn Murphy, University College Dublin, who received an SFI Principal Investigator Award for a research project focused on the functional analysis of NR4A receptor activity during distinct phases of acute and chronic inflammation
SUMMARY OF SFI PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR AWARDS TO UCD:
Dr Damian Flynn
UCD School of Electrical, Electronic, and Mechanical Engineering
Award: €666,482
Research Project: Enhancement of short-term power system flexibility at high wind penetration levels
Power systems world-wide are adopting increasing levels of renewable energy sources and thus displacing conventional (fossil-fired) generation. Ireland defined a target of 40% of energy from renewable energy sources (mainly wind generation) by 2020. However, as more renewable sources are introduced, conventional methods of balancing electricity supply and demand need to be replaced. This research will explore the use of enabling technologies such as demand side management (smart electricity meters and home area networks), electric vehicle transportation and wind farm flexibility to facilitate high renewable energy levels to be achieved without compromising power system reliability.
The research will be undertaken in collaboration with Eirgrid and ESB Networks.
Dr Flynn is an SFI Stokes (Engineering) Lecturer who is part funded by industry members of Electricity Research Centre (ERC) at UCD.
Professor Joao Marques-Silva
UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics
Award: €865,193
Research Project: BEACON: BoolEAn-based deCision and OptimizatioN procedures
Fabrication of consumer products needs to guarantee that the resulting products work as expected and are safe for human beings to use. Computer models are used to develop new treatments for diseases by studying biological systems. The BEACON project develops more efficient computer-based solutions for a number of tasks related with system design and analysis, including asserting product safety or analyzing biological systems.
Professor Steffen Backert
UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science
Award: €665,934
Research Project: Importance of bacterial factors and signaling cascades in host cell invasion of the food-borne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni
Campylobacter jejuni is one of the major causes of food-borne illness and diarrhoeal disease, and may be responsible for as many as 400-500 million cases throughout the world each year. Prof Backert proposal is designed to pinpoint important bacterial factors and host signalling events involved in C. jejuni induced illness.
Professor O’Connell and Dr Winter
UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science
Award: €842,072
Research Project: Colonisation by sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB) subspecies in normal and inflamed colon and colonocyte responses to the SRB metabolite hydrogen sulphide
Work by Prof O’Connell and Dr Winter have identified a potential role for Sulphate Reducing Bacteria (SRB) in the development of Ulcerative Colitis (UC). Their study aims to clearly define the relationship between SRB and inflammation in UC thus providing new therapeutic options for the treatment of UC.
Professor Jeremy Simpson
UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science
Award: €1,588,726
Research Project: Dissecting plasma membrane to endoplasmic reticulum trafficking pathways in mammalian cells – potential new avenues for improved drug delivery
Currently our understanding of how to direct drugs to the various compartments within cells is poor, but improved knowledge could make the drugs much more effective. Using microscopy-based methods, and cells growing in the laboratory, the proposed research will discover how pathways between compartments are controlled, and this information will be used to help design drugs that can be better targeted to various sub-compartments of the cell.
Dr Evelyn Murphy, University College Dublin
UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine
Award: €631,223
Research Project: Functional analysis of NR4A receptor activity during distinct phases of acute and chronic inflammation
Inflammation is a complex biological response by the circulatory and immune systems to harmful stimuli including such as infections, damaged cells, or irritants. Prolonged or inappropriate inflammatory responses contribute to diseases including psoriasis and arthritis. Scientific advances indicate that the progression of these diseases may result from a switch in the type of cells present at sites of inflammation which ultimately leads to damage and destruction of the affected area. A major focus of this research programme is to better understand the events and mechanisms involved in switching cells during the inflammatory response. This may potentially open new avenues in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic inflammatory disease.
Professor Grace Mulcahy
UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine
Award: €866,190
Research Project: Helminth co-infection as a modulator of the bovine immune response
Prof. Mulcahy’s research aims to understand how parasitic helminth (worm) infections affect the ability of the host to initiate an immune response to a simultaneous infection (co-infection) by another pathogen, such as a bacterium. Helminth infection may impair clearance of other co-infecting pathogens and affect disease progression, the response to vaccination and performance of diagnostic tests. The research will specifically investigate how Fasciola hepatica (liver fluke) infection alters bovine tuberculosis disease progression and may impact on the control of animal disease and public health.
Professor Declan Gilheany
UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Award: €1,609,890
Research Project: Construction of P-Stereogenic Components of ProTide Drug Candidates
The group are interested in designing specific phosphorus-containing compounds, which have the ability to interact with other administered molecules within the human body, and which when combined produce effective drug candidates for various disease types. The key issue is that the phosphorus-containing compounds are very difficult to synthesise in an ideally pure form, and only very few are known. Prof. Gilheany’s group have perfected a route that allows certain compounds of this type to be prepared in high yield and purity. They are now seeking to prove that their method can be applied more generally, which would lead to a much larger library of potentially important drug candidates.
Science Foundation Ireland directly supports more than 3,200 researchers who are collaborating with almost 400 indigenous and multinational firms in Ireland.
(Produced by UCD University Relations)
