Thursday, 6 October, 2022
In 2018 a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was signed between UCD and the University of Edinburgh (UoE), committing each institution to support students and faculty to share knowledge and expertise in a number of key areas, including One Health The MoA formalises a close partnership between the two institutions that is one of UCD's most valued, and expresses our ambition to jointly contribute our expertise to solving some of the world's most challenging problems.
Following the signing of the MoA, UCD and UoE provided matched funds to support a cross-institutional and multidisciplinary platform for joint research. Following a hiatus due to Covid-19, a call was run in April 2022 requesting proposals from highly ambitious partnerships with a clear vision for achieving a world leading position in their research area within 5 years.
The call was enormously popular, with UCD partners from Schools of Medicine; Veterinary Medicine, Biomolecular & Biomedical Science; Public Health, Physiotherapy & Sport Science; Agriculture & Food Science; Chemistry; Psychology; Computer Science; Business, Information & Communication Studies; Electrical & Electronic Engineering; Mechanical & Materials Engineering. Following review by a panel of academics from UCD and UoE, two parternships were selected for funding.
Successful Applications
One-TB: Bovine TB Control via One Health was submitted by UCD’s Prof Stephen Gordon, School of Veterinary Medicine and Prof David MacHugh, School of Ag and Food Science, and Dr. Emily Clark, Prof Rowland Kao and Dr. James Prendergast from University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute. The team brings together knowledge and expertise of bovine TB at both host (cattle) and pathogen (M. bovis) levels. The group will study the genetic basis for an animal's response to disease and use molecular epidemiology to develop tools to track pathogen movement.
SMARt: Strategies to Mitigate Antibiotic and pesticide Resistance was led on the UCD side by Professor Seamus Fanning, School of Public Health, Physiotherapy & Sports Science, along with Dr. Leonard Koolman from the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust and Dr. Guerrino Macori from Professor Fanning’s group. The University of Edinburgh team was led by Dr. Thamarai Schneiders from Edinburgh Medical School, along with Prof Nicola Holden, SRUC, Prof David Galley, The Roslin Institute, and Dr Andrew Singer from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. The team plan to investigate how pesticides drive antibiotic resistance and alter microbiome diversity, plant and environment health, and pathogen transmission.
The projects are expected to start on 1st November 2022, and run for 12 months.