A dozen researchers in the ICT and biotech fields are to share funding of €12m as part of Science Foundation Ireland’s latest funding round.
The researchers are based in third level institutions in Dublin, Cork and Limerick and were selected following a process of international peer review. Two of the 12 were attracted to Ireland from research institutions in North America, with the remaining researchers already based here.
These scientists and engineers will work on a wide range of programmes that may have significant industrial impacts on areas such as the manufacture of dairy products, to issues that will critically affect the next generation of electronics technology. Others are investigating building incredibly small devices (some thousands of a millionth of a metre in diameter), which will be used as the basis for new electronic and drug delivery technologies.
The ICT funding recipients are as follows: Prof Noel Buckley, University of Limerick (UL) and Prof Declan Burke, University College Cork (UCC) – new copper-based electronic devices; Dr Sile Nic Chormaic, Cork Institute of Technology – microlaser technology; and Prof Stephen Fahy, University College Cork – laser technology.
The Biotech sector recipients are: Prof Martin Caffrey, moving from Ohio State University to the University of Limerick – cell membrane protein analysis; Dr Andrew Graham Bowie, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) – virus research; Dr Peter Humphries, Dr Gwyneth Jane Farrar, Dr Paul Francis Kenna, Trinity College Dublin – hereditary degenerative diseases of the retina; Prof Fergal O’Gara, University College Cork – genetics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium; Dr Douwe van Sinderen, University College Cork – bacteriophages research; Dr Donal Fitzmaurice, University College Dublin – nanotechnology; Dr Gerard Cagney, moving from the University of Toronto to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – platelet activity; Dr Daniel Bradley, Trinity College Dublin – bovine genetics; Dr Geraldine Butler, University College Dublin – study of Candida parapsilosis organism.
By Brian Skelly
