Biography
Maria Pigott is a pharmacist who graduated from Trinity College Dublin. After several years working in the community sector she returned to TCD to study for a Ph.D. in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences on the design and development of small molecule therapeutics for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Subsequently, she conducted post-doctoral research in the Gilmer group on an Enterprise Ireland funded project on the design of bile acid based treatments for liver disease before taking up a temporary role as assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry in the School. She has worked in clinical trials in the Wellcome-HRB Clinical Research Facility in St. James's Hospital and so has experience through the phases of drug development from discovery and design to human interventional studies. Maria currently works in NatPro, the Trinity Centre for Natural Product Research on a project entitled 'Unlocking Nature's Pharmacy from Bogland Species' investigating the potential of the flora of the Irish boglands as a source of novel plant derived therapeutics.