TCD Researchers Win Funding for Cutting-Edge Research Projects
Posted on: 29 August 2011
Eighteen TCD researchers will receive funding to support cutting-edge research projects under the latest Science Foundation Ireland Research Frontiers Programme. The awards, which were announced recently by the Minister for Research and Innovation, Sean Sherlock, aim to support the development of Ireland’s human capital by providing employment and training to some of Ireland’s most talented researchers.
The successful TCD researchers were Dr Arun Bokde, Dr Veronica Campbell, Dr Christian Kerskens and Dr Jacintha O’Sullivan of the School of Medicine; Dr Mauro Ferreira, Dr Graham Harper, Professor John McGilp and Dr Matthias Moebius of the School of Physics; Dr Sinead Ryan, Professor Samson Shatashvili, Dr Stefan Sint and Professor Richard Timoney of the School of Mathematics; Dr Gary Moran and Dr Derek Sullivan of the School of Dental Science; Dr Isabel Rozas of the School of Chemistry; Dr Biqiong Chen of the School of Engineering; Dr Siobhan Clarke of the School of Computer Science and Statistics, and Dr Derek Doherty of the School of Biochemistry and Immunology.
Making the announcement Minister Sherlock said: “It is vital that Ireland has a robust and competitive research environment that contributes to economic recovery. The projects announced are very much part of this drive to further build Ireland’s research capability in support of our economic development and are of direct relevance to our daily lives. Discoveries that can be achieved in these sectors will have an impact on computer science, the environment, health and other important fields with the potential to create and sustain top-quality jobs in Ireland.”
The Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) programme will support 79 projects across 15 research bodies across Irish third level institutions creating jobs and training opportunities for 94 researchers, mainly PhD students. Trinity College Dublin won the largest share of awards with 18 projects receiving funding. University College Dublin researchers received 13 funding awards, NUI Galway 10, University College Cork nine and NUI Maynooth seven. Ten other bodies also received awards.
TCD Research Projects:
– Dr Arun Bokde: Brain Substrates Supporting Working Memory: Impact of APOE e4 allele and Normal Ageing.
– Dr Veronica Campbell: Development of a cannabinoid eluting scaffold for orthopaedic tissue engineering strategies.
– Dr Biqiong Chen: Tough healable polymer-graphene hydrogels.
– Dr Siobhán Clarke: Slice-Oriented Programming for Timely, Dynamic Service-Oriented Composition.
– Dr Derek Doherty: The influence of V#9V#2 T cells on antigen presentation and antibody production.
– Dr Mauro Ferreira: Strain-induced enhancement of the magnetic response in low-dimensional carbon-based materials.
– Dr Graham Harper: New Windows into Stellar Atmospheres: The New Era of Sub-Millimetre, Millimetre, and Centimetre Radio Interferometry.
– Dr Christian Kerskens: Development of new cerebral perfusion biomarkers.
– Prof John McGilp: Band structure engineering of atomic wires on semiconductor surfaces.
– Dr Matthias Moebius: The flow of dense emulsions – from droplet rearrangements to the bulk response.
– Dr Gary Moran: Control of TOR kinase: the key to host-pathogen interactions in Candida albicans.
– Dr Jacintha O’Sullivan: Importance of random mitochondrial mutations during disease progression in Barrett’s Oesophagus.
– Dr Isabel Rozas: Platinum complexes of guanidinium-based DNA minor-groove binders: conjugating forces towards better anticancer agents.
– Dr Sinéad Ryan: Heavy quark physics in finite temperature lattice QCD.
– Prof Samson Shatashvili: Quantum Integrability, Gauge Theories and Topological Strings.
– Dr Stefan Sint: A strongly interacting electroweak symmetry breaking sector.
– Dr Derek Sullivan: The role of a novel telomere-associated (TLO) gene family in fungal pathogenesis.
– Prof Richard Timoney: Problems associated with bounded symmetric domains.