Trinity Professor Honoured by HM The Queen for Child and Adolescent Cancer Research

Posted on: 08 December 2015

Professor Owen Patrick Smith, CBE was awarded Honorary CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by HM Queen Elizabeth for his life-long work on cancer in children and adolescents on 27 November 2015. The award was presented to Professor Smith, on behalf of HM Queen Elizabeth, by Dominick Chilcott, British Ambassador to Ireland at a ceremony in the ambassador’s residence, Glencairn. 

Professor Smith is a consultant paediatric haematologist at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin and principal investigator at the National Children's Research Centre, Crumlin, and the Institute of Molecular Medicine, Trinity College Dublin. He is Regius Professor of Physic [1637], Professor of Haematology [2002], Trinity College Dublin. He is also a Special Advisor to new children’s hospital. 

One of Professor Smith’s major contributions to Irish medicine has been through the promotion of clinical research and basic scientific discovery. He has a strong record of championing significant national developments in child and adolescent health over the past two decades and is principal investigator in international peer-review cancer clinical trial design. He has received extensive recognition for his work to date including Honorary Fellowship of Trinity College;  St Luke’s Medal; Graves’s Medal; and his research programme has generated numerous PhD, MD, and MSc / BA Mods. studentships and peer reviewed publications. 

The British Ambassador to Ireland, Dominick Chilcott said: “There must be hundreds if not thousands of people who are alive today because of Professor Smith’s  pioneering work in the field of blood cancer in children and teenagers over the last 25 years. His work has touched children and young people across Ireland, the UK and indeed further afield. He is held in the highest esteem by his peers in the United Kingdom and fully deserves the recognition which his honorary award bestows.”

The honour CBE is that of Commander in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. These awards are conferred by The Queen, on the advice of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

For more information on Professor Smith, please read here