Several Trinity researchers received awards last night at the Trinity Innovation Awards, with the highest award of the night going to Luke O’Neill, Professor of Biochemistry, who won the Provost Innovation Award.
O’Neill, who was also recently announced as being in the top one per cent of most-cited researchers in his field, is a world leader in the area of inflammation and immunology. Published in several top academic journals, his work has seen practical benefits from lab work to start-ups, industry collaborations, patents and licenses.
Also responsible for the formation of two campus companies, much of his work is focused towards developing new drugs to combat inflammation and the diseases it causes such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
In a press statement, Provost Patrick Prendergast said that O’Neill is “making a real difference in society” through his research and the industry implications. “Trinity academics have consistently achieved excellence in discovery and innovation, and Luke is one of our great exemplars in that field”, he added.
Also recognised on the night were eight other Innovation Award winners. Prof Linda Doyle, Prof Rose Anne Kenny and Dr Sabina Brennan were among those who received awards.
Doyle was awarded for her contribution to the growth and success of CONNECT, a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) centre based in Trinity, and her work on the “Pervasive Nation” project, which is a country-wide wireless network infrastructure to improve the internet of things.
Brennan, who works in the ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology, was awarded for her contribution as an effective science communicator. She has created over 30 short films, which offer advice designed to address people’s fear about memory loss and offer advice on brain health.
Kenny, an expert on ageing, received the award for her work on The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) and her involvement in Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing for patients and researchers.
Other categories recognised included innovative research that has had a significant socio-economic and commercial impact and recognition of up-and-coming entrepreneurial academics. In the former category, Prof Jane Farrar and Prof Frank Boland won. Farrar co-founded a campus company Genable Technologies Ltd, which uses the latest research on our eyes in the hope of developing gene-based medicines. Boland was part of the biggest commercial licence ever negotiated by Trinity, when Google acquired virtual reality technology, which was developed under his guidance.
In the latter category, Dr Matthew Campbell, a research fellow in the School of Genetics and Microbiology, and Dr Parvaneh Mokarian, a research fellow in the School of Chemistry and the SFI centre Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research (AMBER), were recognised as “ones-2-watch”. Campbell harnessed his research in genetics to set up a company that is researching treatment for neurological conditions.
Mokarian has created an anti-reflective solution for optical surfaces using nano-structuring and is the lead co-ordinator of an €8 million programme that is funded by Horizon 2020.
Since the early 1990s, Fellow Emeritus Prof Tim Foster has been researching the highly infectious bacteria, staphylococcal aureus. He was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his research and development of licences in the field of vaccines.
