Research Newsletter - Issue 72: Funding Success

SFI US Ireland Research Programme awards to DCU

• Congratulations to Professor Noel O’Connor (School of Electronic Engineering/Insight) and Dr Margaret McCaul (School of Chemical Sciences/Insight) for being awarded the SFI US Ireland grant to conduct the project entitled “Ultrasensitive Nitrogen Sensor using Imprinted Polymer Assisted Bacteria for Real-Time Monitoring of Water Quality”. The DCU led project is in the area of environmental monitoring and aims to design, build, validate and field test a prototype sensor system for the real-time detection of the three most commonly monitored forms of nitrogen: nitrate, nitrite and ammonia/ammonium. The partner institutions are Queen’s University Belfast and Rensselaer Polytechnic University in New York state.

• Congratulations to Professor Nick Dunne (School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering/Biodesign Europe) who is a co-investigator on a TCD-led SFI US Ireland project entitled “Design of Genetically Engineered Tensile Load-Bearing Soft Tissues Inspired by Embryonic Tendon Development”. The objective of this project is to identify the structural changes and biological mechanisms that drive normal embryonic tendon development and to use this knowledge to enhance the maturation of tissue-engineered tendon constructs via nanoparticle-hydrogel gene delivery system. The primary reason for this study is that traditional scaffold-based approaches hinder cell self-assembly and do not replicate normal embryonic tendon development.  The partner institutions are TCD, Pennsylvania State University and Queens University Belfast.