Congrats to Water Institute PI Tia Keyes

Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation, Damien English TD announced over €30 million of research funding for 23 major research projects, including two research projects from Dublin City University.

The funding will be delivered by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through the Science Foundation Ireland Investigators Programme over a four to five year period and will involve

over 100 researchers. Funding for each project will range from €500,000 to €2.3 million.

The SFI Investigators Progamme supports excellent scientific research that has the potential to impact Ireland’s society and economy. The 23 projects were selected by competitive peer review involving

400 international scientists after a call for proposals across a number of thematic areas of national and international importance. The awards include research in areas such as materials science,

data management, medicine and pharmaceuticals, food and nutrition, agriculture and veterinary research and have links to 40 companies.

Tia Keyes' project is entitled "Microcavity array supported lipid membranes: Highly versatile cell membrane models in sickness and in health"

This progamme builds advanced models of the cell-membrane to address two issues away from the complexity of the living cell. The first models membranes reminiscent of health and of disease states

(e.g. Alzheimers) to help understand how each affects membrane permeability towards different drugs. These models can help ensure drug effectiveness and safety before preclinical testing.

The second model addresses structure and dynamics of sugar lattices that occur at the cell-membrane. They play an important role in autoimmune disorders and cancer and understanding how they

form and the role of the membrane will aid in developing therapeutics for these diseases.