Prof. Andrew Kellett, Dublin City University, successfully coordinated a Marie Curie Innovative Training Network (MSCA ITN), title NATURE. The NATURE ITN (ETN) involves world-leading chemists and biologists in combination with high-tech/biotech SMEs and industry partners. NATURE aims to meet the challenge of developing and delivering Nucleic acids for manipulation of T-cells, now seen as the new paradigm in cancer research, by engineering new biomaterials and therapies to extend the boundaries of i.) gene editing technology, ii.) cancer immunotherapy, and iii.) epigenetic base manipulation. The consortium’s combined expertise will be used to develop an outstanding multi-disciplinary environment in which 15 Early Stage Researchers will receive unrivalled research training in the most exciting gene therapy research today. The EU contribution to the project will be €4.04M, almost €1.4M of which will be shared by Irish partners.
Dr Marco Monopoli, Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, partnered in a successful proposal (SUNSHINE) for H2020 call topic NMBP-16-2020 “Safe by design, from science to regulation: multi-component nanomaterials”. The project will examine protein interaction with nanoparticle surfaces and will study the role of glycans in this interaction; it will also leverage modelling techniques. There are 35 partners and the total EU award is €6.5 M with US, Korean and Chinese partners bringing a further ~€1.47M. The coordinator is in the University of Venice. Marco has funding for 1 PhD student plus materials, value €204k. The project will commence later this year.
Prof. Edmond Magner, University of Limerick, supervised a successful Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (MSCA IF 2020). The successful candidate is Julia Alvarez-Malmagro; the project focuses on the “Patterning of Enzymes” (acronym PATTENZYM). Julia will be coming from the Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemicals, CSIC Madrid and will commence the project later this year.
Prof. Paul Murphy, University of Galway, also supervised a successful MSCA IF (Global). The successful candidate is Adele Gabba who will spend the first 2 years of the project in MIT, in the USA with a return year in NUIG. The project title is “Understanding Lectins’ network language with chemical tools: new insights for immunological purposes”, acronym LECTINET. Adele has recently commenced the US leg and is working with the Kiessling group in MIT.
