Message from the Director
The past year has been an exciting period for TCIN with welcomes being extended to several new PIs. In April 2007 Professor Harald Hampel took up his appointment as the newly appointed Professor of Psychiatry in AMNCH; two of his senior research team, Dr Arun Bodke and Dr Michael Evers joined TCIN shortly afterwards. Professor Declan McLoughlin arrived in TCIN in July 2007 as the newly-appointed Professor of Psychiatry in St Patrick's Hospital.
Their research interests in Alzheimer's disease and Depression complements existing expertise in TCIN, and the creation of their two research groups are important in driving our agenda to become an Institute with a significant focus on Translational research. TCIN is also proud to welcome consultant neurologist Professor Orla Hardiman whose research activity will be based in TCIN; her work on the molecular genetics of motor neuron disease adds further depth to one of the research themes in TCIN, neurogenetics.
Dr Daniel Ulrich has been appointed as a Lecturer in Neuroscience and Dr Colm Cunningham received a Wellcome Trust Career Development award; they moved to TCIN in November 2006 and April 2007 respectively. Their research interests on synaptic plasticity and in neuroinflammation, respectively, perfectly complement existing strengths in TCIN.
In June 2007, Professor John O'Doherty was appointed to the Thomas Mitchell Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and will move his research activity to TCIN in June 2008; his work on image analysis will provide the planned expansion of expertise in this area. In addition to these researchers, Dr Gary Donohoe (Institute of Molecular Medicine, Trinity College Dublin) and Dr William Torregiani (AMNCH) have formalized links with TCIN and their involvement is very welcome.
TCIN is unique in having a multidisciplinary group of scientists and clinicians with a focus on understanding the mechanisms underlying age-related neurodegenerative changes. This uniqueness was recognized by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the IDA and a major grant of €14.6m was awarded to undertake a programme of research which was coordinated by Professor Shane O'Mara.
The programme is a collaboration between GSK, TCIN and NUI in Galway (NUIG) and the objective is to seek to exploit the synergies that exist between these three organisations to expedite the discovery and development of new medicines for the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease. This award is a particularly important for TCIN, since it is a recognition of the Institute's ability to conduct Translational Research. This year has also been rewarding for several individual researchers in TCIN with many awards, promotions and successful grant applications, which are detailed in the body of this report.
TCIN is committed to providing the best possible educational environment, particularly to post-graduate students and this was recognized by the Health Research Board which has funded two additional cohorts of students in the 4 year training PhD programme. A total of 129 applications were received for 6 places in the 2007-2011 programme and some applications for the 2008-2012 programme have already been received.
In March 2007, TCIN organized a week-long series of events to coincide with International Brain Week. Public lectures were given by several PIs at which attendances often exceeded expectations and similarly there was great interest in the MRI demonstration.
TCIN also held a competition for postgraduate students (Neuroscience Speak) in which the objective was to communicate their work to a lay audience; one of these students was a finalist in TCD's Science Speak. The last 12 months also saw the introduction of the very successful Focussed Meetings in TCIN, and the Inaugural TCD Interdisciplinary meeting which was organized by TCIN with the assistance of the Research and Innovations Office. Hosting these Education and Outreach events is an important aspect of TCIN's activity and in keeping with the Mission Statement.