Funding Awarded

PersonAlisation of RelApse risk in autoimmune DISEase "PARADISE"

Autoimmune disease affects 10% of adults, most of whom are women, and two of the top five medications with the highest cost globally are used to maintain these recurring conditions in remission. These medications act by suppressing the immune system, leaving the patient exposed to severe infection and at risk of cancer. Affected...

PARKIE: Parkinson's community Awareness of Research; emphasis on Knowledge and Information Exchange.

Our lab is studying the role of our immune system in the development of Parkinson's. Our immune system protects the body against attacks from viruses and bacteria but, when we look at blood samples of people with Parkinson's, we can see they have an increased amount of one immune cell type, namely a type of T-cell called Th17 cells. In...

National Patient Education and Research Engagement Programme.

Inflammation is a critical process in fighting infection. However, if uncontrolled, it can contribute to the development of autoimmune disease, including inflammatory forms of arthritis, which cause joint destruction and disability. Medicines available for patients with RA have improved a lot over the last 15-years, however a...

Integrated Knowledge Translation for Advanced Therapies: From Bench to Bedside.

The value of clinical research is to improve treatment outcomes for patients and to inform health policy.  However, the knowledge gained from research only translates into impact for patients when new therapies become used as part of routine practice. 

Advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) are...

HD-knowhow.

A rare disease is a health condition that affects a small number of people compared with other prevalent diseases in the general population. Empirical research shows that patients with severe illnesses prefer the physician to dominate decision processes and provide the information needed. However, in rare diseases, due to the low...

Translating knowledge into care to enhance sensory-cognitive health of people in longterm care in Ireland

This Knowledge Translation (KT) project will convert our research into practice to improve sensory-cognitive health in residents with dementia (RwD) in nursing homes in Ireland.  We are currently conducting a pilot clinical trial (‘SENSE-Cog Residential Care’) to evaluate whether enhancing sensory health (i.e. hearing/vision) in...

FUTURE-VASC

This project, FUTURE-VASC, aims to share knowledge from a research study called FAIRVASC, so that more people can benefit beyond the life of the original award. FAIRVASC has united scientists, clinicians and patients across Europe in a common goal of linking together data from several vasculitis registries (databases) to create one...

Building Circles of Support for people with intellectual disabilities.

The overall aim of the project is to use research information to develop resources to enhance the Circles of Support (COS) for adults with intellectual disabilities that can be used in person-centred planning processes. Person-centred planning puts the individual with intellectual disability at the centre of the process, and builds...

Teaching & Learning Trauma Informed Care for Health Settings.

While most people have experienced some form of psychological trauma at some point in their life, severe psychological trauma is particularly common in people who are socially excluded (i.e., through homelessness, addiction, poverty, incarceration and/or belonging to minority ethnic groups). Accessing healthcare in hospitals for those...

Defining how innate immune function is impacted long term in people who have had active Tuberculosis

The Problem:

Tuberculosis (TB) is a complex disease caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and claims the lives of 1.4 million people annually. When a person is exposed to Mtb, their immune response may clear the infection asymptomatically, contain it in a dormant state (called latent TB)...

Ongoing examination of the PD-1:PD-L1 pathway throughout the evolution of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease which causes joint destruction, disability, and increased mortality. While treatment has improved, only 1:4 patients achieve full remission and predicting who will develop severe disease or who will respond to treatment is difficult. This research will examine an immune pathway...

Stromal cell subtypes define distinct pathogenesis in RA and PsA

Arthritis is a leading cause of disability affecting up to 15% of the Irish population. 2% suffer from inflammatory arthritis (IA) such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA). The cost of treating patients with IA in Ireland is ~€20,000/patient/year.

Activation of our immune cells is a key mechanism by which...

Polyfunctional-T – stromal cell crosstalk in the joint of patients with inflammatory arthritis

Over a million people in Ireland alone, with inflammatory arthritis and other autoimmune diseases know only too well the frustration of the trial-and-error approach in finding the right treatment. In many cases this entails enduring chronic pain over several years, before a successful drug is stumbled upon. Therefore, there are areas...

Altered histone protein acetylation is associated with dysregulated NK cell metabolism in different cancer types

Fixing broken immune cells in a range of cancers.

Finding a way to stop cancer spreading (known as metastasis) remains a holy grail of scientific research. We know that we can use the immune system in anti-cancer therapies and this has opened up the possibility that patients can be cured using combinations of...

Analyzing the therapeutic potential of anti-inflammatory drugs in brain development, neuronal activity and long-term outcomes after birth asphyxia

Birth asphyxia or neonatal hypoxia is a medical condition resulting from deprivation of oxygen to a newborn infant that lasts long enough to cause harm, usually to the brain. It remains a serious condition which causes significant mortality and morbidity. Neonatal hypoxia is a global insult, which can damage all organs, but the brain...

A translational investigation of the anti-inflammatory and antidepressant effects of Psychedelics in Depression

There has been a renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. These substances (e.g. psilocybin, D-lysergic acid diethylamide, dimethyltryptamine) when given under psychiatric supervision and with psychological support have been shown to have therapeutic benefits for a range of disorders with restricted or maladaptive...

IMPRINT: Defining pathogen-specific IMmune PRedictors of bloodstream INfecTion outcomes

The past 20 months has provided a front row seat to the ravaging effects of a virus on the global population. During this time, scientists have responded with a momentous research effort, which has yielded unprecedented levels of understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19 disease and importantly how our immune system responds to...

Cortical and Spinal Connectivity of Motor Units as a novel biomarker of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis pathology

One in every 400 in Ireland is at risk of developing Motor Neurone Disease during their lifetime, with Ireland having the highest overall incidence of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in Europe. ALS is a nervous system disease that causes a gradual loss of muscle control. It is characterised by the death of motor neurons, which are...

STARFISH: Sustained inflammaTion in preterm infAnts and multioRgan dysFunctIon correlateS witH long term outcomes

Preterm birth describes babies born before 37 weeks an is the world's leading cause of death in children less than 5 years old. Babies born before 32 weeks have higher risks of injury to their brain, kidneys, lungs, heart and more infections. Although clinical care of these issues in the neonatal period is well defined there are few...

Effective Subsets of Fine-Grained Network-based Neurophysiological Biomarkers for Early Stratification in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Motor Neurone Disease (MND)/Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a terminal neurological condition in which the neurons (neural cells) that control movement degenerate. The exiting drugs have very limited effects on the disease progression and those affected only survive for about 3-4 years after the symptoms begin.

More than...

Planning and design for quality of life and resilience in residential long-term care settings for older people in Ireland: Research and Universal Design Guidelines for new-build, adaption and retrofit

In Ireland, the provision of Residential Care Settings (RCS) for Older People is currently inadequate; putting pressure on the health system and undermining the care of many older people. As the population increases and ages, the number of people requiring RCS will increase. This is recognised by the Irish government in health...

The development of an intervention to improve the use of point-of-care diagnostics in the management of respiratory tract infections in primary care: a mixed methods study

Using antimicrobial medicines (e.g. antibiotics) too often, especially when they are not needed, is associated with increased antimicrobial resistance (AmR). AmR can weaken the effects of antimicrobials, which threatens our already vulnerable health systems. Sometimes, antibiotics (which kill bacteria) are used to treat viral...

Comprehensive characterisation of resistance mechanisms for the accurate detection of Helicobacter pylori antimicrobial resistance

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is a public health issue. It remains one of the most common infections in adults in Ireland and is associated with significant disease as the main cause of stomach ulcers and stomach cancers. Despite significant work resulting in a better understanding of this bacterium (germ) and how it...

Stakeholder coalitions to guide future research directions for stuttering treatment: Shaping healthcare delivery and policy

This conference aims to provide current and innovative research and clinical practices in stuttering treatment, thus improving therapy services for those who stutter, informing health policies, and improving the quality of life for the international stuttering community. Stuttering treatment continues to be represented by a range of...

MIRANDA- Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research Advancing Neurological care in a Digital Age

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is a degenerative disease of the nervous system, which affects one in 300 people in Ireland. Those affected lose their ability to use their arms, legs and voice, and eventually their ability to breathe. Some people also experience changes in thinking.

There...

Wellcome HRB Clinical Research Facility at St. James's Hospital

No summary available

Social Circumstances and Epigenomics: Promoting Health in Three Countries

This project proposes an integrated set of aims and analyses of existing social and epigenetic data from three national studies of aging in the family of Health and Retirement studies (the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing (NICOLA), and the Irish Longitudinal Study of...

SENSE-Cog Care: A feasibility study of hearing and vision support to improve quality of life in care home residents with dementia

What is the need?  Of the 55,000 people with dementia in Ireland, nearly 17,000 live in nursing homes. Over 90% of these residents have significant hearing and vision problems that are frequently undetected or under-corrected. Also, the sensory environment (noise, bad lighting) in many nursing homes may contribute to poor...

Manipulating macrophage bioenergetics to improve patient outcomes in TB infection

Tuberculosis (TB) is the most lethal infectious disease worldwide, causing 1.8 million deaths annually. For the last 4 years in Ireland, we have seen a doubling of TB cases after the use of immuno-suppressants called TNF blockers, and the emergence of drug resistant TB in Irish people for the first time in this regard. Targeting and...

Progressing Sláintecare delivery from proposal to implementation: Insights from palliative care in Ireland

Sláintecare, Ireland’s national ten-year reform plan recommends universal healthcare. This represents the biggest Irish health system reform since its inception. Using palliative care as an example this project examines the development universal palliative care internationally and applies these learnings to Ireland.

Through a...

Measures of wellbeing for use in economic evaluation: valuing and assessing health outcomes in Ireland

In Ireland, healthcare decisions primarily concentrate on maximising health gain. However, with more integrated social care, there is growing recognition that this perspective is too narrow. Health maximisation is unlikely to be a relevant objective, particularly where demand for social care is high (e.g. in chronic diseases,...

Food industry corporate political activity and its potential influence on public health policy, research and practice in Ireland

In Ireland, non-communicable diseases (NCD), which include diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases and cancers, contribute to premature death and increased suffering and disability. Unhealthy diets, particularly those high in ultra-processed food products, and obesity, are one of the primary risks factors for NCD. Internationally...

COVID-19 and the role and impact of the built environment on resident, family, and staff experiences in residential long-term care settings: Key findings and recommendations for building adaptation and retrofit.

Supporting the Sustainability of Long-Term Residential Care in a COVID-19 Environment and in the Future.

Long-term residential care (LTRC) homes have been at the centre of the COVID-19 pandemic, with high infection rates among staff and residents. A significant proportion of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in LTRC residents....

National Helicobacter pylori antibiotic resistance surveillance to guide clinical practice

Helicobacter pylori infection is a public health issue. It remains one of the most common infections in adults in Ireland and is associated with significant disease as the main cause of stomach ulcers and stomach cancers. Infection is more common in lower socioeconomic groups and increases with age.

Despite significant work...

Identifying children at risk of schizophrenia

Five of the ten leading causes of disability in young people are mental illnesses, of which psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, are the most severe and disabling.

The Health Service Executive recently launched a National Clinical Programme for Early Intervention in Psychosis, which emphasizes the importance of...

Towards dynamic resilience in health system performance and reform

Worldwide increases in life expectancy are leading to the rapid ageing of populations. By 2031, it is forecasted that there will be more than one million older adults in Ireland, representing 20% of our overall population. It is widely accepted that older adults frequently avail of health services in the community and in the hospital...

TeenPath: Social Environment, Health and Well-Being Among Adolescents in Ireland

A person's physical growth, psychological development and personal behaviours in adolescence are the foundation upon which the life course is built. Health behaviours established in adolescence will likely continue into adulthood with long-term implications for health and life-expectancy. For example, 80% of teenagers measured as obese...

Study of queuosine salvage and function in eukaryotes; a forgotten micronutrient

Queuine is a largely forgotten bacterial-derived micronutrient that is obtained exclusively from the gut; a preeminent small-molecule of the gut-brain axis. Our contention is that queuine is important in metabolism and development—mammals are born sterile and queuine free—and induces long-lasting effects into adulthood, particularly in...

Health system foundations for effective Regional Integrated Care Organisations (RICOs) - co-producing evidence to inform the design of regional organisations to support integrated care in Ireland

Health systems all over the world are struggling to provide equitable access to integrated, patient centred services that better meets the needs of individuals and populations. In Ireland, the way our health system is funded and structured creates particular barriers for people trying to access effective, responsive, quality...

Examining the interplay of the immune system with brain cells in Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease occurs when nerve cells that produce the chemical dopamine are lost from the brain. This causes a person to have many symptoms including a tremor of their hands and slowness of movement. There have been a lot of studies trying to determine why these dopamine nerve cells die.

There is growing evidence that the...

To identify molecular signatures that can predict disease onset in 'at-risk ACPA+' individuals and disease progression in RA patients

Inflammation is a critical process in fighting infection. However, if uncontrolled, it can contribute to the development of autoimmune disease, including inflammatory forms of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which causes joint destruction and disability. Targeted therapies have advanced the treatment of RA, however a...

Immunometabolic manipulation of pulmonary immunity - towards TB host directed therapy

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major global health emergency, with over one and a half million people dying per year, despite being a curable disease. Drug-resistant TB is a new aspect of the epidemic meaning this disease has now become more difficult to treat with antibiotics. Consequently there is urgent need to generate better treatments,...

FIREFLY: Followup of Inflammatory Responses and multiorgan outcomes FoLlowing neonatal brain injurY

Babies who have brain injury also frequently have involvement of their kideys, lung and heart. Although clinical care in the neonatal period is well defined there are few guidelines and evidence for developmental, heart and kidney followup in childhood. We aim to develop and implement guidelines for health care workers and families on...

Optimizing 40 Hz sensory stimulation protocols for Alzheimer's disease treatment

Clinical dementia, the majority of cases being caused by Alzheimer's disease, seriously impairs the lives of over 50 million people worldwide currently. There are approximately 55,000 people with dementia and as many dementia carers in Ireland. At present the lifetime risk of developing dementia is about 10% but this is increasing...

Defining the consequences of innate immune training on protective versus pathogenic T cell responses in patients with tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis (TB) ranks alongside HIV as the world's most deadly infectious disease, killing 1.5 million people every year. It is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), which primarily infects people's lungs. Treating this disease is becoming more difficult due to antibiotic-resistant Mtb, therefore, scientists are...

Harnessing the power of the Gut-Lung Axis: How Dietary Short-Chain Fatty Acids Balance Inflammatory Outcomes in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an incurable lung condition triggered by smoking, or other air pollutants, that leads to long-term lung damage and serious trouble breathing. While COPD is an illness of the lungs, maintaining a healthy gut and a balanced diet can prevent COPD and reduce COPD attacks or flare-ups. But how...

Developing a new approach to stroke rehabilitation for the upper limb based on TMS neurofeedback

Today in Ireland, most people who experience a stroke survive, but more than half are left with long-term disabilities due to paralysis of one arm.

In the proposed research, we aim to push the boundaries of standard stroke rehabilitation, by introducing a technique that promises to boost the brain's recovery mechanisms,...

Rehabilitation Strategies following Oesophagogastric and Hepatopancreaticobiliary Cancer

In our bodies, the oesophagus, stomach, pancreas and liver help us digest food. Together, they form the “upper digestive system”. The treatment used to cure cancer in the upper digestive system is surgery to remove that part of the body. Some patients also receive chemotherapy (drug treatment) before and/or after...

Ketamine as an adjunctive therapy for major depression- a randomised controlled trial

According to the World Health Organisation, depression is now the leading cause of disability worldwide.  Depression can be a chronic disorder, with 5-9 episodes per lifetime, and 30% of sufferers don’t respond to adequate trials of antidepressant drugs and/or talking therapies.  This creates a great societal as well as...

Digital Fetal Scalp Stimulation (dFSS) versus Fetal Blood Sampling (FBS) to assess fetal wellbeing in labour- a multi-centre randomised controlled trial.

Despite recent advances in acute stroke intervention, strategies to prevent recurrent stroke are lacking. This is of urgent importance for people with stroke who are at risk of having another stroke. Physical activity (PA) is the second-largest predictor of stroke and the cornerstone of secondary prevention therapies. Interventions...

Intensive Care Airway and Lung Microbiome Network ICALM Network

Hospital acquired pneumonia (HAP) is the most frequent infection acquired in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). ICU-related respiratory infections arise as a consequence of the processes of ICU care. Mechanical ventilation (MV) is potentially lifesaving, but also carries microorganisms into the lower airways, changing the native flora, and...

National intellectual Disability Supplement to The Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing-Wave 4

IDS-TILDA is a longitudinal study researching ageing in Ireland among people with an intellectual disability (ID) aged 40 and over. This study is the first of its kind in Europe, and the only study able to directly compare the ageing of people with intellectual disability with the general ageing population through its linkage to The...

Vaccination: Knowledge is power

Over 3 million global deaths are avoided annually due to the existence of vaccines. In Ireland the state funded immunization program protects against 14 infectious diseases including HPV. However, we face a number of challenges with immunization. Alarmingly, in recent years uptake of vaccines has been waning. Perhaps due to complacency...

Postnatal Mental Health PARTNERship

It is estimated that 10-25% of mothers will experience a mental health problem following the birth of their baby. With approximately 63,900 births in Ireland each year (6), conservative figures would suggest that over 6390 mothers will experience a mental health problem in the postnatal period. For many mothers, their partner plays a...

Towards Recovery After Childbirth, through Knowledge: (ON TRACK)

The Maternal health And Maternal Morbidity in Ireland (MAMMI) study identified problems women had postpartum. We have provided information for women on physical problems, such as incontinence, and will now address other important issues. For example, 15% of women have anxiety during pregnancy, and 44% have pain during sex at 3 months...

Developing an on-line course for first-time mothers: ?Pathway to Birth?

Concern has been expressed globally at rising caesarean section (CS) rates with no evidence of any decrease in associated health problems for mothers and babies, indicating that many CSs are unnecessary, and can be harmful. We are at present running a pilot trial called "REDUCE"to see if a new intervention, based on research evidence,...

Exploring the immunome of oesophageal adenocarcinoma using bioinformatics to assess and predict responses to neoadjuvant therapy (Immune-AEGIS)

The immune system is made up of cells that are designed to protect the body from infection and disease, like cancer. However, in patients with cancer, the immune system often does not do this well. Recently, a new treatment for cancer has been tested - called immunotherapy, which uses the patient?s own immune system to fight the...

Promoting Education and Research Knowledge (PERK)

THE PROBLEM Cancer of the oesophagus (food pipe) is an aggressive type of cancer, and has a low survival rate. It is usually diagnosed at a late stage, often due to a lack of knowledge of underlying symptoms which can be mild, including heartburn, bloating and problems swallowing. Oesophageal cancer is not as well known as some other...

Rheumatoid Arthritis Patient Awareness INitiative (RA-PAIN)

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a common autoimmune condition that causes disability for patient's day-to-day tasks. New medications that target bad molecules or cells improve outcomes, however responses may be limited or side effects may occur. Who will develop RA, get severe disease or respond to current treatments is not known. Studies...

Using photovoice to enhance knowledge exchange and dissemination

The EOLAS programmes are information and learning programmes for people with experience of psychosis and their family members. The programmes have been co-produced and are co-delivered by peer and clinician facilitators in partnership with mental health clinicians. Such service user and family member involvement in the design and...

How to Use TILDA Data - Webinar, Seminar and Workshop Series

The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) was established in 2006 with baseline data collection commencing in 2009. TILDA collects data in a series of data collection waves. The data is collected through a computer-assisted personal interview and a self-completion questionnaire once every two years with a comprehensive health...

Economics of palliative care: from international evidence to Irish policy

Palliative care is specialised care for people with serious and complex illness. Its goal is to improve quality of life for patients and families, and studies show that it generally achieves this goal. Palliative care access is strong in Ireland by international standards but there are still significant gaps in services and...

Working with the Research Community: Training and a Toolkit for Patients & Members of the Public

The PPI Ignite Programme at Trinity College Dublin is focused on building capacity for public and patient involvement in health research, with a particular emphasis on improving the quality of approaches. One of 10 Ignite Partners, the Medical Research Charities Group (MRCG), hosts a Public Patient Involvement (PPI) Shared Learning...

Factors influencing decision-making for caesarean section

The rising rate of caesarean section (CS) has become a growing concern worldwide, with limited justification of the rising trend. Understanding the factors that influence the rise in CS is important because obstetricians and midwives are directly involved in the decision to perform a CS and are the key drivers to achieving the remedial...

The Frail Brain and the Frail Body: Impact of FRAILty and COGnitive impairment on trajectories, patterns and costs in care in old age

Informing Chronic Kidney Disease health policy in Ireland: Linkage of large datasets to study the interaction between ageing and kidney

The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) is a remarkable study undertaken in Ireland, which invited over 8,500 people aged 50 and over to participate at wave 1 between 2009 and 2011. Individuals who agreed to take part were subsequently invited to present for a comprehensive health assessment. This study is invaluable to the...

HPV associated disease: shaping the future prevention and management pathway

Infection with HPV is the most important cause of cervical cancer. As such, HPV testing is now being introduced as part of cervical cancer screening. HPV is also involved in the development of other anogenital cancers, which include: vulvar, vaginal, anal and penile cancers. HPV vaccination will help reduce the burden of HPV-associated...

European eHealth care model for rare neurodegenerative diseases

Rare neurodegenerative disorders (RND) like Huntington?s Disease (HD) require multidisciplinary care teams which are in short supply. Given the devastating consequences of RNDs for the individual patient and their families there is an urgent need to develop innovative ways to ensure access to best practices and established care...

Elucidation of the role of SARM1 in retinal homeostasis and oxidative stress induced retinal degeneration

Photoreceptor cells found in the back of our eyes convert light into signals that allow us to see. Death of these cells and the cells that nourish them, called RPE cells, is termed retinal degeneration and is characteristic of blinding diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa. Millions of people...

Preoperative Exercise to Improve Fitness in Patients Undergoing Complex Surgery for Cancer of the Lung or Oesophagus

Treatment for people with cancer of the lung or the oesophagus (food-pipe) often involves surgery. This surgery is complex and there is a high risk that patients will develop severe complications afterwards, mainly lung or heart problems, leading to a longer hospital stay and higher hospital costs, and impacting greatly on recovery and...

Incorporation of sensor technology to provide clinical meaningfulness for existing standardised measurement scales in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) also known as Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is a progressive and ultimately fatal neurodegenerative disease for which there is no cure. People with ALS experience loss of mobility and arm function, breathlessness and chest infections, loss of speech and swallow and in 30-50%, cognitive and behavioural...

Novel Neurophysical Biomarkers of Heterogeneous Network Degeneration in Motor Neuron Disease for Quantifying the Progression and Outcome in Clinical Trials

Motor Neurone Disease (MND)/Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a terminal neurological condition in which the neurones (neural cells) that control movement degenerate. Despite encouraging results from studies in animals, translation of new treatments to humans has been disappointing. The aim of this study is to provide scientific...

Gold-drug: Targeting a novel dual inhibitor drug with gold nanoparticles for improving radiation response in oesophageal cancer

Oesophageal cancer (cancer of the food pipe) has low survival rates and a very poor response to treatment. Sadly, this cancer type is on the rise in Ireland and is linked with increasing obesity rates. Unlike many other cancer types, we are still only using treatments that have existed for decades - chemotherapy drugs with radiation...

Loneliness and health: the moderating role of befriending services.

Befriending services deliver companionship to older adults through regular volunteer visits. ALONE is a charitable organisation providing befriending services to older adults in Ireland. It is the mission statement of ALONE to use befriending to reduce the negative impact loneliness has on health, but evidence for this use of...

Premature Ageing in long-Term Homeless adults (PATH)

The number of homeless adults in Ireland is rising. Homeless people have more chronic illnesses and a shorter
life-expectancy than people who have somewhere secure to live. We have carried out a pilot study showing that
homeless people have dementia, frailty and other diseases associated with ageing at a much younger age...

Neonatal Brain Injury Consortium Ireland

Neonatal brain injury has serious consequences including problems with development and cerebral palsy. Cooling or Hypothermia therapy is the only treatment available but half of all babies still have brain injury. All babies have detailed tests of their brain function using brain imaging and brainwave monitoring. They also have...

Manganese enhanced MRI as an early technique for lung cancer

The objective of the project is to prove that the manganese enhanced MRI (MEMRI) technique could help to detect early-stage cancers and metastases in lungs which could be treated rapidly with a good prognosis. This patient friendly and inexpensive diagnostic technique will be tested in preclinical models and presented to clinicians to...

Intervention of antimicrobial resistance transfer into the food chain (INART)

Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR)

Soil and water have been identified as reservoirs of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the food chain as the most likely mode of AMR transfer into human and animal pathogens. Manure is reused as soil fertiliser in which food plants grow and is a source of AMR....

Preventing transmission of MRSA from livestock to humans through competitive exclusion (EXCLUDE MRSA)

Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR)

Pig farms act as reservoir of Livestock-Associated Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA). Through occupational exposure to farm dust and contact with pigs, farm workers are at risk for acquiring LA-MRSA. Although health care institutions can cope...

Preventing transmission of MRSA from livestock to humans through competitive exclusion (EXCLUDE MRSA)

Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR)

Pig farms act as reservoir of Livestock-Associated Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA). Through occupational exposure to farm dust and contact with pigs, farm workers are at risk for acquiring LA-MRSA. Although health care institutions can cope...

Intervention of antimicrobial resistance transfer into the food chain (INART)

Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR)

Soil and water have been identified as reservoirs of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the food chain as the most likely mode of AMR transfer into human and animal pathogens. Manure is reused as soil fertiliser in which food plants grow and is a source of AMR....

Implementing evidence based guidance for dementia palliative care through participatory action research

Dementia is a progressive illness and as the condition progresses into the later stages, the person will have difficulty communicating their needs particularly in relation to thirst, hunger, pain or discomfort.  In Ireland persons with dementia are often cared for in Long Term Care (LTC) settings. Carers of persons with dementia...

Communicating and promoting SAFE medicines use in Ireland

The likelihood of side effects of medicines, drug interactions and potentially inappropriate prescribing increase with the increasing number of medicines people take. Taking multiple medicines at the same time is common in people age 65 year olds or older with six in every ten in this age group. Also, around one in ten of those aged 65...

Interact for Health: Increasing integrated knowledge translation capacity for impact

Although the Health Behaviour Change Research Group (HBCRG) has engaged with the HSE Health and Wellbeing (H&W) Division as health partners on a number of activities to date, we believe there is significant potential for enhanced knowledge exchange between these two groups. Additionally, integrated Knowledge Translation (iKT)...

The biology of mood: What brain imaging and genetic studies tell us about Bipolar Disorder

This project aims to translate the known biology of bipolar disorder, enhance the accessibility of the latest discoveries and interpret the meaning and relevance to individuals with bipolar disorder, their families, carers and health professionals that are not research active. To complement the current emphasis on clinical aspects of...

Implementing evidence based guidance for dementia palliative care through participatory action research

Dementia is a progressive illness and as the condition progresses into the later stages, the person will have difficulty communicating their needs particularly in relation to thirst, hunger, pain or discomfort. In Ireland persons with dementia are often cared for in Long Term Care (LTC) settings. Carers of persons with dementia can...

The youth mental health animation creation project

This KEDS award will be used to create animations about young people's mental health that will be embedded into the youth mental health website, ReachOut.com.



This project will involve crafting key messages from this study into short narratives using direct quotes from the research interviews conducted for this...

How can mental health services and primary care best collaborate to enhance physical health outcomes among patients presenting with first episode of psychosis? A mixed methods study

For people who experience a first episode psychosis, this is a critical event in their life. If they do not receive the appropriate treatment at an early stage of the illness, they will experience potentially serious health consequences - both physical and mental. Good collaboration between specialist mental health services and primary...

Brain superheroes and villains

We are a group of neuroscientists, funded by the HRB, who aim to test and develop novel drugs for brain related illnesses. We are excited about disseminating the value of work like ours and, in 2012, were delighted to be awarded our first HRB Knowledge Exchange and Dissemination Scheme (KEDS), which consisted of three activities...

Learning about trials - for children, by children

This project will consist of the development of new resources for teaching primary school children (aged 10-12) about why we need trials and how trials work, with a view to being more widely used throughout the trial community. These resources will align with the START (Schools Teaching Awareness of Randomised Trials) Competition,...

Family carer knowledge exchange project

We are interested in how family carers of people with dementia develop and maintain resilience in the care giving role and we are designing a project to help family carers to be more resilient and to better cope with the demands of care giving. As a team of researchers, we have reviewed studies of family carers'experiences in other...

OPTI-MEND: Optimising early assessment and intervention by health and social care professionals in the emergency department (ED)

Emergency Departments (ED) face significant challenges in delivering high quality and timely patient care against a background of increasing patient numbers and limited hospital resources. A mismatch between patient demand and the hospital's capacity often leads to poor patient flow and ED crowding, resulting in a reduction in the...

Community exercise

It is recognised that exercise benefits people living with chronic disease. The CRF at St James's Hospital exercise physiology suite is used by research studies examining the role of exercise training for patients with chronic disease. These exercise trials support patients to exercise during structured supervised exercise classes and...

Biological Resource Analysis to Identify New Mechanisms and phenotypes in Neurodegenerative Diseases "BRAINMEND"

Joint Programme on Neurodegenerative Disease (JPND)

No summary available.

Driving policy with data: A longterm sustainable specialist service for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

The JPND-funded project ALS-CarE is coordinated by the Irish partner, and has collected detailed information across 5 different countries about the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patient and caregiver journey from ALS diagnosis through to end of life. In Ireland, we have collected extensive quantitiative and qualitative...

The implementation of National Clinical Effectiveness Committee clinical guidelines relating to health care associated infections in Irish healthcare organisations: multiple perspectives

Background: Healthcare associated infections (HCAI) create a major burden on individuals, their families, and the health services. They lead to longer stays in hospital, higher risk of death, and increased frequency of other health problems such as heart failure, and pneumonia. All of this also contributes to greatly increased...

The StrokeCog partnership: effective intervention through collaboration

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide and will increase considerably in coming decades as people live for longer. Many people are aware of physical disabilities after stroke, but are less aware of cognitive problems. These include difficulties with memory, concentration and abstract thinking, often experienced as...

Non-motor symptoms in dystonia and musician's dystonia

Our multidisciplinary Irish Dystonia Research Group, combining the expertise of Bioengineers in Trinity College Dublin and a network of Clinical Neurologists, has been working to determine the cause of a disabling movement disorder, adult onset dystonia, characterised by abnormal postures and excessive muscle activity. The causes of...

Evidence to Support Prevention Implementation and Translation - Knowledge Translation (ESPRIT-KT)

This application adds to a larger HRB Research Leader Award about improving care for people with diabetes in Ireland. The goal of the KEDS project is to connect people who do research with people who make decisions about our national health policy so they can learn from each other and work together to improve the health of the...

Developing a website for public awareness about computer use in aphasia rehabilitation

Aphasia is a language disorder which occurs in 1 in 3 people after stroke. It can impact on a person's ability to produce and understand spoken and written language. People with aphasia have had limited opportunities to have their voices heard within Irish stroke research.



This research project has already engaged...

The Art of Pregnancy

The Art of Pregnancy is an exciting and ambitious public outreach exhibition and programme supported by the HRB Mother and Baby CTN togther with the Science Gallery Dublin as a key partner.

For this project we want to commission (via an open call process) a group of artists to create works inspired by the wide ranging areas of...

Speaking Up About Safety (SUAS)

Speaking up about safety concerns is an important aspect of a healthcare professional's role. Our research has shown that in comparison to nurses, junior doctors are particularly poor at speaking up and tend not to report incidents and adverse events, in many cases because they believe it is not their responsibility to do so. Yet, a...

Our voices, our impact

Wave 3 KEDS will build on previous success by recruiting actors with ID to develop DVD and on-line resources comprising scenes that illustrate key IDS-TILDA wave 3 findings. Feedback from wave 3 indicates that participants would like to receive the findings in DVD format and IDS-TILDA wishes to respond to the specific dissemination...

Brain, mind and psychosis: Engaging young people in learning about research

Great progress has been made over the past few years in "destigmatising" mental illness and this has been particularly successful for conditions such as depression and anxiety. However there still remains a great lack of knowledge about psychosis. This lack of knowledge can lead to stigma and fear and can prevent young people coming...

The LinKT (Linking into Knowledge Translation) project: connecting, integrating and translating evidence to make a difference for families

Increasing evidence highlights the effectiveness of early intervention and prevention parenting interventions for improving the mental health and wellbeing of parents and children in the earliest years. However, these are often complex, difficult to implement effectively and fail to reach the most vulnerable families. Accessible,...

Development of an online cancer genetics educational resource for undergraduate and postgraduate healthcare learners

Genetic testing is becoming cheaper and easier to perform. As such, it is being performed more and more frequently; to help explain why people have developed cancer, or to try to identify genetic changes in their tumours to which novel drugs can be targeted. Genetic testing may also help identify individuals at risk of cancer,...

Pathfinder: Parental information on therapeutic hypothermia followIng neonatal encephalopathy

Neonatal brain injury can have devastating outcomes for the baby and their family and may result in longterm disability. The only treatment available is whole body cooling started within a few hours of birth. Babies also require intensive care to support their lungs, heart and kidneys. We will develop an educational toolkit including...

Let's talk - and act - about adherence in multimorbidity - a teaching and learning resource for general practice

More than half of those over the age of 65 live with more than one chronic condition. This is known as multimorbidity (MM). The prevalence of MM increases with age and is more common in less well off patients. Using muliple medications i.e. polypharmacy, is the norm in MM and many do not take their medications as prescribed i.e....

Cracking the mysteries of cancer immunotherapies - e.courses for oncology healthcare professionals

The new therapies for cancer that target the immune system have revolutionised cancer care in recent times. The treatment of melanoma, leukaemia and other malignancies has been transformed by these immune modulating drugs. However, few oncology clinicians or oncology specialist nurses have backgrounds in immunology or immune...

The stressed brain & depression

Understanding depression is challenging both for professionals and for the public. It is complex and poorly conceptualized. Clinical depression involves biological, psychological and social causes that all contribute to the expression of depression in each individual sufferer. Trauma, especially early in life when body systems are...

CERVIVA: The HPV educate project

The goal of this CERVIVA HPV Educate Project is to provide accurate and reliable information relating to HPV and HPV associated diseases, to create awareness and educate the public, health care professionals and healthcare providers on public health issues related to HPV associated diseases and on the specific research programmes...

Overweight & obesity in Ireland: Translating policy into action

The launch in 2016 of "A healthy weight for Ireland", the Government's National Obesity Policy and Action Plan, 2016-2025 represents an important milestone in Ireland's response to ongoing epidemic of overweight and obesity in children and adults. Researchers in the HRB Centre for Health & Diet (CHDR) generated key evidence which...

Listening to the newborn brain

This outreach programme will provide dedicated public information and education resources on the neonatal brain stethoscope device, which aims to facilitate interrogation of the neonatal brain and improve the quality and accuracy of the diagnosis brain injuries, reduce the stress of parents with babies in the NICU and establish the...

Expert forum to advance the potential of IL-1 family members as novel therapeutics in IBD

Current treatment strategies for Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, are ineffective in a large number of patients. Although the reasons for this are not fully understood, it seems likely to reflect the complex nature of chronic intestinal inflammation. Recent advances in our understanding...

Supporting individuals and organisations involved in implementation of community water fluoridation

The Fluoride And Caring for Children's Teeth (FACCT) study was initiated to determine the effect of the change in water fluoridation policy (2007) on dental caries (tooth decay) and enamel fluorosis (marks on tooth enamel which are associated with fluoride) in Irish children, while also considering the change in policy on the use of...

Development and validation of diagnostic biomarkers for neurodegenerative conditions based on MRI measures of pathognomonic brain regions

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating, relentlessly progressive neurodegenerative condition with no effective disease-modifying therapies and no validated biomarkers. Three main themes exist in ALS biomarker research; (1) development of diagnostic indicators, (2) identification of accurate prognostic markers and (3)...

Biomarker discovery and validation in autism spectrum disorder: A study of neonatal cord blood in international birth cohorts

What is Autism? Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex disorder of brain development. ASD is characterized by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviours. ASD begins in infancy and persists into adolescence and adulthood. ASD imposes significant emotional and economic burdens on...

Using Bayesian network models to predict the impact of public health interventions on disease-prevalence in population health research

Population Health Research studies determinants of health and disease with the goal of identifying interventions that promote health and reduce the burden of disease. Deciding on an appropriate intervention mandates a prior forecast of the intervention's effect on disease. For example, for an intervention targeting smoking, we might...

The Hospital Doctor Retention and Motivation (HDRM) project

Ireland is losing almost as many doctors to emigration as it trains each year. This rate of doctor emigration is a threat to the future of the health system, which may run short of doctors to staff its hospitals.

So far, Ireland's solution has been to recruit doctors from other countries. One in three doctors in Ireland is...

Targeting metabolism for individualised rectal cancer treatment: Development of an omics-led predictive signature of chemoradiation therapy response and novel neoadjuvant therapeutic strategy

Cancer of the rectum is one of the most common cancers in Ireland and worldwide. Patients with rectal cancer are commonly treated with chemoradiation therapy (CRT), which is a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, to shrink the tumour before undergoing surgery to remove the tumour. CRT has been shown to improve survival...

Investigating mitochondrial dysfunction and meta-inflammation as a shared pathogenic network in pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes mellitus

Pre-eclampsia (PE) and gestational diabetes (GDM) are two common complications of pregnancy. PE is characterised by high blood pressure and increased protein in the urine. GDM develops because the mother's body is not able to produce the extra insulin needed for pregnancy. Together, these pregnancy complications affect 15% of first...

An allostatic load framework for understanding social differences in health and mortality

A consistent finding in the epidemiological literature is that health is socially patterned. On average, individuals from more disadvantaged social backgrounds will develop diseases earlier and will die earlier compared with their more advantaged peers. So ubiquitous is the association between health and wealth that it has been...

Enhancing the evidence base for cost-effectiveness analysis in Ireland: Building improvements from the intervention-specific to system-wide levels

The objective of this research is to increase the relevance and reliability of health economic evidence in Ireland. The aim is to improve the methods for prioritising scarce health funding to the most beneficial uses.



This research will translate valuable lessons learnt from cervical cancer prevention to screening...

The liver neighbourhood watch: regulatory tissue-resident natural killer (NK) cells protect against liver decompensation in patients with chronic liver disease

Liver cirrhosis occurs when normal liver tissue is replaced by scar tissue, leading to the eventual failure of normal liver functions. Cirrhosis develops as a result of chronic liver disease, and it accounts for 170,000 deaths annually in Europe and more than 3,000 deaths annually in Ireland. Presently the only treatment is liver...

Targeting adipose tissue inflammation by intermittent hypoxia: towards personalised medicine in obstructive sleep apnoea

Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a very frequent condition, which is strongly linked with obesity and associated with the development of various heart conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart attack or stroke. It also leads to diseases which are associated with abnormalities in blood glucose levels, such as type 2 diabetes...

Using genetics and CRISPR to personalise new targeted treatments for patients with familial breast cancer

This research project is focused on the genetics of breast cancer. We know that cancer can be caused by errors in certain genes, called mutations. We also know that these mutations run in some families, and therefore some women unfortunately inherit a risk of developing breast cancer. Landmark studies on these families led to the...

Exercising control over runaway kynurenine pathway metabolism: Towards improved treatment outcomes in major depression

We all know someone who suffers from depression, the difficulties they experience before being diagnosed and the hardship endured before an effective medication that improves their symptoms is finally found. Often, despite multiple trials of different medications, the symptoms of depression persist. In addition to the personal and...

The relationship of medication adherence and environmental factors to exacerbations in patients with severe asthma

Some patients with asthma suffer attacks, termed exacerbations, these periods of loss of control and heightened symptoms both significantly reduce quality of life and increase healthcare costs, as they are a cause of disability, hospitalisation and death. Predicting when an exacerbation may occur involves knowledge of the person's...

Biomarker discovery in ultra high risk for psychosis: Towards prediction of psychotic disorder, non-psychotic mental disorders and recovery

Mental disorders such as schizophrenia and major depression are among the most expensive disorders in terms of quality of life and societal cost. Early identification and intervention is associated with improved outcome and is facilitated by targeting those at ultra-high-risk-for-psychosis (UHR) as up to 25-30% subsequently develop...

HRB Trials Methodology Research Network (HRB-TMRN) 2017 -2021

No summary available

HRB Trials Methodology Research Network (HRB-TMRN) 2017 - 2021 - Pilot: Education and training for recruiters to randomised trials

No summary available

The impact of stress on maternal gastrointestinal permeability during pregnancy: Implications for maternal immunology and infant neurodevelopment

Pregnancy can be a stressful time during which many expectant mothers experience understandable worries and concerns. Unusually high levels of prenatal maternal stress are associated with a number of behavioural and cognitive problems for the child in later life. Normal development of the central nervous system is also at risk during...

Alpha melanocyte stimulatory hormone and improvements in glucose tolerance in humans: Role of enhanced skeletal muscle glucose uptake and utilisation

Patients with diabetes show significant impairements in the control of blood levels of nutrients such as sugars and fats after eating. This causes excessive levels of nutrient to circulate (e.g. high blood sugar-hyperglycaemia) and over time this phenomenon can injure cells and tissues of the body resulting in complications such as...

The heme oxygenase system as a therapeutic intervention for inflammatory bowel disease

Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn disease (CD) are major chronic inflammatory bowel diseases affecting approximately 20,000 people in Ireland and an estimated 2.2 million individuals in Europe. Treatment with infliximab, corticosteroids and aminosalicylate-based compounds has been shown to suppress the generation of pathogenic immune...

Assessment of the predictive value of immune and histological parameters in oesophageal adenocarcinoma using digital pathology

Cancer of the oesophagus, or food pipe, is an aggressive type of cancer, with poor survival rates. The number of people affected is increasing and is set to double in Ireland within the next 20 years. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are used to treat patients with oesophageal cancer, but these therapies only work for a small number of...

HRB Clinical Research Facility University College Cork 2018-2021

No summary available

Phenotypic and functional characterisation of immune cell populations in ACPA+ vs ACPA- RA patients: Implications for treatment strategies

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common inflammatory arthritis affecting 1-2% of the population, with potentially debilitating effects impacting on quality of life and function. Targeted therapies inhibiting TNF have advanced RA treatment, however these treatments are expensive, placing further strain on an already overstretched...

Targeting HIV persistent reservoirs: Evaluation of new classes of latency reversing agent as part of novel strategies for HIV cure approaches

With 37 millions people currently living with HIV and 2.6 million people newly infected worldwide, the AIDS pandemic is a global health crisis. In Ireland, the HSE and the HSPC have made HIV/AIDS "a notifiable disease and a major public health importance". 30 years of intense HIV/AIDS research have provided efficient antiretroviral...

IRISH-1: A retrospective cohort study of PD-L1 by RNA ISH (RISH) as a potentially superior companion biomarker for immune checkpoint inhibitors in NSCLC

The role of the immune system to fight illness is well known, but it can in fact also fight cancer. Indeed, most potential cancer causing cells are detected and removed from our bodies by our immune system in process called "immune surveillance". However, at some point, tumors manage to evade our immune system by producing molecules...

Wellcome-HRB Clinical Research Facility at St James'Hospital 2018-2021

No summary available

Gastric cancer risk: The influence of selenium status and selenoprotein genetic variation

Dietary and lifestyle factors and infection with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori play important roles in the development of different types of stomach (gastric) cancer (GC), one of the top ten most serious cancers in Europe. Selenium is a micronutrient needed in small amounts for important proteins, called selenoproteins, countering...

Do we die as we live? Age, socioeconomic status, healthcare utilisation and pathways to death in Ireland

It has long been understood that illness and healthcare needs increase as a person approaches the end of life, and that much of what appears to be higher costs with ageing is mainly the costs of dying. Age at death is closely linked to socioeconomic status, but little is known about how patterns of illness and use of services vary...

Prospective validation of the complement system as a novel treatment stratification tool in oesophageal adenocarcinoma patients

Cancer of the oesophagus (food-pipe) is rapidly increasing in incidence in Ireland and worldwide and has one of the worst survival rates of all cancers. In Ireland, oesophageal cancer patients are currently treated with chemoradiation therapy (CRT), which is a combination of drugs (chemotherapy) and radiation (radiation therapy),...

Skin in Parkinson's disease - a potential biomarker?

Parkinsonism is characterized by slowness, stiffness, tremor and poor balance. Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive, incurable neurological disease and the most common cause of Parkinsonism. PD is caused by a reduced level of a chemical (dopamine) in an area of the brain responsible for automatic movement control. Current...

Elucidating the pathological role of obesity, inflammation and immunity in cancer related sarcopenia in upper gastrointestinal cancers

Cancer is a devastating disease affecting the majority of us at some point in our lives. Cachexia is a common debilitating consequence of cancer, which is responsible for the deaths of nearly 20% of all cancer patients. It is thought to be driven by inflammation and leads to an involuntary loss of muscle (sarcopenia) and fat. This has...

CERVIVA-Vax: Monitoring the impact of HPV vaccination in Ireland

Infection with Human Papillomavirus (HPV) can lead to development of cervical cancer. For this reason HPV now plays an important role in cervical cancer prevention. For example, HPV vaccination programmes are established in several countries worldwide, including Ireland, where a national school based HPV vaccination programme began in...

A population-based, longitudinal investigation of changes in multisensory integration with ageing and its causal role in the incidence of falls and cognitive decline in older adults

Our sensory systems are constantly bombarded by information, yet we are able to maintain a coherent perception that allows us to efficiently interact with our world. Recent research in neuroscience has led to important breakthroughs in our understanding of how multisensory interactions occur in the brain. However, the ageing process...

Advanced scaffold-based therapeutics for regeneration of large volume, vascularised bone defects

Although bone has a natural capacity to repair itself following fracture, problems arise when large critical-size bone defects do not spontaneously heal and therefore require surgical intervention to repair completely. As many drawbacks exist with traditional repair approaches, the field of bone tissue engineering - which combines...

The Low Von Willebrand factor Ireland Cohort of Kids (LoVIC-K) study

Von Willebrand factor (VWF) is a large plasma protein essential for maintaining normal blood coagulation. Approximately 1% of the children and adults inherit low levels of his blood clotting protein, and consequently have a lifelong bleeding disorder known as von Willebrand disease (or VWD). Children with VWD often demonstrate easy...

HRB Clinical Research Facility Galway 2018-2021

No summary available

Sex matters! Identification of novel therapeutic targets to mitigate the increased prevalence of depression in women versus men.

Stress, particularly early life, is a major risk factor for several psychiatric disorders including depression. The prevalence of depression is twice as high in women compared with men. Thus in addition to stress, biological sex is an important contributor of depression susceptibility. The neurobiology underlying increased...

Monoclonal xIL-6R antibodies as a treatment for memory dysfunction in the mdx mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a genetic disorder that affects ~ 1 in every 3,600 live male births. This disease is characterised by progressive muscle weakness, disability, immobility and premature death, often due to respiratory failure. Symptom manifestation is due to a genetic mutation in the dystrophin gene, which protects...

Development of a nebulised cell based therapy for acute respiratory distress syndrome

Acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) constitute a spectrum of severe acute respiratory failure. Mortality rates over 60% have been reported and ARDS is the leading cause of death in the critically ill. ARDS develops most commonly in the context of severe sepsis, particularly infection with gram-negative...

The microbiome as a risk factor and biomarker of oesophageal cancer

Oesophageal cancer is the eighth most common cancer worldwide (19th most common in Europe) with nearly 456,000 new cases diagnosed in 2012. It is well established that microbes can cause cancer. For example, H. pylori infection can lead to stomach cancer. For other cancers, such as colon cancer, there is a change in the population of...

Systems modelling of tumor heterogeneity & therapy response in colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) has one of the highest worldwide incidences (>1.3 million new cases) and mortality rates (~610,000 deaths per year). Genotoxic chemotherapy in stage II and III confers minimal treatment benefit (improved survival in 3-4% stage II and 15-20% of stage III patients), and predictive markers to select...

Multimodal cardiovascular modelling for predicting and preventing disability in TILDA

Increasing proportions of older adults will lead to an increased prevalence of age-related health problems, and long-term care systems. The issues are numerous and complex. In response to these challenges, 'ageing' has become a research priority both nationally and internationally. TILDA aims to improve population health by providing...

A mixed methods research study to develop an acceptable, evidence and practice based model for palliative care for people with dementia in the community

People are living longer, which means that more of us will get age-related illnesses such as dementia. Palliative Care aims to improve the quality of life of patients and their families who are facing an incurable, life-limiting illness, such as dementia. Palliative care involves actively looking for symptoms of any kind- physical,...

Epigenetics in the pathogenesis of pseudoexfoliation glaucoma

Glaucoma is a common cause of blindness, which affects approximately 60 million people worldwide. There are many causes and risk factors for developing this disease but pseudoexfoliation (PXF) syndrome is currently the single most important identifiable risk factor for developing glaucoma (PXFG). A build up of certain proteins...

Alternative approaches to achieving universal healthcare -potential costs, outcomes and challenges

For the first time in Ireland there is cross-party political interest in achieving universal healthcare (UHC); however there is little clarity about the meaning of universality or how best to transition from the current Irish system to one of universality. In Ireland, most people currently pay relatively high fees to visit general...

PPI Ignite Award - National University of Ireland Galway

The Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) Ignite Awards aim to promote PPI in health research in Ireland. Our NUI Galway Primary Care PPI group of patients and members of the public were asked to describe what a successful PPI Ignite project would look like (Figure 3). They responded by saying that success would be creating an...

PPI Ignite Award - University College Dublin

UCD in collaboration with 10 partner organisations will develop a PPI network and resource platform called UCD PPI Ignite Connect that will seek to firmly embed patient and public involvement in UCD's research,learning and teaching activities and in its academic processes. The partner organisations include the Ireland East Hospital...

PPI Ignite Award - Dublin City University

Patient and public involvement means carrying out research with or by members of the public rather than to, about or for them. This PPI Ignite award plans to improve patient and public involvement in health and social care research. We will do this by bringing people who use health services (patients, carers, and/or their...

PPI Ignite Award - University of Limerick

PPI Ignite at the University of Limerick will serve as a rallying point within the university and the wider community it serves, to build capacity for research conducted  "with" or "by" patients and members of the public rather than "to", "about" or "for" them. PPI Ignite UL will accomplish this among a coalition of academic,...

PPI Ignite Award - Trinity College Dublin

Research is considered "engaged" when it is developed in collaboration with patients, community members and partnering organisations rather than for or about them. Such public and patient involvement improves the relevancy of the research question, the quality of the approach, and the likelihood that what is discovered through the...

Research Programme - Taskforce on staffing and skill-mix for nursing

The Department of Health recently published a document entitled a Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix in Ireland. In this report a number of recommendations were made to ensure that the staffing of hospitals was safe and effective; that is to ensure the right number of nurses are in the right place at the right time and...

Longitudinal assessment of cardiac function in infants with Downs Syndrome using novel echocardiography techniques

Down syndrome is a condition where there is an extra chromosome 21. Babies with Down syndrome have well recognised features. Some babies with Down syndrome have an abnormal heart and need surgery to correct the defect. For this study we are interested in the proportion of babies who have a normal heart structure. Those babies can have...

Cancer Prevention Fellowship 2017

Research Programme for mid-career researchers working in Republic of Ireland (RoI) to become NCI Cancer Prevention Fellows at the prestigious National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the USA.

This programme provides training at post-doctorate level from the health professions, biomedical, and behavioural sciences to become...

Children's unscheduled primary and emergency care in Ireland: decision making, trends, outcomes and parental perspectives (CUPID)

The Irish healthcare system is partly publicly funded by government spending and partly privately funded by out-of-pocket payments and private health insurance. Universal healthcare coverage is a situation where all people who need health services receive them, without undue financial hardship, based on need, not income. In 2011 the...

Lending an ear: "iPeer2Peer" plus "Teens Taking Charge" online self-management to empower children with arthritis

Childhood arthritis is common and makes everyday activities diffciult for young people. It is a chronic illness that can cause children to experience pain, fatigue and emotional upset. This makes it more difficult for children to see friends and do enjoyable activities.

When children become teenagers they start making more...

Ancient genomics and the Atlantic burden

WT Scheme: Investigator Award in Science.

Massive human genome resequencing projects are in train to further the understanding of the genetic contributions to disease. However these offer a limited view of genome genealogies, variant history and past selection, all of which are instrument to the models underpinning genomic...

Project manager and knowledge exchange manager

No summary available

Reducing caesarean section rates in Ireland: a feasibility study and pilot randomised trial of an evidence-based intervention designed to reduce unnecessary caesarean section

Concern has been expressed globally at the rising caesarean section (CS) rate with a lack of evidence of any associated decrease in health problems for mothers and babies, indicating that many CSs are unnecessary. Maternal death and severe maternal health problems are trebled following CS compared with vaginal birth, and newborn babies...

Enhancing doctors' engagement with regulation of professional competence

In the field of medicine, information about how best to care for patients is constantly changing. Since 2011, medical doctors in Ireland are required by law to demonstrate that they are taking part in educational activities to keep them up to date. The aim of this requirement is to reassure the public that their doctors are competent...

A randomised placebo-controlled trial of low-dose aspirin initiated in the first trimester for optimising pregnancy outcome in pregestational diabetes

Pre-existing diabetes confers a high risk for adverse pregnancy outcome. High blood pressure disorders in pregnancy, including preeclampsia, are particularly common in this population and the combination of pre-existing diabetes and preeclampsia represents a notable high risk for poor pregnancy outcome, including stillbirth....

Improving outcomes for young adults with type 1 diabetes in Ireland: the D1 now feasibility and cluster randomised pilot study

Many young adults with type 1 diabetes find it hard to control their blood glucose levels. With many changes going on in their lives their diabetes is often not a priority. They also find it hard to engage with hospital diabetes services because of an inflexible clinic appointment system and seeing a different member of staff at each...

The SEA-CHANGE study: a pilot randomised controlled trial of the SElf-management After Cancer of the Head And Neck Group intErvention

Head and neck cancer (HNC) and its treatment are associated with specific challenges such as facial disfigurement and impairments in speech, breathing and swallowing, which can have a negative impact on wellbeing. Despite these burdens, there is a lack of psychosocial interventions to help HNC survivors live well with and beyond...

We Can Quit2: A cluster randomised pilot trial of a community-based smoking cessation intervention for women in disadvantaged areas of Ireland

Smoking rates remain high in Ireland despite considerable progress being made to reduce them in recent years. Ireland ranks second highest for smoking-related causes of death in the EU. Lung cancer, which is strongly linked to smoking, is now the most common cause of death for women in Ireland particularly those living in more...

EOLAS: Building capacity for collaborative education between service users, family members and practitioners within mental health services

Background: Service users and families need information so they can take charge of their own recovery and relationship with the mental health system. To support this, we developed and delivered 2 mental health information programmes (the EOLAS Programmes), to over 800 service users and family members. The programmes were on recovery...

Colchine for prevention of vascular inflammation in non-cardioembolic stroke (CONVINCE) - a randomised clinical trial of low-dose colchicine for secondary prevention of stroke. Northern Europe extension

Inflammation of the lining of arteries is an important factor contributing to clots, leading to heart attacks and strokes. Current studies are testing medicines traditionally used for inflammation of joints (arthritis) to prevent strokes and heart attacks. CONVINCE is a clinical trial, testing colchicine in low doses, a medicine used...

Promoting Assisted Decision Making in Acute Care Settings (PADMACS) for care planning purposes

This project aims to produce an educational interactive game which will support health and social care professionals working in acute hospitals to include their patients in decisions about treatment and care plans. Decision-making capacity is the ability to make decisions for one-self. In some cases an older person may experience...

Out of hospital cardiac arrest and community first response: International best practice, national consultation and prospective evaluation

Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly ceases to pump blood around the body. The term 'Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest' (OHCA) is used to describe incidents where cardiac arrest occurs unexpectedly and is responded to by statutory emergency medical services (EMS). OHCA causes approximately 1,900 unexpected deaths in Ireland every...

Feasibility of an intervention to improve attendance for diabetic retinopathy screening

Retinopathy is a serious and common condition affecting the sight of people with diabetes and it can cause blindness. It is preventable through screening and can be treated if found in time. However, the success of screening is dependent on people attending when invited. Studies show that a number of people with diabetes do not attend...

Low molecular weight heparin to prevent recurrent venous thromboembolism in pregnancy: a randomised trial of two doses: the HIGHLOW study

Women who are pregnant have an increased chance of developing blood clots. These clots can cause serious ill-health and can even be fatal. The death of a young mother is a tragic event with wide-reaching effects on the woman's family.

Women with a previous blood clot have a higher recurrence risk in pregnancy. In fact, the...

Targeted therapeutic mild hypercapnia after resuscitated cardiac arrest: A phase III multi-centre randomised controlled trial

A cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops pumping blood to the brain and other major organs. Approximately 10,000 people die from cardiovascular disease every year in Ireland. It is estimated that 5,000 of these deaths are from a sudden cardiac arrest. Early resuscitation (CPR) can get the heart pumping again but in many cases the...

Lifetime exposure to community water fluoridation and associations with key indicators of health in community-dwelling adults aged 50 years and over in Ireland

The main aim of this project is to provide evidence that informs future policy about water fluoridation in Ireland. Community water fluoridation has existed in Ireland since 1964, so it is important to examine any association between long term exposure to water fluoridation and general health status. Such an assessment is a requirement...

Community Risk-based monitoring for Atrial Fibrillation Trial (CRAFT)

Atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart-beat, is common, affecting ~7% of people over 65 years of age. It is a major cause of stroke, increasing the risk of stroke 5-fold, and about one-third of patients with acute stroke have atrial fibrillation. Once detected, there are very effective treatments to prevent stroke - oral anticoagulant...

What influences cervical screening uptake in older women and how can screening programmes translate this knowledge into behaviour changing strategies? A CERVIVA-CervicalCheck co-production project

Most cervical cancers can be prevented by detecting early changes in the cervix which, if not found, could progress to cancer. This is done by testing cells from the cervix in a smear test. CervicalCheck, the Irish National Cervical Screening programme, started in 2008 and offers free tests to women aged 25-60. For the programme to be...

Resource allocation, priority-setting and consensus in dementia care in Ireland

A key action under the National Dementia Strategy (2014) is the delivery of appropriate supports and services for people with dementia that can be accessed in people's own homes and local communities. There is also an emphasis in the Strategy to address the individual needs of people with dementia and their carers in a manner that is...

Traumatic brain injury: epidemiology and rehabilitation in Ireland

Traumatic brain injury (TBI, informally known as head injury) is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide1. Neither the number of people affected by TBI, nor the severity of the disability caused, in Ireland, is known. This makes it hard to plan the specialised neuro-rehabilitation services, which are under-developed and...

The utility of high-tech drug analysis to the decision maker

The Health (Pricing and Supply) Act 2013 stipulates that the payer must consider the cost-effectiveness (the likelihood that the drug will offer value for money) and the likely cost impact of a new drug prior to deciding if it should be reimbursed. It also states that, after a 3-5 year period, continued reimbursement must be reviewed....

Longitudinal profiling of adverse events in Irish hospitals and provision of a standardised assessment tool to the Irish healthcare system: the INAES-2 study

Adverse events (AEs) are unintended injuries or complications that are caused by healthcare management, rather than a patient's underlying disease, which lead to death, disability at the time of hospital discharge, prolonged hospital stay or subsequent hospitalisation. The first Irish National Adverse Events Study (INAES) determined...

Staphylococcus aureus induced immunosuppressive memory: Consequences for bug and for host

WT Scheme: Investigator Award in Science.

Antimicrobial resistance by Staphylococcus aureus is a global epidemic. New approaches based on induction of immune responses that control/prevent S. aureus infection, are required. This necessitates a thorough understanding of the unique relationship cultivated by S. aureus with the...

Building research capacity in the maternal health and maternal morbidity in Ireland study: Second baby follow-up, intervention development and testing, and measurement of costs (MAMMI-SIM)

The MAMMI study (Maternal health And Maternal Morbidity in Ireland), Phase 1, is in progress at present. It will identify how often physical/emotional problems occur in women having their first baby in Ireland, what factors cause problems and what treatments might help. Some conditions affect one-third of women just after having a...

Development of a mult-faceted approach to reducing and mitigating the risk of foreign object retention (FOR)

Over 1,000 Irish FOR incidents between 2011 and 2015 represent unnecessary suffering patients, reputational cost/damage to the healthcare service, institution and clinician and financial cost in claims and rework.
FOR is an intractable human factors problem because removing materials after a task is not integrated into the natural...

A comparison of emotion-focused therapy and cognitive-behavioural therapy in the treatment of generalised anxiety disorder.

Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) is a chronic and debilitating anxiety disorder characterised by excessive worry, anxiety, and somatic symptoms such as tiredness. It is often found alongside other disorders such as depression. Its main features are also important for our understanding of the other anxiety disorders. Alongside...

Irish clinical academic training (ICAT) Programme

WT Scheme: PhD Programme for Clinicians

Ireland's ongoing economic recovery represents a unique opportunity to effect fundamental change in academic medicine that can have lasting societal benefits. We have designed a comprehensive National Programme for Clinician Scientists based at six major Irish universities. Our...

Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF)

These funds will be used to grow and enhance a connected programme of health-related Research, Teaching and Public Engagement in Trinity College. Specific activities will include: (a) seed research support to early stage academics; (b) a programme to stimulate strategic international collaboration and: (c) the creation of a truly...

Neoadjuvant treatments for malignant and metastatic melanoma

The objective of this review is to assess the effects of neoadjuvant treatments for stage III and IV melanoma in adults. Historically stage III and IV melanoma have been associated with a very poor prognosis, and available treatments have had very little impact on the disease course.Various clinical options have been explored,...

Hospital design for supporting people with dementia and their carers

The relationship between health and wellbeing and the design of the built environment is becoming an important area of research that is bringing together the medical/clinical community with design professionals such as architects and urban planners. Evidence based medicine already underpins good healthcare, however, evidence based...

The Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing Wave 5 and 6 (TILDA)

One of the greatest demographic and social transformations facing Ireland is aging of its population, increased life expectancy and related challenges. Whereas Ireland has one of the youngest populations in the European Union, by 2046 a quarter of our population will be over 65 and the greatest increase will be in those 85 and above...

Interventions for promoting participation in shared decision-making for children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis

To determine the effectiveness of interventions that promote shared-decision making (SDM) for children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis aged 4 to 18 years of age.Shared decision-making (SDM) is defined as a patient centered, collaborative process that enables individuals and their healthcare providers to make decisions together...

Risk prediction models for familial breast cancer: a systematic review

The majority of breast-cancers are sporadic, however, 20-30% are considered familial (occur in the context of a significant family-history of the disease). Women suspected of being at higher risk of breast-cancer than the general-population based on their family-history are frequently referred to a "family-risk" clinic for...

Identifying Interventions to prevent and manage chronic kidney disease

WT Scheme: Postdoctoral Training Fellowships for Clinicians

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects almost 500million people worldwide is increasingly prevalent,associated with morbidity and mortality, and interventions (dialysis or transplant) are expensive and unavailable in some regions. Developing programs to reduce CKD...

Application of next generation sequencing for the genetic characterisation of Irish retinal degeneration patients

A key objective of the current study is to clinically and genetically characterise an extended group of 700-800 Irish patients with inherited retinal degenerations (IRD). The team have significant prior experience in the clinical and genetic evaluation of patients with inherited retinal degenerations. They believe it is timely to...

Resolution of inflammation by metabolic reprogramming in the inflamed joint

Arthritis is a leading cause of disability that affects up to 15% of the population and is the most common cause of pain in Irish society, including children. 2% suffer from inflammatory arthritis (IA) such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA). IA causes joint damage and disability and is associated with...

Peer-to-peer motivational interview intervention for smoking, alcohol and physical activity among at-risk adolescents in low SES communities: A feasibility trial

Unhealthy behaviours established during adolescence often persist into adulthood; we will examine the effects of training adolescents (13-18 years) in a proven method for behaviour change (motivational interviewing) for smoking cessation, alcohol consumption and exercise promotion among adolescents in low SES communities. Peer-led...

Towards host-directed therapies to overcome immune impairment in cigarette smokers during mycobacterial infection

Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection which causes approximately 1.5 million deaths worldwide each year and it is estimated that one third of the worlds'population is latently infected with TB. In this proposal we aim to investigate the role of alveolar acrophages in the immune response to TB infection. Alveolar macrophages are...

AVERT: Autoimmunity relapse prediction using multiple parallel data sources

In most causes of autoimmune disease, where the body's immune system attacks an individual's own body, the condition relapses and remits. This means that strong medications to suppress the immune system bring the patient into remission, but they remain at risk of suffering a flare of their disease. In the autoimmune kidney condition...

Ketamine for relapse prevention in recurrent depressive disorder: a randomised controlled pilot trial (The KINDRED Trial)

Depression is projected to become the second greatest cause of disability worldwide by 2020. It can be a chronic disorder, with 5-9 episodes of depression per lifetime. The first six months following successful antidepressant treatment represents the highest risk period for relapse, with 40-60% relapse rates in persons with...

Perspectives of partners of women who experience mental health issues in the postnatal period

For most families having a baby is a happy occasion. A small number of women, however, suffer from mental health issues following the birth of their baby. Often the womans partner can play an important role in seeking help and supporting the woman and the baby. However, we have very little information on how the partners of women who...

The Irish kidney gene project - identification and characterisation of novel genetic causes of familial kidney disease

Certain kidney diseases tend to run in families, suggesting that particular genes are inherited from one generation to the next, causing kidney disease. By undertaking a joint training programme between with Trinity College Dublin and Harvard Medical School Boston, I plan to study these families and seek to identify specific genes that...

Caesarean section in nulliparous women: factors influencing decision-making process and outcomes for women- The MAMMI study caesarean section strand

This study will find out the factors, or combination of several factors, that influence the decision to perform a caesarean section (CS) in first-time mothers in Ireland, the health problems women experience in the first year after the birth and what women, midwives and obstetricians believe are the reasons behind the decision to...

The clinical application of immunometabolism to the TB Patient

Recent studies have shown that cells of the immune system change the way that they break down sugars (their metabolism) after they are stimulated, and that this change in metabolism is needed in order to produce specific chemicals (cytokines) that fight infection.
We will study what metabolism changes happen in immune cells from...

Investigating the impact of body composition and nutritional intervention strategies in pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer is the 9th most common cancer in Ireland, and the 5th most common cause of cancer related death. Because of its location deep within the abdomen, patients often present with advanced cancer at the time of diagnosis. The options for treatment are limited as surgery is only suitable for patients who don't have spread of...

Development of a core set of clinical care provision indicators for non-specialist palliative care in the acute care hospital setting

Palliative care encompasses the support structure around people facing problems associated with life-limiting illness and includes the support of their families, but this is more than end-of-life care, and is viewed as central component of care for people living with limiting illnesses. Palliative care policies in Ireland draw on these...

The OPTIMAL study: A randomized controlled trial and process evaluation of an OccuPaTIonal therapy led self MAnagement support programme for patients with muLtimorbidity in primary care

Many people with chronic disease tend to have more than one chronic condition, referred to as multimorbidity. It is predicted that the number of individuals with multimorbidity is set to increase substantially in the future due to the growing elderly population. Those with multimorbidity experience poor physical function and find it...

Artificial neural networks, genomic data and case-control classification

WT Scheme: Seed Award in Science

Genome wide association studies have now reached the scale where one can hope to extract information relevant to clinical applications and public health. The large and complex nature of current datasets will benefit from new and more powerful methods of analysis. We propose to investigate the...

Metabolic reprogramming in innate immunity

WT Scheme: Investigator Award in Science.

Immune cells undergo metabolic reprogramming during activation which directly impacts on their phenotype (1,2). Glycolysis is a key feature of M1 macrophages and Th17 cells, whilst oxidative phosphorylation is more apparent in M2 macrophages and Treg cells. Signals regulated by the...

Blood brain barrier dysfunction in Schizophrenia; A molecular genetics based approach to prognosis

Schizophrenia has been estimated to affect up to 1 in 100 people in Ireland. Given its prevalence, the underlying causes of the condition are still far from clear. Intriguingly, there exists a chromosomal abnormality termed 22q11 deletion syndrome (22q11DS), where schizophrenia can manifest 20 times more frequently than in the general...

Brain superheros return

Making new drugs is long, costly and complex, and is often a mystery to many people. Our laboratory is involved in the development of new drugs for brain related illnesses, including illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Multiple Sclerosis. Alongside our research, we conduct a number of outreach projects in the hope of...

Evaluating the role of TLR3 L412F in disease progression in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a lung disease of unknown cause which leads to excessive scarring of the lungs, resulting in loss of lung function, respiratory failure and ultimately, death. IPF is believed to be caused by abnormal repair of the lung after a chronic injury by an unknown agent to the lining of the lung (the...

Immunotherapy for the treatment of AMD: a preclinical evaluation

Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of central retinal vision loss worldwide. Estimated prevalence of AMD in Ireland is 7% with an annual cost

Development of prognostic screening tools to predict patient response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy treatment for oesophageal adenocarcinoma

Cancer of the oesophagus, or food pipe, is an aggressive type of cancer with poor outlook and is affecting a growing number of people. The main types of treatments are surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which may be given alone or in combination. Although chemoradiotherapy treatments work well for some, the majority of patients...

Disease gene independent generic suppression-based therapies for retinal disorders

Multiple mutations in over 200 genes can cause retinal degeneration, a group of diseases that result in the death of light detecting photoreceptor cells in the retina. Mutations in more than 30 genes can also cause optic neuropathies, a group of disorders that affect retinal ganglion cells, causing the optic nerve to be less capable of...

Targeting dysregulated bioenergetics in the inflamed RA joint

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a form of inflammatory arthritis that affects approximately 45,000 people in Ireland and bears a high personal, social and economic cost. It is estimated that the cost of treating patients with RA in Ireland is approximately

Targeting NK cells to improve HCV vaccine immunogenicity

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects over 170 million people in the world. Most individuals go on to develop a chronic lifetime infection that is associated with progressive liver disease. While new drugs have recently been developed, they are very expensive and are not a treatment option for developing countries. In addition, there are...

Behavioural changes in ALS : What families and healthcare professionals need to know

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS ) (or Motor Neuron Disease (MND)) is a rapidly progressive neurodegeneration associated with loss of muscle power. Until recently, thinking and behaviour were considered unaffected, but we have shown that up to 50% of people with ALS/MND experience changes in their ability to plan complex tasks, and...

Applying health: Using healthcare technology to enhance the delivery of rehabilitation programmes in cancer survivors

Recovery following oesophageal cancer (cancer of the food pipe) can be challenging. Cancer rehabilitation, which may involve exercise, advice from a dietitian, education or other therapeutic interventions, can help patients make an optimal recovery. The research team is currently investigating the effect of a 12 week rehabilitation...

Defining host and microbe-derived immune targets for development of improved host-directed therapies and vaccines for TB

Almost one third of the world's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) with almost 2 million deaths to tuberculosis (TB) annually. Over 400 patients are treated for active TB annually in Ireland, with an increasing number of drug-resistant cases emerging. Currently treatment involves a multi-drug course for 6...

Promoting positive mental health messages for the older population: The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) films

The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) offers unique data on the challenges associated with ageing and how these can affect mood as we age: grief, retirement, poorer physical health. We have demonstrated that mood may be affected by loss of support networks such as adult children moving abroad. Over 10% of the older Irish...

The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) hypertension seminars for health professionals in primary and community care practice

In April 2015 the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) published research, funded through the active award, which indicates that approximately two thirds of older Irish adults have high blood pressure and close to half of them are unaware of their condition. High blood pressure is an important risk factor for heart disease and...

Urine soluble CD163 as a biomarker of crescentic glomerulonephritis

Crescentic glomerulonephritis (CGN) is a severe form of kidney failure that leaves about one third of sufferers dependent on dialysis or needing a kidney transplant. It is currently difficult to assess the condition without performing a kidney biopsy, which is uncomfortable, expensive and occasionally dangerous to the patient. We have...

Innovative dissemination of IDS-TILDA Wave 2 - Advancing years, different challenges

The IDS-TILDA study is designed to better understand experiences and challenges for adults with an intellectual disability (ID) as they age. 753 persons aged 40+ started in the study. There have been two waves of data collection, with waves three years apart and 94% of people who answered at Wave one participated again at Wave two. We...

Development and launch of Irish guidelines on the management of Helicobacter pylori Infection

Helicobacter pylori infection is a public health issue. It remains one of the most common infections in adults in Ireland and is the primary cause of stomach ulcers and stomach cancers. Our recent findings have indicated that the eradication rate for standard first-line triple therapy for H. pylorihas fallen to unacceptable levels....

NIMBUS group: Neonatal Inflammation and Multiorgan dysfunction and Brain injUry reSearch group

Neonatal brain injury has a many causes and may result in cerebral palsy. Cooling therapy is the only established treatment but 50% of babies treated will die or have disability and so new therapies to reduce brain injury are urgently needed. New-borns who are severely affected also have problems with their heart, liver, lung and...

INCA: interaction analytics for automatic assessment of communication quality in primary care

Communication between physician and patient is crucial to the overall quality of primary care. An important element of this interaction is the physician-patient interview. While there are various opinions on what constitutes effective communication in a medical interview, sometimes supported by formal (qualitative and quantitative)...

Towards increased awareness and understanding of the risk of thrombosis in gynaecological cancers

All cancers are associated with an increased risk of clots to the legs and lungs however gynaecological cancers have a particularly high risk. Clots can occur after surgery or during chemotherapy and can be life threatening if they are not treated in time. A recent survey of patients who suffered a clot during their cancer journey...

Viral hepatitis C associated neurocognitive dysfunction in Ireland in the DAA era

Approximately 30,000-50,000 people in Ireland have hepatitis C. Although the virus mainly affects the liver, in up to 30% of infected people the virus also affects the brain causing poor concentration, difficulties in concentrating, poor memory. Patients often describe this as a "brain fog". These symptoms may lead to forgetting...

Cancer immunology research saves lives: Find Out

The treatment of cancer is being revolutionised by cancer immunology. However cancer immunology is poorly understood by healthcare workers, patients and the general public. Here, in collaboration with the Irish Cancer Society (ICS), we aim to use the expertise and discoveries generated by HRB and ICS funded research projects to...

Happy mothers...happy babies

Pregnancy is the highest risk period in a woman's life for developing clinical depression. Depression and anxiety during pregnancy are common experiences. Women are usually anxious about the pregnancy and the delivery, about how they will cope with motherhood and the impact of the changes that having a baby will make on their lives. We...

Research in depression: endocrinology, epigenetics and neuroiMaging: the REDEEM study

Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder in the world, accounting for approximately 90% of deaths by suicide. Rates of depression are rising alarmingly in the OECD countries. Although depression is considered to be a single clinical disorder, it has many underlying causes ranging from childhood abuse through to purely genetic...

CERVIVA: Making connections and creating impact

The goal of CERVIVA's education and outreach programme is to create awareness, inform and effectively engage the public, health care professionals and healthcare providers on public health issues related to HPV associated diseases and on the specific research programmes underway within CERVIVA, which are addressing some of these...

Evaluating metabotropic glutamate 5 receptor-selective drugs as a novel therapeutic strategy for Alzheimer's disease

Clinical dementia, the majority of cases being caused by Alzheimer's disease, seriously impairs the lives of over 50 million people worldwide currently (costing ~1% of the aggregated global gross domestic product). There are approximately 48,000 people with dementia and 50,000 dementia carers in Ireland. At present the lifetime...

Together against HIV: raising awareness and knowledge through documented real-life experiences and research discovery

There were approximately 2 million new HIV infections and 1.5 million HIV-related deaths worldwide in 2013, demonstrating the need for educational campaigns that raise awareness and prevent its spread. Current treatments suppress HIV, but do not totally clear it; however, a significant proportion of society believe these drugs cure...

Progressing universal health care: informing citizens by pooling and disseminating research and generating debate

There is little informed public discussion and debate around Universal Healthcare (UHC) in Ireland. There is also much confusion in political discourse between UHC and universal health insurance notwithstanding a recent policy shift towards UHC. This KEDS project aims to build on the Pathways to UHC research by educating the public...

Preclinical evaluation of a novel therapeutic strategy for Ulcerative Colitis

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a chronic relapsing intestinal inflammatory condition comprising of separate disease manifestations known as ulcerative colitis (UC) and crohns disease (CD). Despite significant advances in our understanding of the basic mechanisms which promote these diseases, current treatment strategies usually...

Telephone interventions, delivered by healthcare professionals, for informal caregivers of adults with diagnosed medical illnesses

Many people with diagnosed medical conditions are dependent upon family members and informal/lay caregivers to provide support and care. The care provided varies according to the individual's care needs, however, in many instances, people unexpectedly find themselves in a caring role for which they are ill prepared (Corry, 2015)....

The Intellectual disability supplement to the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) Waves 3 and 4

Similar to the general population, marked changes in the life expectancy of persons with intellectual disability (ID) have occurred among all age cohorts but in particular, among those aged 55 years and over. Almost half of people with a moderate, severe, or profound intellectual disability are aged 35 years or over. However, their...

From episodic care to disease prevention and management: Developing analytical skills and interdisciplinary learning from the case of HPV related cancers

This study will develop analysis techniques and interdisciplinary learning from cases of Human Papilloma Virus [HPV]-related cancers, specifically cervical pre-cancer/cancer and head and neck cancer. During this proposal the team of research fellows will be able to further develop and help to build the future research leaders in this...

Dementia friendly Irish hospitals: Opportunities, barriers, costs and solutions

Hospitals can be very complex and confusing environments for people with dementia, and may add to their distress, disorientation and suffering. To date, academic and pragmatic discourse on dementia-friendly design of Irish hospitals has been lacking in expertise from the perspective of design and architecture, and in particular the...

Validation of the Profile for Communication Abilities in Dementia (P-CAD)

Communication difficulties are associated with dementia. These communication difficulties cause frustration, anger and anxiety not only for the person with dementia, but also for caregivers, friends and family. Communication difficulties increase as dementia progresses. The person with dementia can lose confidence, withdraw from social...

What are the clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness of different models of community specialist palliative care (CSPC) provision in Ireland?

Changing demographic trends including an ageing population, increased life expectancy for individuals with life limiting conditions, and the impact of illness on an individual's physical, psychological and social wellbeing means that the demand for high quality palliative care services is increasing. Palliative care is defined by WHO...

Neuroexercise: The effects of an extensive exercise program on the progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI)

Joint Programme on Neurodegenerative Disease (JPND)

A lack of physical exercise plays a major role in the pathophysiology of vascular, metabolic, and metastatic diseases. Regular physical exercise has been successfully proven to counteract this deconditioning. Human and animal studies have demonstrated that regular...

Neuroexercise: The effects of an extensive exercise program on the progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI)

Joint Programme on Neurodegenerative Disease (JPND)

A lack of physical exercise plays a major role in the pathophysiology of vascular, metabolic, and metastatic diseases. Regular physical exercise has been successfully proven to counteract this deconditioning. Human and animal studies have demonstrated that...

The cognitive thalamus: more than a relay.

WT Scheme: Investigator Award in Science.

How do brain circuits support different but complementary aspects of event memory? The answer lies in distributed networks across the medial temporal lobe, prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex. Via their widespread connectivity, nuclei within the rostral thalamus support these memory...

Examining the effects of S1P receptor drugs in Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimers disease (AD) represents one of the major brain illnesses that we now face. Treatments against this disease are limited and offer little in terms of cure. With the global population age now rising, AD is suggested to affect 1 in every 3 people. If left untreated, AD has potential to bring about collapse in healthcare,...

The heme oxygenase system as a therapeutic intervention for psoriasis

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that causes cells to build up rapidly on the surface of the skin, forming thick silvery scales that become itchy, dry and sometimes painful. Current treatments for psoriasis depend on disease severity and include topical ointments, light therapy and systemic medications which are...

Single blind randomised trial of supportive text messages for patients with alcohol use disorder and a comorbid depression

Most patients who present with problem drinking also present with mood problems. Problem drinking and mood problems co-occurring together in individuals lead them to have more severe symptoms, greater disability and poorer quality of life than individuals with only problem drinking, and they pose a greater economic burden to society...

Functional as well as structural brain connectivity and epigenetic changes in major depressive disorder associated with remission and persistence of symptoms over a 5 year course

Still less than one third of patients with MDD achieve remission with an adequate trial of a standard antidepressant after 10 - 14 weeks of treatment. This project will provide a crucial part of the research required for the development of more effective therapy strategies and for understanding the backgrounds for achieving remission...

Rehabilitation following oesophageal cancer: Idenfitying rehabilitative needs and strategies

The treatments used to cure cancer of the oesophagus (food pipe) are usually twofold. Patients may first receive chemotherapy (drug treatment) to shrink the cancer followed by surgery to remove the oesophagus from the body. Patients who undergo this treatment for oesophageal cancer experience a number of weakening side-effects which...

Hypotension, vasoreactivity and white matter intensities in the ageing brain: The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA).

High blood pressure (hypertension) is known to cause brain ageing, from memory problems through to frank dementia, and is common in older age, affecting 70% of people over 70 years of age. Low blood pressure (hypotension) may be an even greater risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia; as it is an easily treatable condition this...

Ketamine for depression relapse prevention following electroconvulsive therapy: A randomised pilot trial with blood neuroplasticity biomarker evaluation

Depression affects up to 20% of people in their lifetime and can be a severe debilitating illness. Indeed, the World Health Organisation has estimated that depression will soon be the second leading contributor to the burden of disease worldwide. One of the big problems for patients and doctors is that currently available...

An antimicrobial susceptibility testing-based approach for Helicobacter pylori eradication: will tailored therapy overcome the increasing failure of standard empirical therapy?

Helicobacter pylori infection is a public health issue. It remains one of the most common infections in adults in Ireland (22%) and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality as the primary cause of stomach ulcers and stomach cancers. Infection is more common in lower socioeconomic groups and increases with age. Despite...

Disease modification in rheumatoid arthritis using AMPK directed therapies: Resoring metabolic balance to innate immune pathways

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting 1-2% of the population. Over time, RA causes joint destruction, chronic pain and lifelong disability. In addition to these effects, increased resistance to the effects of insulin and alterations in glucose handling mimicking effects seen in type II diabetes occur in...

The Low Von Willebrand factor Ireland Cohort (LoVIC) study.

Von Willebrand factor (VWF) is a large plasma protein that plays an essential role in normal blood coagulation. Inherited VWF deficiency is responsible for the commonest inherited bleeding disorder (von Willebrand disease or VWD) that affects up to 1% of the general population. Although substantial progress has been achieved in...

Mapping the pathway to universal health care in Ireland

The current Irish Government has committed itself to achieving universal access to health care, free at the point of delivery, by 2016. Yet, at the moment, timely access to essential healthcare in Ireland is often determined by ability to pay, such as with private insurance. Further, those without medical cards or GP visit cards face...

Galactosaemia, translating novel monitoring approaches into improved clinical practice

Galactosaemia is an inherited condition caused by a lack of an enzyme (catalyst) which normally breaks down galactose (the sugar found in milk products). This affects on in 16,000 births annually in Ireland (the highest incidence worldwide), and is screened for by the National Newborn Screening Programme.
When an affected infant is...

The role of angiopoietins and their mediators in symptomatic gastrointestinal angiodyslasia; novel diagnostic and therapeutic targets in chronic anaemia and obscure gastrointestinal bleeding

Background: Approximately 5% of patients with gastrointestinal bleeding have no source identified on standard endoscopy and are classified as having obscure gastrointestinal bleeding, of which Small Bowel Angiodysplasia (SBA) accounts for more than 50% of cases. Due to limited understanding of the pathophysiology behind SBA no specific...

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) for perineal pain in the early postpartum period

Review objective: To determine the efficacy and safety of Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in relieving perineal pain in the early postpartum period. Perineal pain is commonly experienced by women after childbirth, particularly, although not exclusively, following episiotomy, spontaneous tears or bruising (Lawn and...

Direct acting antivirals in Hepatitis C: developing a personalised model of care

Hepatitis C virus infection, which affects 170 million people worldwide, is a major global health problem, and is a leading cause of chronic liver disease, liver cancer and cirrhosis. The current treatment options for Hepatitis C infection fail to clear the virus in about 50% of patients. Two new antiviral drugs have just been licensed...

Concealed pregnancy in 21st century Ireland. Concealing and revealing by explaining: the care study

There are many reasons why women choose to hide their pregnancy from friends and family and this study is trying to out why. Women who conceal a pregnancy are particularly vulnerable and may conceal right until, or even after, birth and as such represent an important issue for society. Risks of concealment are huge in terms of maternal...

Maternal health And Maternal Morbidity in Ireland (MAMMI) - Sexual Health Strand

The aim of this study is to identify if, and how women having their first baby in Ireland experience sexual health problems (SHPs) while pregnant and up to 12 months after childbirth. Within this aim are several objectives: a) To correctly estimate the number of women experiencing SHP while pregnant and up to 12 months after childbirth...

Probing the metabolic response to vasculitic injury: towards a tool for non-invasive monitoring of immune activation in ANCA vasculitis

A major unmet need in the care of patients with glomerulonephritis (GN) is a sensitive and specific means of identifying both the presence and absence of active vasculitic injury. I propose to undertake an in-depth PhD programme involving research that will incorporate pre-clinical and clinical tools to study the urinary metabolomic...