Funding Awarded

All-Island – US National Cancer Institute Joint Doctoral Training Programme in Precision - Cancer Medicine

Proposal: A unique Doctoral Training Programme (DTP) in Precision Cancer Medicine (PCM), involving tripartite collaboration between research-intensive institutions with a major focus on cancer in Northern Ireland (NI) and Republic of Ireland (RoI), in partnership with the US National Cancer Institute...

An investigation of the long-term impact of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy on maternal health, and exploration of optimal models of follow-up care for affected women in Ireland.

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) affect 18 million women annually. It is increasingly recognised that HDP are associated with increased risk of maternal cardiovascular and renal disease. Less is known about the risk of other chronic diseases, particularly those which emerge in older age, such as dementia, retinal vascular...

DEFINED: DEtermining Falls burden to INform carE Delivery

Background 

Falls in later life are the most frequent reason for older people to present to acute care, and significantly increase the likelihood of adverse health outcomes. Many falls are potentially preventable however, with comprehensive falls care reducing the rate of further falls by 20%....

Improving public health through better implementation of alcohol policy: A multi-method study examining and addressing the factors influencing successful implementation

Background: Alcohol consumption places an enormous burden on society, causing over 200 disease and injury conditions globally. In Ireland, at least four deaths every day are caused by alcohol, which is key a target area of the Healthy Ireland Framework. The  

RESTRICT - REducing intentional overdose: a mixed methods STudy of means RestrICTion interventions

Suicide and self-harm are serious public health problems, impacting significantly on individuals, families, communities, and health systems. Intentional drug overdose is the most common form of hospital-presenting self-harm and is a frequent method of suicide. Means restriction is an evidence informed measure to prevent suicide and...

Cerebral Palsy – The Adolescent Growth Evaluation Study (CP-AGE)

Background: Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common cause of long-term childhood disability.  In Ireland, ~110 children with CP are born annually with approximately 70% being able to walk with or without aids.  Some children with CP will experience a decline in walking related function through adolescence...

Artificial Intelligence approach to improving blood pressure treatment

Hypertension is the leading cause of premature death worldwide, but the prevalence of hypertension control remains low. Physician capacity (number of physician clinic visits available for hypertension care) is a critical rate-limiting, determinant of hypertension control resulting in a major care-gap in hypertension management in all...

Expecting the unexpected: can viral metagenomics enhance optimised standard diagnostic pathways for detection of imported pathogens?

Background 

Current testing practices for imported fever syndromes in Ireland are heterogenous and suboptimal, prolonging clinical care and limiting data capture for early warning surveillance systems. Identifying and diagnosing aetiological pathogens for imported fever syndromes with a standardised...

Personal formularies in general practice to support safe, effective and cost-effective prescribing.

The use of personal formularies of safe, effective medicines that a prescriber is readily familiar with may enhance the quality of prescribing. Additionally, there is evidence that audit and feedback can lead to improvements in prescribing.  The Drug Utilisation 90% (DU90%), (the number of medicines making up 90% of a doctor’s...

The HipCog Study: evaluating the impact of cognitive impairment on outcomes for older adults with hip fracture

Background: Over 3800 older people in Ireland experience hip fracture annually. These serious events have a one-year mortality rate of 20%. Since 2012, the Irish Hip Fracture Database (IHFD) has driven national clinical improvement and reduced variability of care across hospitals. While hospital-level care variation has decreased, it...

Targeting immunometabolism to protect children from Tuberculosis infection

Introduction 

Tuberculosis is the top global infectious killer in the last decade. The neonatal period is the most susceptible time to TB infection, with increased risk of active and disseminated disease. TB treatments require months of multiple drugs and resistance to first line agents is increasing...

Identifying social determinants and mapping organisational and personal networks to enhance community support for people living with multimorbidity

Socially and economically deprived populations experience greater risk and earlier onset of multimorbidity. Healthcare services are one part of complex networks supporting people with chronic conditions. but knowledge of people’s social networks has not been used to inform and tailor chronic disease policy and programmes. Intersectoral...

Optimising the dissemination of health research in Ireland

Scientific publications have grown exponentially in recent years, contributing to an ‘infodemic’ widely seen during the Covid-19 pandemic. Public communication of scientific research can occur through individual researchers directly connecting with the public via social media or outreach events, however, many researchers struggle...

Revisiting suicide prevention in later life: human-centred approaches in an ageing Ireland

Globally, suicide is more prevalent in older adults when compared to any other age group. This is partly due to the fact that self-harm is more lethal among older adults, and this cohort has complex health conditions which influence recovery. Over the last six years, I have conducted research examining self-harm and suicidality in...

A functional genomics pipeline for genetic discovery in diabetic kidney disease

Diabetes is responsible for a large proportion of chronic kidney disease (CKD), end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), blindness, amputation, heart disease and stroke. Tight glycemic control in type 1 diabetes (T1D) or type 2 diabetes (T2D) can delay or arrest the progression of microvascular complications. How hyperglycemia...

Advanced, automated compound screening for the identification of therapeutic agents in Multiple Sulfatase Deficiency.

Multiple Sulfatase Deficiency (MSD) is an extremely rare, fatal, yet untreatable condition. It is caused by the inherited deficiency of an enzyme (called FGE) that activates a whole family of 17 other cellular enzymes named sulfatases. Sulfatases are indispensable for the degradation of a subset of intracellular molecules. Thus,...

Neurodevelopmental ciliopathies: a multimodel approach from molecular mechanisms to patients variant interpretation and treatment strategies "NDCil"

Nervous system malformation and neurodevelopmental defects (ND) are common hallmark features of genetically inherited diseases called ciliopathies. All ciliopathies are caused by abnormalities in tiny hair-like extensions called primary cilia (Cil), which are found on the surface of most cell types, including neuronal and glial cells....