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AIIHPC Structured Research Network APA Cycle 2 2019 Applied Partnership Awards Applying Research into Policy & Practice Postdoctoral Fellowships ARPP 2020 Cancer Prevention Fellowship Programme Cancer Prevention Fellowship Programme Reintegration Grant Capacity Building for Evidence Synthesis Clinical Research Facilities/Centres 2021 Cochrane Training Fellowships Collaborative Doctoral Awards Conference and Event Sponsorship Scheme COVID-19 2020 CSF 2020 DIFA - 2018 DIFA 2017 DIFA 2018 DIFA 2020 DIFA-2018 Doctoral Training Programme in Precision Medicine in Cancer Emerging Clinician Scientist Awards 2020 Emerging Investigator Awards Emerging Investigator Awards 2022 ERA-NET Cofund for Neuroscience Research (NEURON) ERA-NET Cofund for Personalised Medicine Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix Fulbright-HRB Health Impact Awards Health Research Awards HRB Clinical Research Facilities HRB Collaboration in Ireland for Clinical Effectiveness Reviews HRB Postdoctoral Fellowships: ARPP 2023 HRB Postdoctoral Fellowships: CSF 2023 HRB Trials Methodology Research Network HRCI 2020 HRCI-HRB Joint Funding Scheme ICORG Statistics and Data Management Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement Awards Investigator Led Projects IPPOSI 2020 Irish Clinical Oncology Research Group Irish Platform for Patients Organisations Science and Industry Support Award Joint Programming Initiative Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life Joint Programming Initiative in Neurodegenerative Diseases Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance Knowledge Exchange and Dissemination Scheme Knowledge Translation Awards Medical Research Charities Group Support Award MRCG-HRB Joint Funding Scheme National Children's Hospital Foundation Scheme National Clinical Trials Coordination Programme National integrated PhD programme for Medical Practitioners National Intellectual Disability Supplement to TILDA Patrick Quinn Awards for Parkinson's Research PPI Ignite Awards Project Development Grants Rare Diseases Research and Innovation Catalyst Awards (RDCat) 2023 RCQPS COVID-19 Research Collaborative for Quality and Patient Safety Research Collaborative in Quality and Patient Safety Research Training Fellowships for Healthcare Professionals RL FA 2020 RL PA 2020 Secondary Data Analysis Projects SFI-HRB-Wellcome Research Partnership Structured PhD Programme in Population Health and Health Services Research The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing Ulysses Research Visits US-Ireland R&D Partnership Awards WHO-SOLI-2020
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Host Institution
Atlantic Technological University DCU Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine Dublin City University Dublin Dental University Hospital Dublin Institute of Technology Economic and Social Research Institute Family Carers Ireland Fondazione Telethon Fraunhofer ITMP Health Information and Quality Authority Health Research Charities Ireland HSE - St. Luke's Hospital (Rathgar) Institute of Technology Sligo IPPOSI Irish Blood Transfusion Service, National Blood Centre Irish Clinical Oncology Research Group Ltd Irish Platform for Patients Organisations Science and Industry Irish Platform for Patients' Organisations, Science and Industry Ltd Irish Platform for Patients’ Organisations, Science and Industry Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Limerick Institute of Technology Maynooth University Medical Research Charities Group Ltd National University of Ireland Galway National University of Ireland, Galway Our Lady's Hospice Queen’s University Belfast RCSI Royal College of Physicians of Ireland Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland TCD Teagasc Technological University Dublin The Alzheimer Society of Ireland The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Trinity College Dublin UCD University College Cork University College Dublin University Hospitals Leuven & KU Leuven University of Auckland University of California San Francisco University of Cambridge University of Galway University of Limerick University of Oxford UPMC Whitfield
Funding Awarded
179 awards
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%....
Rare Disease Research Catalyst Consortium
Rare diseases each affect less than 5 in 10000 people, with about 300,000 Irish people estimated to be living with rare disease. Under the Cross Border Directive for access to healthcare, the European Union established 24 European Reference Networks (ERNs) for rare disease to enable equity of access to healthcare across...
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...
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...
UCD’s 2nd Annual One Health Conference: Tackling Major Public Health Threats in a Post-Covid-19 World.
One health is a philosophy that acknowledges the interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental health. It recognises that to solve major challenges locally or globally, individuals or even groups of experts in one discipline can not solve them alone. It is recognized by the Irish Government, the European Union, the World Health...
Priorities for future research on tapering psychiatric medicines: A collaborative workshop involving people with lived experience, family members, and healthcare professionals
A growing number of people with experience of mental health problems want to reduce and stop their use of psychiatric medicines, such as antidepressants and anti-anxiety tablets. There are many reasons for this ranging from side-effects to people feeling that the medicine is no longer needed. Tapering is the recommended process for...
Digital Surgery- Building a National Ecosystem
Digital surgery represents a significant step into the 21st century for surgical practice by combining technological advances in smart instruments, computer vision, artificial intelligence and cloud computing together with surgical expertise to improve patient outcomes and deliver enhanced healthcare value and outcomes. Despite still...
Measuring Outcomes of Social Prescribing
Social Prescribing (SP) is a non-medical community-based service that links people with health-promoting activities and support services in their local community. SP is usually delivered by link workers who meet with individuals to identify their activity and/or support needs. Following this, the link worker either provides information...
Connecting Molecular Networks of Cancer to Other Diseases
In 2019, the Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and University College Dublin (UCD) signed a 5-year agreement to i) reinforce the links between scientists in San Francisco and Ireland and ii) broaden their collaborative ability to strengthen scientific research and innovation....
European Radiation Protection Week (ERPW) 2023
European Radiation Protection Week (ERPW) is an annual, multidisciplinary, event which brings together experts and addresses current and emerging topics related to radiation protection. Under the Consortium of European Radiation Research Platforms (MEENAS Group), ERPW aims to: promote the integration and the efficiency of European...
The Science of Dementia for the Non-Scientist - An exploration of dementia and the brain
The focus of this event is to present the science of dementia to non-scientists, in order to build the understanding of the basic science of dementia. The event will be hosted by Dementia Research Network Ireland (DRNI) together with the Alzheimer Society of Ireland (ASI).
Dementia is an umbrella term for diseases of the brain...
Inaugral conference in Adult Safeguarding
Adult safeguarding in Ireland has been an increasing public health issue since undercover filming (Leas Cross, 2005; Aras Attracta, 2014) exposed poor care practices in residential care settings. Similar to other countries, abuse of adults in any setting continues to be recognised as a human rights issue and has both immediate and long...
Equity For People Living With A Rare Disease: An International Rare Disease Research Symposium
Rare disease’ (RD), refers to a collection of conditions whose signs and symptoms are heterogeneous but are grouped together due to individual low incidence rates. While individually rare, RDs are collective in society and are a significant global public health and policy priority. 80% of RDs are genetic and present at birth, affecting...
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...
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...
Multi-markers risk assessment of kidney sensitivity to injury to personalize prevention of acute kidney injury "SpareKid"
Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a life-threatening disease with high mortality characterized by an abrupt decrease of the kidney glomerular filtration rate, extra-kidney consequences (cardiovascular diseases, lung injury, neurological impairment) and high risk of secondary chronic kidney disease (CKD). The cost of AKI is very high and...
Co-creation of a cookery book - pathways to making changes in diet
Personalized nutrition is based on the idea that individualizing nutritional advice will be more effective than more generic approaches. Studies are showing successful outcomes by applying such methods. Our group has been involved in several human intervention studies where dietary advice is given to participants based on their...
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...
Pandemic Resilience- translating knowledge for improved future pandemic preparedness.
Since 2015, the HRB-Irish Critical Care-Clinical Trials Network has established a research program in preparation for pandemics. As part of this, we assessed the barriers and developed solutions to conducting research during a future global pandemic. This work led to a coordinated Irish and global response to COVID-19 with a programme...
TAME-Translation: Translating the TAME cardiac arrest trial results to public, policy, clinicians and researchers.
People who survive sudden out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) usually require intensive care unit (ICU) treatment. The ‘TAME’ cardiac arrest trial, co-led by the Irish Critical Care-Clinical Trials Network (ICC-CTN), has just completed, including 1700 ICU patients from Ireland and 17 countries worldwide. TAME looked at a novel...
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)...
Retinal Dystrophy in Ciliopathies (RDCilia): modelling patient mutations to decipher disease mechanisms, interpret Variants of Uncertain Significance, and uncover therapeutics
Retinal dystrophies (RD) are inherited disorders characterised by degeneration of light sensing retinal cells (photoreceptors). Affecting approximately 2 million people worldwide, RD causes chronic and gradual sight loss. A major research issue is that RD is rarely investigated in the context of the gene mutations found in patients....
Long non-coding RNAs: regulators of epileptogenesis and potential targets for therapy
Temporal lobe epilepsy is the most common type of epilepsy in adults, with seizures being the major symptom although individuals with this disease may also have anxiety, depression and/or memory disturbances as a result of their condition. Temporal lobe epilepsy is very difficult to treat and about 30% of individuals with this type of...
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...
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...
Hepato-Flame: Studying the interaction of diet, obesity, microbial translocation and inflammatory pathways in hepatobiliary cancer development: A European prospective cohort study
In many world regions including Ireland, the incidence of liver cancer and nearby cancers of the biliary tract (together termed hepatobiliary cancers) is rising steadily, and these deadly cancers have limited available treatments. Increasing rates may be linked to obesity and other components of unhealthy lifestyles which cause...
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...
Neutrophil Plasticity in Infection and Inflammation
Neutrophils make up 40-60% of all white blood cells. They arrive as the first cell type wherever viral, bacterial, or fungal infections occur, or when tissue damage and injury happen. In severe and longer lasting incidents neutrophil numbers go up due to increased release from the bone marrow. Neutrophils detect, swallow up and destroy...
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...
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...
A realist process evaluation of an intervention to promote competencies in interprofessional collaboration among interdisciplinary integrated care teams for older people
Government policy in Ireland recognises the importance for older people to live well in their homes and their communities. This means that the right healthcare is available for older people and their family carers in their communities as and when they need it. The government have a plan to develop healthcare teams called Integrated...
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...
PRedicting Onset, Variation and Effect of treatment in Rheumatoid Arthritis (PROVE-RA)
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common, autoimmune disease affecting synovial joints that may result in cartilage damage, joint destruction, and disability. Treatments available for patients with RA have improved a lot over the last two decades with the result that many patients will go into remission. However, a significant number of...
Discovering and modulating mechanisms by which Peptidylglycine alpha-Amidating Monooxygenase (PAM) influences the risk of genetically inherited tissue damage in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a disease in which the immune system attacks the body and affects around 50,000 people in Ireland. This results in swollen and painful joints, which can be severely debilitating. The underlying cause is a mixture of nature (genetics) and nurture (environment). The genetic site rs26232 has been found to be...
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...
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...
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...
Exploring enablers & barriers to community-based & community-led LGBTQI+ Healthcare
While many aspects of life for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer & Intersex individuals & communities have notably improved through shifting societal attitudes & legislative reform; significant health inequalities remain for these groups, & LGBTQI+ people are often invisible in healthcare research & service...
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...
"Euro Public Health + Consortium: reaching the future through research partnerships"
"Dublin 2023: First joint Euro Public Health + Consortium research seminar: reaching the future through research partnerships":
The European Public Health Plus program is an intercultural, multidisciplinary master's degree in public health delivered by eight European universities (EHESP School of Public Health, Andalusian...
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....
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...
Advancing clinical research on ageing in Ireland
As the population of the world ages, there is a critical need to integrate research on aging into the medical training of clinicians. The goal of this program is to provide research development, training, and mentoring to physician-scientists in the newly established Master's of Medical Gerontology program at Trinity College...
Using single-cell RNA-sequencing to rationally model inflammatory skin disease
Rapidly advancing single-cell genomic methodology can give biologists unprecedented resolution in the study of cell types and states in tissues, such as the different epithelial cells (EC) of the skin. I wish to employ it to address an unmet clinical need in the chronic inflammatory skin condition hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) where EC...
Exploring the factors and mechanisms involved in the delivery of healthcare and support programs to people with dementia from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds
The management of dementia among immigrant populations is considered a global public health priority. Dementia interferes with the brain and older age is the strongest risk factor. The migration experience has been associated with specific stressors that can lead to poor health outcomes. In the United States dementia affects an...
UCD Clinical Research Centre
No summary available
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...
Uncovering the neural architecture underlying decisions abstracted from movements
Decision making is a core component of normal and abnormal cognitive function. Understanding the neural mechanisms of decision-making will lead to advances in the diagnosis, classification and future treatments of disorders affecting thought and control. Mathematical models of the decision process, based on bounded evidence...
Randomised controlled trial of reduced versus standard volume platelet transfusion in preterm babies with thrombocytopenia (with add-on studies to explore mechanisms of harm)
Platelets are cells which help blood clot but they also have other effects such as directing pathways of inflammation. Premature babies often have low platelets, particularly if they have an infection or bowel inflammation. Doctors give platelet transfusions because they think that this prevents bleeding but there is no evidence...
European Blood Pressure Intensive Control after Stroke-Pilot trial (EPICS-Pilot)
Stroke is the second leading cause of death, the leading cause of new disability and a major contributing cause of dementia and healthcare costs in the world. About one-third of recovered stroke survivors will have second stroke or heart attack by 5 years. High blood pressure (hypertension) is the leading treatable condition...
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...
Randomised Placebo-Controlled Trial of Early Targeted Treatment of Patent Ductus Arteriosus with Paracetamol in Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants
Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) is common in newborn infants, especially premature infants. During pregnancy, the Ductus Arteriosus is an open channel between the two main blood vessels coming from the baby's heart. After birth it usually closes during the first few days. For very premature babies it may take longer to close, or may not...
Building research capacity, harnessing data and strengthening health systems to improve outcomes in community emergency & unscheduled care in Ireland
This research project aims to improve systems of community emergency care by focusing on a condition called Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA). OHCA is an emergency where a person’s heart suddenly stops pumping blood around the body. It happens without warning, often because of an abnormal heart rhythm. In Ireland 2500 people suffer...
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...
Hip fracture outcome recording and geographic equality
Hip fracture is a serious event in the lives of older people with around one in five individuals dying in the first year after their injury and many more losing their independence. Currently in Ireland, little is known about how people recover in the longer-term after hip fracture and many do not receive routine follow-up. In the last...
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...
Food-based biomarkers, diet quality and cardiometabolic health
Accurate assessment of human diet is the cornerstone of nutritional epidemiology. Biomarkers that are sensitive and specific to food intake can provide objective information that improves the characterization of diet. Advances in metabolomic profiling techniques now permit the discovery of novel food biomarkers, although, thus far,...
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...
Embedding collective leadership to foster collaborative inter-professional working in the care of older people (Eclectic)
Recent government policy in Ireland has emphasised the importance of supporting older people to live well in their homes and communities. This would mean fewer older people will have to go to hospitals to receive health care. In order to do this it is necessary for healthcare professionals to work as a team to manage the care of...
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...
Evaluation of the clinical, psychological and economic effects of the Cystic Fibrosis Newborn Screening Programme: the Irish Comparative Outcomes Study of CF (ICOS) Part 2
This is a national programme of research which addresses key outcomes in the recently established Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Newborn Screening programme (NBS). Ireland has the highest prevalence of CF worldwide. NBS for CF was introduced in 2011. The Irish Comparative Outcome Study (ICOS) Part I was conducted in 2013-2017 and studied...
Switching on the light: Reprogramming T cell metabolism for novel HIV Cure interventions
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...
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...
NK cell RESTORE - Can GLP-1 therapy restore tumour immunity in severely obese patients?
Obesity has recently over taken smoking as the number one cause of preventable deaths worldwide. This is because obesity causes many serious diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Recent reports suggest that up to 50% of all cancers are now due to obesity. Obesity is linked to cancer through many avenues from inflammation, hormonal...
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, stimulating...
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...
COIchine for prevention of Vascular Inflammation in Non-CardioEmbolic stoke- a randomised clinical trial of low-dose colchicine for secondary prevention of Stroke. European and Canadian 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. One such clinical trial has shown that an anti-inflammatory drug used for...
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...
A prospective, multicentre, randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled, phase III trial of EPOetin alfa vs, placebo in critically ill TRAUMA patients
Trauma-a major public health problem
Trauma is a global health problem with estimates of more than five million deaths per year (WHO). Trauma includes road traffic accidents, falls, assaults and crush injuries. Patients who suffer major trauma are often critically ill and require breathing support. Despite...
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,...
The GENIE fellowship: Gauging the Effectiveness of Novel computer-support technologies for Implementing Evidence in healthcare
Healthcare professionals must keep pace with a rapidly growing knowledge base. By 2020, the quantity of medical evidence is expected to double every 73 days. Typically, healthcare professionals leverage 'systematic review' articles to tackle this issue. A systematic review is a consolidated summary of evidence that healthcare...
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...
The APART Study Public Participation Initiative for Knowledge Exchange
The APART Study is exploring an important, low-cost intervention that may limit bone loss associated with initiation of antiretroviral therapy to treat HIV. Results from this trial may have significant implications for how HIV is managed both in Ireland and internationally. We will use this KEDS award to develop a research partnership...
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...
TeamTalk: Interactive Resource Hub for Healthcare Teams
Healthcare teams who are interested in improving how they work together to deliver better patient care often struggle to find the time to learn and implement new practices. Teams rarely have the opportunity to attend training courses or other learning events together. This makes it difficult to transfer their newly acquired knowledge...
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...
Access to primary and emergency care for children with intellectual disabilities: utilisation, decision making, parental preferences and disparities
The aim of this research is to learn about the inequalities faced by children with intellectual disabilities (ID) in Ireland in relation to healthcare and to find out the reasons why these inequalities occur. In many other countries around the world, children with ID do not receive the same standard of healthcare as children without...
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...
Multi-Domain Lifestyle Targets for Improving ProgNOsis in Huntington?s Disease
Huntington?s Disease (HD) is a progressive, life-limiting neurodegenerative disease. It has devastating consequences for the individual and their families. No current treatment to modify the course of the disease exists. Improved evidence-based symptom assessment is crucial to optimising disease management. This project aims to...
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...How can a multi-disciplinary prescribing strategy support appropriate prescribing of oral nutritional supplements (ONS) by Irish general practitioners (GPs)?
Malnutrition is a major burden to the Irish health service as malnourished patients have poorer health and are more expensive to treat than patients who are well-nourished. The annual cost of healthcare associated with malnutrition is approximately €1.4 billion in Ireland (10% of our total healthcare budget). Oral nutritional...
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...
Cancer Prevention Fellowship 2018
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 leaders in the...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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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)...
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...
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 for other cancers,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 - 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...
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...
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...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...
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...
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...
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...
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...