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Funding Awarded

84 awards

  • 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...

  • Evidence synthesis and translation of findings for national clinical guideline development: addressing the needs and preferences of guideline development groups

    National clinical guidelines aim to help healthcare providers and patients' make decisions about appropriate healthcare. These guidelines use the best available evidence, gathered from national and international research, to develop recommendations on a wide range of topics. These include preventing and managing specific conditions to...

  • The impact of mutations in PI3K/AKT pathway gene loci on response to PI3K inhibitors

    Despite advances in the treatment of breast cancer, the National Cancer Registry of Ireland reported in 2014 that it accounted for 30% of all diagnosed female cancers and 16% of all female cancer deaths. The application of modern technologies to the study of breast cancer has demonstrated that a group of cancer pathways acquire changes...

  • PRoviding Improved care for Self-harM: a mixed-methods study of intervention, economic and implementation outcomes from a national clinical programme

    Suicide is a societal concern in Ireland and is associated with both personal and economic costs. People who self-harm are at particular risk of suicide, and so developing services and interventions for this population can help prevent deaths. Under Ireland's national strategy to reduce suicide, a programme to help people who present...

  • Engineering RNA-based therapeutics for treatment of sepsis and sepsis induced multiple organ dysfunction syndrome

    Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Worldwide it affects over 30 million people of all ages and results in 5.3 million deaths annually. In Ireland sepsis contributes to 25% of in-hospital deaths and one in five patients diagnosed with sepsis will die from this disease. To...

  • Comparison of staphylococcal species from the oro-nasal cavity, periodontal pockets and foot ulcers of patients with type II diabetes: a potential microbial reservoir for diabetic foot ulcer infection

    The Research Collaborative in Quality and Patient Safety (RCQPS) is a collaborative initiative between the Health Research Board, the Health Service Executive, National Quality Improvement Team and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. It was established in 2013 to advance nationally relevant research in the area of quality and...

  • Investigating breast cancer risk factors to understand breast cancer epidemiological outcomes

    This proposal aims to expand cancer prevention research in Ireland through the assessment of breast cancer risk factors and their influence on clinically relevant characteristics of aggressive breast cancers.Prior research has identified factors associated with increased risk of breast cancer development. One such known factor includes...

  • 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...

  • SCaRLeT: Sex differences in Cardiovascular Risk across Life course Transitions

    Heart disease is still the leading cause of death around the world. Preventing heart disease, by focusing on risk factors like smoking is essential for improving population health. Females and males do not experience heart disease equally. In adults, research suggests risk factors that can be changed like smoking do not have the same...

  • 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...

  • IMPlementation of osteoArthritis Clinical guidelines Together

    Osteoarthritis is a disease of the joints, affecting 1 in 8 Irish people as they get older. Due to the growth of our ageing population amongst other reasons, this figure is expected to double within one generation. Most people with the disease in their hips or knees are likely to experience some level of pain as well as difficulty...

  • 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...

  • Health and social inequalities in the Mid-West

    As there are many disadvantaged areas in the Mid-West, health and social inequalities are important issues locally. This is because deprivation is linked with poor health and poor access to healthcare. Under the Healthy Ireland Framework, taking actions to address health inequalities is a key priority. In the Mid-West, many...

  • Self-Harm and Suicide AwaREness ? SHARE

    SHARE is based on outcomes of the HRB funded research programme: Improving Prediction and Risk Assessment of Suicide and Self-Harm (IMPRESS). The IMPRESS study aims to improve the knowledge base on predictive risk factors associated with repeated self-harm and suicide among high-risk groups of self-harm patients in Ireland. During the...

  • 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 Breakfast Club

    The Breakfast Club is the story of diabetes in pregnancy in Ireland. In a weekly, serialized, online graphic novel, we will follow the lives of women attending a Breakfast Club for women who have received a diagnosis of diabetes during their pregnancy. We will explore their experiences, from having a Glucose Tolerance Test, to meeting...

  • Medtrack KEDS

    "Health professionals are the lifeblood of the health system"(President M Robinson), yet our junior doctors (NCHD-trainees) continue to report that responses for improving their working conditions have had "little tangible change or impact on their day-to-day working lives and training experience?. The RCSI research team has...

  • Development of a Teaching Programme for the Junior Cycle Mental health and Mental Ill-Health Module

    Great progress has been made nationally on destigmatising mental health but it has not yet become a topic that people are universally comfortable with. A major change in the Junior Cycle in 2018 is the introduction of Wellbeing which directly addresses youth mental health through Strand 4 in the new Social Personal and Health Education...

  • Development of Book About Mental Health Problems For Children and Adolescents

    There has been steady improvements in the quality of information available to people about mental health issues but a challenge remains to communicate this fully to children and adolescents. Much of the existing information is text heavy and can be off-putting for this age group. Presenting this information so that it is accessible...

  • Citizen Science: The People's Trial

    Randomised trials are instrumental in providing reliable and robust evidence on the benefits, harms and costs of health care, so that people can make informed choices. However, the general public?s understanding of randomised trials can be limited and ensuring public support for and participation in trials remains challenging. The...

  • Delivering a Reduction in the Development of Maternal Prenatal Stress: DIRECTMAPS

    Pregnancy can be a stressful time during which many expectant mothers experience understandable worries and concerns. High levels of prenatal maternal stress are linked to several unfavourable conditions which can affect the health of the child at birth. Normal development of the central nervous system is also at risk during the early...

  • Piloting the Community Engaged Scholars Program in Ireland

    Public and patient involvement in health research is not embedded in Irish Universities. As part of the PPI Ignite Awards scheme the HRB have funded 5 Irish Universities to demonstrate the value of PPI and champion this approach in Ireland. PPI involves public/patients working in partnership with researchers in setting research...

  • 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...

  • CHErIsH- KEDS

    This CHErIsH-KEDS application has two aims: to increase capacity in translation of research into practice in Ireland and to develop a knowledge exchange strategy for the future roll out of CHErIsH across different settings in primary care. This application builds on the existing study, the CHErIsH study. The CHErIsH study is funded...

  • 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...

  • Co-Designing, Pre-Testing and Refining an Intervention Programme to Support Parent-Adolescent Communication about Shared Self-Management Responsibilities in Type I Diabetes

    This knowledge exchange activity aims to work together with young people with Type 1 Diabetes (TID), parents of young people with TID, professionals (from a range of disciplines e.g. diabetes nurse specialists, psychologists, consultant paediatric endocrinologists) and community advocates (e.g. Diabetes Ireland) to codesign, pre-test...

  • Collecting and using data about ethnicity in healthcare -a drama

    Ireland has a long history of emigration. More recently, we have inward migration. Census 2016 found that 17% of the population were born outside Ireland. This means that there are different minority ethnic groups in our country, in addition the Irish Travellers. The Health Service Executive wants to gather information on the ethnic...

  • 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...

  • Real Talk with Real Mums

    ?Real Talk with Real Mums? is a 10-episode podcast series looking at the issues of everyday pregnancy with medical professionals and the real women who have gone through the pregnancy journey. Each episode of c.30 minutes will tackle a different topic, from exercise in pregnancy (with a Physiotherapist), to mental health issues in...

  • 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...

  • Disseminating, Engaging, and Sharing Knowledge (DESK):patient informed resource for understanding our research

    Based on the findings of the research conducted during our HRB Research Leader's Award, the aim of the proposed KEDS project is to effectively disseminate the finding of our research to chronic pain patients and the general public. Sharing research findings with the general public is very important but can be difficult to get right; we...

  • A Patient Education Programme in Health Research & Innovation

    Well informed patients and carers have a key role to play in the design and implementation of person-centered healthcare and research. Whilst patients are eager to have better and safer health products and innovations, they are often unaware of the complex nature of how new health innovations are researched, developed and made...

  • The patient is part of the answer - don't leave us out in the cold!

    This application aims to produce a documentary that explains public and patient involvement in health research to the general public and encourages more people to become involved with researchers. Known as PPI, public and patient involvement means that people who are likely to be affected by research results are directly involved in...

  • Promoting National Awareness of Thrombosis in Pregnancy.

    Women who are pregnant have a higher chance of developing blood clots (thrombosis) that can cause serious ill-health and can be fatal. Therefore, it is incredibly important that women who are pregnant, women of childbearing age and their families are aware of their risk factors for thrombosis in pregnancy. In the HRB-funded "HIGHLOW"...

  • Maximising collaboration to expedite positive change in the assessment process that determines physiotherapy students' readiness for independent practice

    Assessment of student physiotherapists in the clinical environment is a critical part of their education which determines their readiness for independent clinical practice once qualified. Therefore it has significant implications for patient safety and quality of service delivery. Yet, research and experience highlight many challenges...

  • LoVIC-Kids: Improving public awareness of abnormal bleeding symptoms

    Congenital bleeding disorders (CBD) may result in increased bleeding at times of injury, surgery, childbirth or with periods (menstrual bleeding). Although an estimated 1-2% of the population are affected by CBD, most people are unaware that their bleeding symptoms are abnormal. In addition, there is limited awareness amongst many...

  • "Let's Talk About" Series

    Researchers in dementia at NUI Galway are producing important research insights into many aspects of dementia care in Ireland, specifically: resource allocation decision-making; support structures for family carers; and how people with dementia are treated within the care system. The focus is now turning to sharing the results...

  • Using visual media to communicate complex information

    Services in Ireland for people with dementia are poorly developed. The main partnership award aims to (i) describe current dementia services across all sectors and (ii) ask people with dementia, carers, health workers and managers about the ideal level and type of service provision for people with dementia who have different needs and...

  • 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...

  • Enhancing ?The Model for Dementia Palliative Care Project? by targeting potential model users with innovative Knowledge, Transfer and Exchange activities.

    This KEDS application will further enhance Knowledge, Transfer and Exchange (KTE) activities arising from 'The Model for Dementia Palliative Care Project', by supporting new connections with key groups, through novel activities and outputs. The active project will develop a new service delivery model for palliative care for people...

  • What the Researcher and the Dentist want to share, supporting knowledge dissemination

    Research is ongoing to monitor the oral health of the Irish population, the uptake of dental services, and targeting of services to specific groups most in need. Results of such research inform policy makers in the Department of Health with respect to issues such as community water fluoridation and recommendations on the use of...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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 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 from...

  • 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 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...