Fergal O’Brien, Professor of Bioengineering & Regenerative Medicine, Head of the Tissue Engineering Research Group in the Department of Anatomy and Deputy Director of Research & Innovation in RCSI, was this year’s recipient of the prestigious Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (RAMI) Silver Medal from the RAMI Section of Bioengineering.
The Silver Medal is presented to an acclaimed clinician or engineer, who throughout their career has made a significant impact in the field of bioengineering through academic endeavour and research. As recipient of the award Prof. O’Brien also delivered the distinguished Haughton Lecture entitled: “Merging Generations: Irish Bioengineering for the 21st Century”, at the 24th Annual Conference of the Section of Bioengineering of RAMI (Bioengineering in Ireland 2018), which took place in Enfield Co. Meath, January 26 – 27.
Bioengineering in Ireland (BinI) is one of the longest-running and most active research conferences at the interface of engineering and health science, showcasing Irish research in the areas of biomechanics, biomaterials, tissue engineering & regenerative medicine and imaging. This year over 200 delegates were present including over 25 from the Tissue Engineering Research Group in RCSI.
In addition to Prof. O’Brien’s award, other prize winners from TERG were:
Mr. Domhnall Kelly won ‘Best Regenerative Medicine Track Oral Presentation – Early Researcher Category’. Domhnall is a TERG PhD student (funded by CÚRAM) who is supervised by Prof. O’Brien, Prof. Caitriona O’Driscoll (UCC School of Pharmacy) and Dr. Caroline Curtin.
The title of Domhnall’s talk was: “Development of advanced scaffolds based delivery systems for RNA therapeutics.”
TERG post-doc Dr. Rosanne Raftery also won a prize – ‘Best Regenerative Medicine Track Oral Presentation – Mature Researcher Category’. Rosie’s work is also supervised by Prof. O’Brien.
The title of Rosie’s talk was: “Incorporation of a cell-penetrating peptide gene delivery vector into collagen hydroxyapatite scaffolds significantly accelerates bone regeneration.”