Dr Catherine Staunton and her team have discovered the probiotic bacterial strain, which has cardio-protective properties and is proven to reduce cholesterol by 53pc within 12 weeks of consumption.

The ‘Healthy Heart’ probiotic research is a result of collaboration between Teagasc, UCC Microbiology and the Centre for Research in Vascular Biology at UCC, and it is likely that there will be strong commercial interest in this innovative research.

The ICT Invention of the Year award was presented to a team of researchers from Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG) at UCC including Dr Dominic O’Sullivan, Dr Marcus Keane, Ken Bruton and Dr Paul Raftery. 

The air handling unit (AHU) fault finder software finds its application in large industrial facilities, where it will automatically identify faults in AHUs which can cost organisations significant time, money and resources to detect. 

Developed under the Enterprise Ireland-funded i2e2 Technology Centre, the energy savings identified in trial at five large multinational sites in Ireland ensures that this product will be commercialised quickly. 

The inventors are already in negotiations regarding licensing the technology, which has attracted interest from the US, and are currently in the process of setting up a spin-out company to commercialise this valuable product.

Dr Tim Roche, director of technology transfer at UCC said a number of entries to the awards this year have attracted real interest from industry both nationally and internationally and he expected them to progress to spin out companies.