Staff and research students from the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience gathered on Thursday 6th June 2024 in the Western Gateway Building Cafe to bid a sad farewell to Head of Department Professor Aideen Sullivan, while also congratulating her on her appointment as Chair in Advanced Pharmacotherapy in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, UCC.

Dr Siobhain O'Mahony, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, Principal Investigator in APC Microbiome Ireland, and an awardee of an Honorary Fellowship from the College of Anaesthesiologists Ireland was selected to deliver the annual Francis Rynd Lecture at the College of Anaesthesiologists Annual Congress in University College Dublin on the 24^th of May 2024.

Congratulations BSc Neuroscience Class 2024 who completed their viva exams last week.

Congratulations to the BSc Medical and Health Sciences Class 2024 who celebrated the completion of their four-year degree programme with staff in May 2024.

The Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience was delighted to welcome students to the  Anatomy and Neuroscience for Transition Year students two day course which took place on Wednesday 8^th and Thursday 9^th May 2024.

The Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience held its fifth Thanksgiving Service on Tuesday 12th March 2024. Now an established event in the calendar of the College of Medicine & Health at UCC, the biannual multidenominational Thanksgiving Service hosted in UCC’s Honan Chapel brings together families of donors, staff and students of anatomy in a musical and reading celebration.

The event gives the University and anatomy students an opportunity to meet with the donor families to thank, acknowledge and reflect on the extraordinary gift that they have received from the donors.

Congratulations to Dr Lorena Morales, Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, who has recently been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Individual Fellowship. The Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships targets researchers holding a PhD who wish to carry out their research activities abroad, acquire new skills and develop their careers, and to enable postdoctoral researchers to gain experience in other countries, disciplines, and non-academic sectors.

Dr Mutahira Lone, Director of MSc Human Anatomy UCC, visited local National School St Joseph's to deliver an anatomy class as part of Creative Schools Month 2024.

Middle Age – between 40-60 years – marks a shift in brain ageing and the middle-aged brain could provide a window in your future brain health, a major academic analysis finds today.

Lecturer Dr Sarah Nicolas and PhD student Ms Patricia Flynn, Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience host a series of short brain related talks as part of Brain Awareness Week 2024. 

Head of Department Professor Aideen Sullivan, stands centre in a heart shaped formation with women from the Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience as they strike the #InspireInclusion heart hand pose for International Women's Day on March 8th 2024.  

The Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience will host its fifth Thanksgiving Service in memory of the people who donated their bodies to University College Cork for medical research. The service is a celebration of the lives of all donors and especially of those donors who were part of the donation programme in the past four years.

The UCC Renaissance Studies, CACCSSS and Erasmus Plus 'Leonardo comes to UCC' lecture series saw da Vinci expert, Pascal Brioist present four lectures on four consecutive days in UCC. The series culminated with the Leonardo and Anatomy lecture which was supported by the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience and took place in Brookfield Health Science Complex G.05 on Thursday February 15th, 2024. 

Publishing in Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Dr Maria Aburto and Professor Cryan's expansive article 'Gastrointestinal and brain barriers: unlocking gates of communication across the microbiota–gut–brain axis' is a indepth analysis and summary of current research findings of this highly complex, topical and exciting area.  

Professor John F. Cryan & colleagues in APC Microbiome Ireland show a role for gut microbiota in social anxiety disorder in a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS, one of the world's most-cited and comprehensive multidisciplinary scientific journals.

Staff from the School of Medicine College of Medicine and Health and the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience gathered on 23^rd November 2023 in the Jennings Gallery Brookfield Health Sciences to celebrate the contribution their colleague Dr Kathy Quane had made to the teaching of Anatomy in the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience.

Congratulations to Kayla O'Connor fourth year Medical and Health Science student and Cork ladies Intermediate Football All Ireland Club Champion winner at Croke Park 18th December 2023 

Patricia Flynn is a final year PhD student researching glioma-a brain cancer, in the lab of Dr André Toulouse and Dr Collette Hand. Funded by the Musgrave Scholarship in association with Breakthrough Cancer Research, one of three charities who have joined together to create ‘Face Up To Cancer’ to raise funds for cancer research and support services in Ireland. Patricia's video selfie features in the campaign website and she invites you to 'Add Your Face' and Donate to support 'Face up to Cancer'.

A day of discussion on a range of issues ranging from menopause and endometriosis to the opportunities and challenges which face women in biomedical research took place in UCC's Devere Hall on November 25th, 2023.  Sponsored by The Menopause Hub & Laya Healthcare, the lively and engaging discourse was interspersed with refreshments and movement breaks.  

Professor Aideen Sullivan, Head of Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience in collaboration with Professor Brendan Dooley, Professor of Renaissance Studies UCC, are delighted to welcome da Vinci expert Professor Pascal Brioist, University of Tours to UCC to present a lecture series on Leonardo da Vinci.

Dr Jane English, Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience and INFANT, welcomed Fulbright Scholar Awardee Dr Reghan Foley to UCC, and the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience research labs where they will work on a collaborative study of proteomic profiles of congenital muscular dystrophy samples from NIH and healthy control samples from the Cork BASELINE Birth Cohort. 

Congratulations to Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience researchers, Dr Siobhain O'Mahony, Dr Harriët Schellekens and PhD student Ms Clara Deady who were each awarded an APC Entrepreneurship Bursary at the inaugural APC Entrepreneurship Awards ceremony in November 2023.

Congratulations Professor Aideen Sullivan who received a 25 year Long Service award from UCC President John O'Halloran at the 2023 Long Service Award Ceremony 2023 which was held on Thursday 7^th December 2023.  

The BSc Neuroscience class of 2023 were conferred with their BSc Neuroscience degrees at the College of Science Engineering and Food Science Autumn Conferring Ceremony on Tuesday November 14th 2023.