2013 Press Releases
International Research Award for APC Neuroscientist
Dr Gerard Clarke of the APC has been awarded a 2013 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.
Dr Clarke is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry and a Faculty Investigator in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre at University College Cork. This prestigious award was made following an extremely competitive peer-review process of applications from around the world and is one of only a handful of awards made to researchers outside of North America.
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (http://bbrfoundation.org/) is committed to alleviating the suffering caused by mental illness by awarding grants that will lead to advances and breakthroughs in scientific research and the NARSAD Young Investigator Grant programme provides support only for the most promising young scientists conducting neurobiological research.
Dr Clarke’s proposal, entitled ‘Regulation of Anxiety by the Gut Microbiota: Role of Amygdala and Prefrontal Cortex microRNAs’ focuses on the impact of the gut bacteria on brain and behaviour. The $60,000 award will enable research using the germ-free platform in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, the only such facility in Ireland and one of the few available across Europe.
Commenting on the successful application, Professor John F Cryan, Professor and Chair of Anatomy in UCC and acting as mentor for Dr Clarke on the application, said: ‘We’re delighted the excellence of this innovative proposal, which belongs to a new frontier of research in neuroscience, is being recognised by an international funding agency of this calibre’.
‘I’m honoured to receive this award’ commented Dr Clarke, ‘and look forward to building on my previous research in this very exciting area. Ultimately, advances from this project may pave the way for microbiota-based strategies to treat anxiety where there is currently an unmet medical need’.
The Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (http://apc.ucc.ie) is a national research centre for food and medicine funded from government and industry through Science Foundation Ireland’s Research Centres’ Programme (www.sfi.ie)