News
Science Foundation Ireland Industry Fellowship awarded to Dr Niall Hyland
Worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980 which more than 1.9 billion adults overweight and over 600 million obese (2014; World Health Organisation). Currently there is a lack of efficacious, safe and well tolerated obesity drugs, so the APC has teamed up with Janssen to tackle this situation.
Dr Niall Hyland (APC Microbiome Institute and Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics) and Dr Pamela Hornby (Senior Scientific Director and Research Fellow, Janssen's Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disease; Microbiome and Metabolism Group), were recently awarded an SFI Industry Fellowship to investigate causative factors, both host and microbial, that could be potential pharmaceutical targets for restoring bodyweight and glucose control.
An incoming Research Fellow from Janssen, Casey Cavanagh, will work with Niall and the APC's Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis Group to investigate the sensitivity of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract to host and microbial-derived metabolites. This is in order to ascribe physiological function to factors implicated in obesity and type II diabetes. Casey has a personal connection to Ireland as her grandparrents moved from Ireland to the North East USA in the 1950s. The SFI Industry Fellowship will foster a bidirectional flow of knowledge providing the APC with a greater insight into the needs of industry and helping to foster further research collaborations.