2010
July 10 news
Fri, 2 Jul 2010
Graduate Achievements (Science)
Physiology graduate Fred English (B.Sc. 2009) was awarded the gold medal in the "Medicine & Health Sciences" category at the inaugural Undergraduate Awards Ireland which took place at the Royal Irish Academy by President Mc Aleese, for an essay entitled, How do we run on bumpy ground
· Undergraduate Achievements (Science)
Five 3rd year Physiology BSc students, Julie O'Neill, Liam Healy, Eoin Reidy, Kate English and Rob Ryan, all successfully completed summer projects with financial support from learned societies and research charities.
· Undergraduate Achievements (Medicine)
Antoinette O Connor (Med) was awarded 3rd prize in the Henry Hutchinson Stewart Scholarship and Ming-Youn Lee (Med) was awarded the Kate Flynn Medal.
· Celebrating Retirement
Physiology witnessed the loss of four senior academic staff, including Drs. Anne-Marie Harris, Elizabeth Gebruers and Gerry O Regan; it is almost impossible to receive medical treament in Cork without having a physician who was trained by them. Indeed, Gerry O Regan gave tutorials and lab training to the current UCC President as a medical student.
Physiology also marked the retirement of Professor Edward James Johns with a two-day festschrift symposium, organised by Dr. John Mackrill, which was attended by speakers from four different continents, reflecting the global scale of Edwards infuence.
· New Physiology Teaching Labs
After over 150 years of Physiology teaching in the Windle building, from August 2009, all 1st year students in the College of Medicine and Health, and nearly half the 2nd year students from the Faculties of Science and Food Science, will now receive their laboratory training in Physiology in the new Western Gateway Building.
· European Association for Predictive, Preventive & Personalised Medicine
In November 2008, Dr. Patrick Harrison (Department of Physiology), was appointed the representative for Ireland at the inaugural meeting of the European Association for Predictive, Preventive & Personalised Medicine (EPMA) in Brussels. Amongst the most important goals of EPMA are: well-organised population screening, targeted prevention of frequent pathologies, non- or minimally-invasive diagnostics, optimal therapy planning, personalised patient treatment, substantial improvement of the quality of life and plausible solutions for particular social, ethical as well as serious economic problems. There is substantial overlap between these aims and the new HRB Strategic Business Plan 2010 - 2014 launched on 4 November 2009. Dr. Harrison is also a reviewer for the EPMA Journal which will be launched in 2010 (see www.epmanet.eu).
· Molecular Techniques Workshop 11th year
Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, the Physiology department played host to an annual series of two-week residential workshops to train physiology researchers from across Ireland and the UK in molecular biology techniques. The workshop was funded by the Physiological Society and Wellcome Trust, and was organised by Dr. Patrick Harrison. After a total of 10 workshops, Dr. Harrison in collaboration with the Physiological Society and colleagues across the UK, has revamped the workshops format and split it into six smaller 2-3 day workshops which will be hosted In UCC, University of East Anglia, and Kings College London (see www.physoc.org). The two UCC workshops are entitled Introduction to Molecular Techniques and Transfections and Functional Studies. The courses will bring together another cohort of research active physiologists to Cork and continue a tradition of collaboration and networking established during the first 10 years of these workshops.