€30 Million SFI Investment in Scientific Research

Dr Laoise McNamara's project on osteoporosis was one of three NUI Galway projects funded.

Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation, Damien English TD today announced over €30 million of research funding for 23 major research projects. The Programme will provide funding over a four to five year period, for 23 research projects involving over 100 researchers. Funding for each project will range from €500,000 to €2.3 million.

Three of the projects are led by NUI Galway researchers, and in partnership with University of Limerick, are significantly involved in a fourth project. 

Two of the projects are listed below:

Dr Laoise McNamara, NUI Galway - This research project will advance understanding of mechanobiology to develop treatment approaches for bone pathologies. Tissues of the human body can adapt in response to mechanical forces by a cellular process known as mechanobiology. Although mechanobiological processes are fundamental to normal bone physiology and may play an important role in the development of osteoporosis, the role of mechanobiology in bone development and changes occurring during ageing are not yet fully understood. Moreover mechanobiological responses have not been targeted as treatments for osteoporosis, nor have they been sufficiently exploited to develop novel regenerative tissue strategies.

Dr Alan Ryder, NUI Galway - Many drugs for human health are complex biological molecules like proteins which are made in living cells on an industrial scale. Both the cell food (media) and the protein products have to be carefully analysed to make sure that they are good and safe. Both media and proteins are very complex mixtures that are difficult to analyse. Here we will build a faster, cheaper, and non-contact way of testing using light to generate chemical information from these mixtures. This information will then be analysed using advanced statistical methods (chemometrics) and the results used to improve manufacturing, and reduce drug costs.

View more information on NUIG website

Online lectures available to HS Biomedical and Life Sciences Collection

This month, thirteen online lectures have been added to The Biomedical & Life Sciences Collection. Seven of the newly released talks are part of a new series covering "Bone in Health and Disease" edited by Prof. Juliet Compston.

National University of Ireland - Galway has full access to all the lectures, here is the direct link to the new talks: www.hstalks.com/r/tblsc/recent

For faculty involved in teaching, all the lectures can easily be assigned for viewing by students and uploaded to virtual learning environments such as Moodle or Blackboard. 

Over 1,800 lectures by leading world experts.
National University of Ireland - Galway has full access to all the lectures.
Access link: www.hstalks.com/access/  

On campus, you should be automatically authenticated. 

The Biomedical & Life Sciences Collection
New Series: Bone in Health and Disease
 Osteoporosis: calcium and vitamin D Prof. Bo Abrahamsen, Glostrup Hospital, DK  The osteocyte Prof. Lynda F. Bonewald, University of Missouri, USA
Combination and sequential therapy for the treatment of Osteoporosis
Prof. Felicia Cosman, Columbia University, USA 
Osteoporosis in men
Prof. Peter R. Ebeling, Monash University, Australia
 Pathways regulating bone resorption
Prof. Tim Arnett, University College London, UK
 Osteoporosis: how long to treat?
Dr. Robert A. Adler, Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center, USA
 Epidemiology of Osteoporosis
Prof. Cyrus Cooper, University of Southampton, UK
 
 
New Talks Added to the following Existing Series:
 Updated Series:  Viruses and Viral Diseases
 Influenza Virus Pandemics: Past and Future
Prof. Peter Palese, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, USA
 Updated Series:  Molecular Genetics of Human Disease
 Ciliopathies and oligogenic phenomena
Prof. Nicholas Katsanis, Duke University, USA
 Changing lives: stratified medicine in monogenic diabetes
Prof. Andrew Hattersley, University of Exeter, UK
 Traffic problems: inherited disease and intracellular trafficking defect
Dr. Paul Gissen, University College London, UK
 
Updated Series:  Parkinson's Disease
Autonomic Dysfunction in Parkinson's Disease
Prof. Ronald Pfeiffer, University of Tennessee, USA
 Updated Series:  Topical Talks
 Pharmacometrics in psychiatry
Dr. Elizabeth de Lange, Leiden University, NL
 Pharmacometrics in pain management
Dr. Yaning Wang, US Food and Drug Administration; Dr. Jiang Liu, US Food and Drug Administration; Dr. Hao Zhu, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, USA; Dr. Ping Ji, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, USA
  
Updated Series:  Synapses, Neurotransmitters and Receptor Channels
 AMPA-receptors and fast synaptic transmission in the brain
Prof. Stuart Cull-Candy, University College London, UK

Further Obesity Impacts

Man power lost as obesity grows

Professor Julie PascoDeakin Research Communications          

As men get fatter their bones and muscles get weaker, a Deakin University study has found.

A research team within Deakin’s School of Medicine measured the BMI (body mass index), fat, muscle and bone density of 1329 men aged 25-96 in the Geelong region during 2001-06 and of 900 men aged 25-98 five years later. They found that a 1.2 per cent increase in BMI was driven by a 9 per cent increase in body fat and that muscle mass had dropped by 0.9 per cent and bone mass by 1.6 per cent.
“Obesity in men is clearly on the rise,” said Professor Julie Pasco, lead investigator of the study.
“But an even more alarming finding is that while body fat has increased, muscles and bones have deteriorated.

“Obesity is bad enough, as it increases the risk for diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. However, we are now seeing that the musculoskeletal system (bones and muscle) could be affected too.”

While the changes in muscle and bone mass found in the study are relatively small, compared to the increase in body fat, they foretell serious problems for the future as the population ages.
“During ageing, bone loss leads to osteoporosis and muscle loss leads to a condition known as sarcopenia which makes people physically weak, less mobile and more dependent,” Professor Pasco said.

“When sarcopenia occurs in the face of obesity, fat infiltrates the muscles, which further weakens muscle strength and performance.  “The public health challenge is to identify ways to modify the environment and change behaviour at a population level, to combat the obesity epidemic and address these undesirable changes in body composition.”

The findings are part of the Geelong Osteoporosis Study that has been monitoring the health status of Geelong residents for more than 20 years.

The Geelong Osteoporosis Study is a population-based health study conducted by Deakin University’s Epidemiology Unit for Healthy Ageing, in Deakin University’s IMPACT Strategic Research Centre, based at Barwon Health.

This new research is published online in the journal Obesity.