Karol set up a collaboration with Prof Kevin Kavanagh in Maynooth to investigate the effects of carbohydrate-functionalised metal complexes on Candida albicans. She spent 10 days working in the Kavanagh lab recently, carrying out her own biological assays and collecting some very promising results of the impact on yeast cells. There will be further updates about this in the future!
In January 2023, Joe joined the Faculty of UCD School of Chemistry as Lecturer in Bioinorganic Chemistry, and the Byrne Group will be moving to Dublin as well. This is a fantastic opportunity to grow the research group into the future and build on the SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant. Joe is very grateful to colleagues at NUI Galway for all their support in the last few years as he built independence – this was vital to securing his first academic post.
Dr Hannah Crory will also join the team at UCD and new PhD student Thomas Rabbitte, and we will be based in the Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry Lab in Science Centre South alongside the Phillips and Hooper Groups. Joe is one of 4 new Faculty members joining UCD at this time, part of an expanding team in the School of Chemistry (pictured below).
Rosy won second place in the 2022 Threesis Contest, where researchers present their thesis to a lay audience in 3 slides and 3 minutes. Dozens of PhD students from every school in University of Galway competed in this long-running Science Communication challenge this year, including Rosy and Karolina. Rosy’s talk, titled “Tumours play hide and seek; how do we win?” was received very well by the judges and audience and was a well-deserved prize winner. Well done, Rosy. You can watch a video of her contribution below.
Rosy is a PhD student in Luca Ronconi’s group at University of Galway, co-supervised by Joe since 2021. Her research is into lanthanide complexes conjugated to targeting biomolecules. Her research is funded by the Irish Research Council, and previously by a Hardiman Scholarship.
Members of the team attended the RSC Carbohydrate Interest Group Annual Meeting at Queens University Belfast. Joe gave an oral presentation in the Great Hall. There were many interesting international speakers including Alexander Titz and Ulf Nilssen, as well as contributors from the UK and Ireland. The event was co-sponsored by the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland also (Division on Medicinal Chemistry), making it an excellent all-island event. Thanks to Gerd Wagner and Aisling Ní Cheallaigh, among others, for organising.
This meeting also gave an opportunity for the first in-person meeting of the full team of the SugarCoat North South Research Programme project – funded by the Shared Island Fund and the HEA. Postdoc Dr Hannah Crory has been working in the Wylie/McCoy lab in the School of Pharmacy, QUB.
Karolina was invited back to Maynooth University to talk about the impact of SPUR Summer undergraduate research internship had on her career.
Well done to Mairead on her project carried out in the group over the last few months. Good luck with everything in the future.
Karolina was selected to give a presentation at UCC’s Chemistry Le Chéile Conference. This was an event aimed at improving the visibility of women in chemistry research and industry, by showcasing postgraduate academic research and industry speakers.
Karol spoke about her PhD work, developing luminescent glycoconjugates for bacterial sensing applications.
Congratulations to Ian Murphy on submitting the thesis for his undergraduate research project in the group. He was a great addition to the team and achieved far and beyond what was required. We’ll miss having him in the lab. Best of luck in your exams!
That said, we’ll miss having a lab at all. The end of the 4th year projects co-incided with the shutdown of non-COVID-19 related research as we all transition to working from home for the forseeable future, in order to flatten the curve of the pandemic in Ireland. Here’s a photo of the team, snapped after one of our last group meetings before the shutdown
Research groups around the world will be reducing their research activity a lot over the coming months, just like everyone else, but hopefully it will be worth it and will keep many people safe.
Merry Christmas from the Byrne Group and thanks to our colleagues in the Myers, Farras and O’Duill Groups for a lovely Christmas dinner!
Byrne Research Group 