Joe Conferences, Presentations, Team

Group members present at conferences around Europe

The Byrne Group have had a busy summer attending various Conferences and Summer Schools.

  • Finn attended the 3rd International Supramolecular Chemistry Summer School in Cagliari, Italy, with a bursary from the LUCES COST Action. He presented a poster titled “Lanthanide Glycoconjugate Complexes as Luminescent sensors for P. aeruginosa”.
  • Sophie presented a poster entitled “Thread-and-Click Assembly of Dual-Active Glycoconjugate [2]Rotaxanes for Selective Lectin Binding” at the International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry in Bordeaux during the week of the 6th July.
  • Meanwhile, Thomas presented a poster on mechanically interlocked glycoconjugates at the 32nd International Carbohydrate Symposium (ICS) in Bratislava.
  • At the ICS Joe was a proxy national delegate to the International Carbohydrate Organisation Board Meeting and also gave a talk about luminescent lectin-sensing approaches.

The Irish delegates at the ICS are pictured below, including members of the McGarrigle group (UCD) and Paul Murphy’s group (University of Galway).

Joe news, Team

Welcome to Rosa, Finn and Hubert

This Autumn we welcome three new members to the Byrne Research Group. The group, at 6 full-time researchers, is the largest it has been to date! Welcome to Rosa, Finn and Hubert – we wish them every success.

Dr Rosa Fernandez Pison joins us as a postdoctoral researcher on the Link4Lectin project, where she will contribute to the coordination chemistry and organometallic components of the target molecules. She completed her PhD in UCD during the summer in organometallic catalyst development. She previously completed a Research MSc at University of Galway, and an undergraduate degree in her native Sevilla (with year abroad in University of York).

Finn Tlatlik holds an MSci from University of Glasgow in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry. His degree included a year of research placements in France as well as a project in Glasgow. He is joining us to complete his PhD with a Sir Walter Hartley Studentship, and will be working on optimising the photophysical properties of lanthanide complexes as lectin sensors.

Hubert Rebow is returning to the group, having secured a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship. Hubert is a recent graduate of UCD’s Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology BSc programme, and completed a final year project in our lab. His project, developing supramolecular boronic acid-based glycan probes involves collaboration with Dr Aniello Palma and Prof Jeremy Simpson.

Joe Team

Rosy graduates!

Congratulation to Dr Rosy Polisicchio on her graduation from University of Galway today! Rosy’s thesis was titled “Lanthanide-functionalised vitamin B12 probes for targeted tumour bio-imaging: from rational design to biological evaluation” and her primary supervisor was Dr Luca Ronconi. Joe was her secondary supervisor, lending his expertise on lanthanide chemistry. Rosy was supported by a Hardiman Scholarship and later won an IRC Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship. She was also active in outreach during her PhD. Rosy has already started as an R&D Scientific Communication Advisor at Unilever in the UK. We wish Rosy every success in her future career!