



Dr Joe Byrne (PI)

Joe has been leading the team since April 2019. He is Lecturer in Bioinorganic Chemistry at University College Dublin since January 2023. Prior to this he was an Honorary Research Lecturer (and now Adjunct Lecturer) at University of Galway. He has previously worked as a postdoc in University of Bern, Switzerland, and Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He did his PhD in Trinity College Dublin (2010-15) and his undergraduate studies in Maynooth University (2006-10).
See more about Joe at this link.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr Hannah Crory NSRP Postdoctoral Fellow ![]() | Previous Education: PhD (Queens University Belfast) Project start date: November 2022 Funding: HEA North South Research Programme Project: SugarCoat – smart coatings for medical devices Collaborative research with Queen’s University Belfast and CÚRAM Centre for Medical Device Research |
PhD Students
Karolina Wojtczak![]() | Previous education: BSc (Maynooth University) PhD start date: September 2019 Funding: SFI SIRG Project: Luminescent glycoclusters for bacterial lectin sensing Publications: 2022 ChemMedChem. Tagged News Items Location: University of Galway |
Thomas Rabbitte![]() | Previous Education: MSc and BSc (NUI Galway) PhD start date: February 2023 Funding: Irish Research Council (Laureate Award) Project: Link4Lectin – supramolecular platform for antimicrobial drug candidates |
Rosy Poisicchio ![]() | Rosy is a member of the Ronconi Group (University of Galway), co-supervised by Joe PhD start date: 2019 Funding: Irish Research Council GOI-PG; NUI Galway Hardiman Scholarship Project: Luminescent imaging agents for cancer |
Visitors and project students
Former members
Ioannis Mylonas-Margaritas Research Assistant | Previous Education: PhD (NUI Galway); MSc and BSc (University of Patras) Project start date: November 2021 Project end date: January 2022 Funding: Enterprise Ireland Horizon Europe Support Grant |
Shivon Karundu Undergraduate project | Project start date: September 2022 (Galway Chemistry final year project) Project end date: December 2022 Supervisor: Joe Byrne Project: Preparation of glycocluster ligands for surface functionalisation |
Tiernan Taylor Undergraduate project | Project start date: October 2021 (School of Chemistry final year project) Project end date: March 2022 Supervisors: Karolina Wojtczak & Joe Byrne Project: Synthesis of glycoconjugate metal complexes |
Patrick Dowling Undergraduate project | Project start date: October 2021 (School of Chemistry final year project) Project end date: March 2022 Supervisor: Joe Byrne Project: Preparation of glycocluster ligands for surface functionalisation |
Mairéad Ó Meara Undergraduate project | Project start date: October 2020 (School of Chemistry final year project) Project end date: March 2021 Supervisors: Karolina Wojtczak & Joe Byrne Project: Synthesis of new ligands for antimicrobial metal-centred glycoclusters |
Ian Murphy Undergraduate project | Project start date: October 2019 (School of Chemistry final year project) Project end date: April 2020 Supervisors: Karolina Wojtczak & Joe Byrne Project: Synthesis of divalent luminescent glycoclusters |
Funding and support






Collaborators
A member of the Byrne Group is hosted by the group of Prof. Paul V. Murphy at University of Galway. The rest of the group is based in UCD School of Chemistry
We collaborate with a number of researchers at the CÚRAM Centre for Medical Device Research, including Prof. Abhay Pandit and Dr Gerard O’Connor.
Other collaborators include:
- Dr Gordon Cooke (TU Dublin)
- Prof. Colin McCoy (Queens University Dublin)
- Prof. Alexander Titz (Helmholtz Institute)
- Dr Kevin Kavanagh (Maynooth University)
- Dr. Trinidad Velasco-Torrijos (Maynooth University)
- Prof. AnneImberty (Grenoble-Alpes)
- Prof. Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson (Trinity College Dublin)
- Dr. Jose Mata (Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM), Castellón)