Health Research Project that use Donated Material

Academic Institution

Health Research Aim

Dublin City University

  1. Deeper understanding of the cellular metabolism to inform therapeutic efficiency and precision bioprocessing and manufacturing of advanced cellular therapies.

  2. Examine the impact of intratumoural bacteria on the efficacy of targeted therapy using various state-of-the-art gastrointestinal (GI) cancer models and techniques.

Maynooth University

  1. Aim to characterise the glycans on active and inactive immune cells, and other immune-related soluble molecules, and determine the metabolic pathways for constructing these glycans.

  2. Characterising the age and sex differences in immune signalling pathways.

National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training

  1. Genetic engineering of cellular immunotherapies

Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland

  1. Extend the shelf life of platelets through cold storage thereby boosting supply to ensure there are enough platelets available for all patients who need them.

  2. Expose nanoparticle to blood plasma and understand how their behaviour changes.

  3. Investigate how ABO blood group sugar antigens influence VWF biological function and clearance.

  4. Address potential sex specific biological mechanisms in macrophage metabolism and secreted extracellular vesicles.

  5. Model Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and examine the impact of novel therapeutics on pertinent parameters of injury.

  6. Evaluate how monocytes isolated from patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms are more procoagulant and test the activity of new drug candidates to regulate this activity.

Trinity College Dublin

  1. Investigate how Natural Killer (NK) cells function and how they are regulated in healthy normal individuals. 

  2. Investigate the new therapy of calcium electroporation in Barrett's Oesophagus and how/if it activates the immune system.

  3. Deep characterisation of liquid biopsy cells in patients with lung cancer.

  4. Immune Reconstitution following Stem Cell and CAR-T Transplantation

  5. Understand the mechanism of immunity to S. aureus, and to inform vaccine development.

  6. Immune responses to viruses in patients with Long COVID and characterising the different to that response to primary acute infection.

  7. Healthy controls for research on Haemophilia

  8. Understand how the human immune system responds to infection and causes inflammation and aim to design new therapies for people who need immune support against infections or those who need to dampen damaging inflammation. 

  9. Immune cell responses to infection with mycobacteria, SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens.

10. The effects of electroporation on  the secretome of  explant models of gastrointestinal cancers

11. Investigate the effect of cytokine treatment on healthy donor NK cells.

12. Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of central vision loss. Determining if the suppression of the peripheral immune system contributes to the pathology of AMD through loss of appropriate immune surveillance and development of persistent inflammation.

13. Aim to understand the metabolic pathways that are involved in immune cellular responses, specifically the unique inflammatory environment in autoimmune diseases

14. To examine the effect of metabolism within the cells on the innate immune response.

15. Characterising immune and metabolic pathways in inflammatory skin disease.

16. Develop a drug screening platform for myocardial infarction that incorporates immune response that is critical in the progression of the disease.

17. Profile the immune component of pre-malignant pancreatic cysts for earlier detection and diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

18. Characterisation of inflammatory cellular responses following stimulation by nutraceutical agents

19. Decipher the mechanism of action of novel therapeutics in primary immune cells, using various biochemical techniques.

20. Investigate how activation and training of  innate immune cells to better respond to infection is affected by metabolic changes.

University College Cork

  1. How to aspects of bacteria influence human immune responses.

  2. How bacteria and their metabolites influence the immune system.

  3. Aim to understand how gut microbiome regulates metabolic and transcriptional programs that impact  inflammatory bowel disease.

  4. Aim to examine the procoagulant activity of monocytes and macrophages in response to SARS-CoV-2.

  5. Undertake research to characterize immune cells, mediators and molecules involved in inflammation, immune tolerance, and immune suppression at the site of surgery

  6. Study obstetric blood loss quantification technology developed by Stryker Instruments Innovation Centre.

  7. Non-invasively detect lactate using bio-photonics in whole-blood and enable the further development of a medical device for the detection of foetal lactate levels during labour.

University College Dublin

  1. Develop an Extracellular Vesicle model to investigate the role of EVs in B cell malignancies.

  2. Explore T cell metabolism reprogramming for potential therapeutic intervention in the development of novel HIV Cure strategies.

  3. Innovative biomedical engineering to develop new therapies for paediatric osteosarcoma ultimately aiming to improve outcomes for children affected by this aggressive cancer.

  4. Investigating the role of certain immunological messengers, called cytokines, on cells that line blood vessels (endothelial cells).

  5. PBMC isolation from buffy coat to then isolate fibrocytes for primary cell culture

  6. Investigation of the effect of hypoxia and hypercapnia on human immune cells

University of Galway

  1. Studying the characteristics of stroke clots to better understand the clots that cause strokes and ultimately lead to new and improved stroke treatments.

  2. Studying small molecules made by parasitic worms (helminths) that help these parasites survive by calming down their host’s immune system

  3. To culture corneal cells with different biomaterials and analyse their behaviour