Emerald Isle of Opportunity

File Photo A new association will be launched in New York City this month to unite Irish expatriates in the United States who are involved in life sciences. The aim of BioLink USA-Ireland, to be officially launched Oct. 9, is to help people reconnect with their home country and help develop the Irish biotech industry. Enterprise Ireland (EI), the trade and technology board of the Irish government, is setting up the project. Over the past year, EI established contacts with 400 people involved in the life sciences, including researchers, intellectual property and regulatory affairs specialists, and venture capital investors. The association is designed to inform expatriates about the life sciences in Ireland and to encourage members to contribute their experience, contacts, and expertise to biotechnology projects in their home country. Association membership will be beneficial to people who want to return, and according to Deirdre McDonnell-Lee at EI, this holds true for 75% of expatriates that EI has profiled. "If they establish contacts and build relationships with the Irish industry and academia, this will foster career opportunities for when they decide to move back to Ireland," says McDonnell-Lee, EI's vice president for pharma products. With the opening of the new Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research in Dublin, Ireland has a position on the international research map, enabling the country to attract the highest quality researchers not only from Ireland, but also from all over the world. Officially opened on Sept. 11, the institute houses more than 400 investigators. The faculty are drawn from University College Dublin, but new chairs will lead the proteomics, bioinformatics, and genetic epidemiology departments. Researchers will have access to core facilities and technology such as nuclear magnetic resonance, protein crystallography, and DNA sequencing. "Our major strategy is identifying new therapeutic targets," says Michael Ryan, one of the masterminds of the new institute. To encourage innovative thinking, Ryan and colleagues say the institute will nurture collaboration among scientists from different research disciplines. "The Conway does not really see us researchers as fitting into square boxes; they see it as integrating different fields of research," says Breandan Kennedy, a young scientist who has recently returned from the United States to set up a zebrafish facility at the institute. The building has large laboratories in which five to eight research groups work in one open area. "You could be working next to someone who is doing something you never thought would apply to your research, and you end up talking to them," says Kennedy. "Suddenly, you may see there is something you could use in your research that would be very novel." An atmosphere of excitement surrounds the foundation of the institute. "It is a beautiful, open laboratory space," says HiberGen CEO Maurice Treacy, who visited the building in August. "This is fantastic for basic research in Ireland, and hopefully will encourage more students to enter the sciences. From a commercial perspective, the Conway Institute is also good news. Its multidisciplinary set-up has the real potential to spawn new and innovative technologies and discoveries that can be the basis of new startup companies going forward." Martina Habeck (m.habeck@gmx.net) is a freelance writer in London. function sendData() { document.frm.pathName.value = location.pathname; result = false if (document.frm.score[0].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[1].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[2].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[3].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[4].checked) result = true; if (!result) alert("Please select") return result; } .myradio{background-color : #94bee5} Please indicate on a 1 - 5 scale how strongly you would recommend this article to your colleagues? Not recommended 1 2 3 4 5 Highly recommended Please register your vote

Emerald Isle of Opportunity

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