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Research | INTERVIEW
Entering the unknown
Winner of the 2009 RDS Irish Times Boyle Medal for Scientifi c Excellence Professor Luke O’Neill B.A., F.T.C.D. (1985) talks to Stephen Tormey about his attempts to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Scientifi c research is not for the fainthearted. You can win, although the chances are you’ll lose. But even with the odds stacked against him, Professor Luke O’Neill of TCD’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology revels in the adventure, embroiled daily in the quest for ‘the unknown’.
“In essence, we try to break new ground, discover new things about interesting problems,” he says. “If I can quote Star Trek, ‘to boldly go where no-one has gone before’.”
In fact, a TCD research team led by Professor O’Neill has already made a mammoth break-though this year in collaboration with Universities of Massachusetts and Trondheim, in discovering a brand new protein (named TAG) in the immune system which, if targeted, has the potential of developing more effective vaccines for diseases such as HIV and malaria.
This is no small feat, given that research can often be conducted for years before a deliverable result is achieved. But research, he believes, is crucial not only for society, but for universities also. “If you’re involved in education, you can keep rehashing things from textbooks to students all you like, which is what happens at second-level, but at third-level, you have to be contributing to knowledge,” Professor O’Neill insists. “You’ve got to be pushing the frontier, discovering new things and then through that, enthusing the students. If you don’t have a research-active university, the teaching is useless in my opinion.”
It will come as no surprise, then, that the School of Biochemistry and Immunology is at the fore of global research in its fi eld. Indeed, the College is ranked number two in the world in the fi eld of immunology based on citation per paper, a method which measures research impact – an enviable academic achievement given the fi erce competition worldwide.
“Our area [immunology] in particular is one of the fastest moving research areas. The number of new facts that are being amassed daily is staggering,” he says. “Every day brings something new and you have to integrate that knowledge into the knowledge that went before and hopefully come up with a new model or synthesis of what’s going on.”
But this standing in international circles – not to mention the Government’s much-loved idea of Ireland becoming a ‘knowledge economy’ – is now under threat thanks to An Bord Snip Nua’s approach to science and research funding. “It’s a scandal, a tragedy and would be disastrous for the country because science is a central plank of the knowledge economy,” Professor O’Neill states. “If you haven’t got outstanding science, there is no knowledge economy. So the notion that Government can cut investment in science is absolutely misguided. All we have is our people and if we don’t invest in them, what are we supposed to be doing? It’s like the country just discovered oil, but the Government won’t build the oil wells!” In spite of this, Professor O’Neill is determined to drive the School of Biochemistry and Immunology forward using alternative measures should the worst come to the worst on the fateful day of Budget 2010. To date, he and his colleagues have raised €29 million through a TCD spin-off, Opsona Therapeutics, a leading drug development company specialising in the human immune system and of which O’Neill is co-founder and director. The monies raised will fund their quest for new discoveries and ultimately, new drugs. “There’s a huge programme for the next fi ve years for the company to grow and develop and hopefully make these drugs viable for human use. So absolutely, we have a very intense period ahead of us.”
TCD’s Biosciences Development (page 40), which aims (Continued on page 36...)
"All we have is our people and if we don’t invest in them, what are we supposed to be doing?”
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