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FEATURE | Biosciences


Trinity and Biosciences

Advances in biomedical scientific research lead to major improvements in human health and welfare and are significant economic drivers.

Trinity’s strength in biomedical sciences is one of the main forces behind its international standing. To copper-fasten Trinity’s position as a leading international scientific university, it has started the construction of an ambitious 35,000 sq. m. Biosciences Development due to open in early 2011.

The objective is to consolidate pre-clinical bioscience research activities across five schools – Chemistry; Engineering; Biochemistry & Immunology; Medicine; Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences.

The programme of research for this facility builds on Trinity’s recognised expertise in immunology and its integrating role in diseases such as cancer and field of medical device technologies. Three interlinked centres of research will be created: CSI-Dublin: Centre for Study of Immunology; C2D2: Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery; CMDT: Centre for Medical Device Technologies. With the new Development, the scientists will collaborate in a multidisciplinary environment to challenge convention and push the boundaries of discovery in the best tradition of Trinity College Dublin. The building will accommodate around 1,000 researchers by 2013.

Coinciding with the tercentenary of the School of Medicine in 2011, the development will house all pre-clinical medical education and training activities. In a departure for an academic institution, researchers will work alongside industry in industry-academic collaborative and commercial lab space.

Trinity’s strategy for building research excellence is anchored around its people. Our researchers are motivated by a desire to understand disease processes and to interrogate these processes in a way that can translate to a health/societal benefit. TCD bioscience researchers have delivered the technologies that underpinned the nicotine patch, they’ve identified new genes for major diseases such as childhood eczema, they’ve discovered why some people are more prone to malaria or lung cancer, and they’ve pushed the boundaries of our understanding of how diseases work – Alzheimer’s, cancer, arthritis. Our international rankings show our outputs are amongst the best in the world. The opportunity now is to translate this quality to wider societal and economic benefit.

(Diagram entitled: BioEngineering Medicine Chemistry Biochemistry & Immunology Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences)


Building Progress

• Planning permission granted.
• Tender for the construction completed: PJ Walls selected.
• Builders came on site in May 2008.
• Estimated building cost is €131m.
• TCD secured loan approval of €75m from the European Investment Bank to start construction.
• A major campaign is under way to raise public and private funds for the building.

For more information please visit www.tcd.ie/biosciences/

If you are able to help making the Biosciences Development a reality please contact Dr David Lloyd, Dean of Research, at biosciences@tcd.ie or dean.of.research@tcd.ie

(Photo captioned: Entrance from Pearse Street (architects’ rendering))


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