DCU's national cellular biotechnology institute is marking 20 years of advanced research into cell and tissue culture, writes Dick Ahlstrom.
Biotechnology researchers at Dublin City University celebrate a milestone tomorrow, 20 years since the opening of a dedicated laboratory for cell and tissue culture.
Formerly the National Cell and Tissue Culture Centre, set up under BioResearch Ireland, and now the National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology (NICB), it involves the work of 90 scientists and has links with other third-level institutions.
"It demonstrates our long-term commitment to cell biology research and its importance in the education of young scientists and its application in medicine and industry," explains the NICB director, Prof Martin Clynes. "It is all about good research with an applied bent."
The new NICB building opened on campus last year with funding from the Higher Education Authority's Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions cycle 3.
Over the years it has attracted research funding from bodies including the Health Research Board, Science Foundation Ireland and Enterprise Ireland.
"We would also have substantial research collaborations with NUI Maynooth and with IT Tallaght," he adds.
The NICB team conducts a wide range of studies under its remit to make discoveries and bring them into medical practice or into industrial use.
Much of the work relates to medicine, he says. "There is a lot of translational cancer research going on."
He cites as example work led by Dr Robert O'Connor who developed a potential technique for overcoming chemotherapy drug resistance in cancer. It began as a study to understand why some cancer cells successfully evade death despite exposure to chemotherapeutic agents.
It led to discoveries in cell biology and a new, more powerful, treatment regime. "It has successfully gone through phase I trials and is into phase II," Prof Clynes says.
Another project involves diabetes and attempts to culture and replace the lost cells that trigger the disease.
"We are trying to introduce a pancreatic islet transplant programme into Ireland," Prof Clynes says. "We have done all the basic science and have been over to Florida where they are doing transplants."
They can grow the tissues and are currently clearing regulatory controls.
The NICB has joined with the Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin in a research project to use corneal stem cells as a way to grow replacement corneas. The cornea can become opaque if damaged by chemicals or physical injury, and a person thus affected can become effectively blind even though all other parts of the vision system are normal.
"The stem-cell treatments that are coming on line now are 70 per cent effective, up from 30 per cent in earlier treatments," he says.
A newly returned Irish scientist, Dr Declan Walsh, is studying viruses including the herpes virus that triggers Kaposi's Sarcoma in HIV patients.
"His research is looking to see how the virus hijacks the protein synthesis inside the cell. Declan is focusing at the protein level."
The NICB has organised a scientific gathering (with an invited audience) tomorrow in the Helix, which includes research presentations and talks by people who have long associations with DCU's work in cell and tissue culture.