DCU News
News at DCU

European funding for research into early diagnosis of CVD

DCU researcher, Triona Lally has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant to pursue her research into early diagnosis of degenerative cardiovascular disease, “Frontier research in arterial fibre remodelling for vascular disease diagnosis and tissue engineering”.  ERC Starting Grants support up-and-coming research leaders who are about to establish a proper research team and to start conducting independent research in Europe. The scheme targets promising researchers who have demonstrated the ‘ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their scientific proposal’.

Reacting to news of the award, Triona said,

“I am really delighted to have been awarded this prestigious grant.  I am excited about the opportunities that this significant funding now affords me over the next 5 years to consolidate my research and realise the full translational benefit of my work.  Each year, almost half of all deaths in Europe are due to cardiovascular related diseases. My ERC project focuses on developing a means of early diagnosis of degenerative cardiovascular diseases, such as aneurysms and atherosclerosis.  By using medical imaging to non-invasively identify changes in the underlying structure of arteries which can be directly linked with arterial disease, I will develop a means of early diagnosis of these potentially fatal diseases. In addition, armed with this fundamental knowledge of arteries, their structure, and how they remodel or change under load and during disease progression, tissue engineered blood vessels will be developed which can be used to replace or bypass diseased arteries.”
    
Approximately €12.5 million in funding was awarded to nine Irish researchers from Dublin City University, University College Dublin, University College Cork, the National University of Ireland, Galway and Trinity College Dublin to further their research in areas such as tissue engineering, solar energy, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, disability legislation and environmental law. It is the largest number of ERC Starting Grants to be awarded to Irish-based Researchers in one year and compares to two awards approved in 2013.
 
Irish Research Council (IRC) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) are the National Contact Points (NCPs) for ERC programmes in Ireland and work together to provide the best support possible to the Irish research community to enable them to succeed in accessing ERC programmes.
 
Dr. Eucharia Meehan, Director of the Irish Research Council said

“ERC grants are particularly important for social science and humanities researchers who develop their pioneering and frontier research largely on their own initiative. We took a specific strategy over the last year to increase our support for this cohort in both our research project funding but also in specific bursaries to nurture these particular applicants, and it has certainly paid off. Dr. Eilionoir Flynn’s VOICE project based in the NUIG Centre for Disability and Law, aiming to empower individuals with intellectual disabilities in policies and legislation which affect them is timely given recent revelations in the care of these citizens.”