The Annual Invention Disclosure Award ceremony was held on 16th December 2009 in the Helix, DCU.  These awards were set up by Invent DCU to publicly recognise the researchers who work with Invent to protect and commercialise their research. The awards were a great success with attendance of over 80 researchers on the day from various Schools and Faculties.

The ceremony was officially opened by Richard Stokes, Director of Invent and the awards were presented by Professor Eugene Kennedy, Vice-President for Research.

Dr. Brian Kelly, CEO and founder of Celtic Catalysts Ltd. was the guest speaker who gave an inspiring overview of his career from researcher to entrepreneur working in the field of chiral chemistry. Celtic Catalysts is an extremely innovative Irish company that has developed ground-breaking chemistry that enables its clients in the pharmaceutical, biotech and fine chemicals industries to realise significant manufacturing cost savings.

After Dr. Kelly’s speech, a total of 39 Invention Disclosures awards were presente and the figure is growing steadily year on year.

Richard Stokes, Director of Invent, stated that these individuals had demonstrated great initiative in the commercialisation of their technology and both DCU and Invent value the time and effort researchers put into commercialising their research.

As the commercialisation gateway of DCU, Invent has the infrastructure, the ability and the expertise to assist and advise industry, academia and researchers in their innovation, commercialisation and business development endeavours.

Each group received a prize of €200 and an overall prize of €1000 was also awarded in each of the categories of Physical/Chemical Sciences; Life Sciences and ICT/Engineering.

The Overall Award for Physical /Chemical Sciences went to Dr. Brendan O’Connor, Dr. Michael O’Connell, Dr. Paul Clarke, Dr. Roisin Thompson (Biotechnology/NCSR) for their invention disclosure on ‘Novel Lectins from the PA-IL Family of Prokaryotic Lectins with Specificity for Terminal ß-Galactose & their Application for Glycan & Glycoconjugate Analysis & Purification.’

The Overall Award for Life Sciences went to Prof. Oliver Dolly, Dr. Jiafu Wang, Dr. Jianhui Meng (ICNT) for their invention disclosure on ‘Targeted biotherapeutics for chronic pain’.

The Overall Award in ICT/Engineering went to Prof. Noel O’Connor & team (Electronic Engineering) for commitment to successful commercialisation, invention disclosures, patenting activity and innovation partnerships.

For further information on Invent, please check out www.dcu.ie/invent/