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DCU Driving Sustainable Development

Grain4Lab

Grain-4-Lab was started by lead investigators Dr Jennifer Gaughran, Dr Brian Freeland and Ms Samantha Fahy.
The Grain-4-Lab Pls- Dr. Brian Freedland, Mrs Samantha Fahy, Dr. Jennifer Gaughran, Dr. Keith Rochfort. and Dr. Susan Kelleher

The Grain-4-Lab PIs - Dr. Brian Freeland, Mrs Samantha Fahy, Dr. Jennifer Gaughran, Dr. Keith Rochfort. and Dr. Susan Kelleher

Grain4Lab was established by Dr. Jennifer Gaughran, Dr. Brian Freeland and Mrs Samantha Fahy, joined by Dr. Susan Kelleher and Dr. Keith Rochfort. The team recognised the vast amount of plastic waste produced by laboratories globally, along with the waste produced by the brewing and distilling industries and saw an opportunity to address these issues simultaneously. 

Their solution was development of a biodegradable plastic generated from the waste materials from breweries and distilleries. This project was funded under the SFI Plastics Challenge and attained funding of over €2 million. Currently research is being conducted to further develop bioplastics and scaling of the project, along with management of the projects' carbon footprint.