CCB News

  • CCB postgrad wins College of Science Research Day talk prize

    Claire Concannon of the Lahue group took first prize in the recent NUI Galway College of Science Research Day talk competition for postgraduate students. Claire spoke on her project involving the role of the proteasome in triplet repeat DNA expansions. The competition was judged by Research Day invited speakers Prof AP de Silva (Belfast), Prof Alain Goriely (Oxford) and Dr Emma Teeling (Dublin). See NUIG press release.

  • CCB postgrad wins best presentation prize at national meeting

    Sarah Conmy, a PhD student in the CCB, was awarded first prize at the annual meeting of the Irish Radiation Research Society (IRRS) held in Sligo in September 2011, for her presentation entitled 'Induction of DNA damage response pathways in primary normal human epidermal melanocytes exposed to long-wavelength UVA radiation'. Sarah's research is being carried out in the DNA Damage Response group, headed by Dr. Michael Carty.

  • Concannon awarded Thomas Crawford Hayes funding

    Claire Concannon, third year PhD student in the Lahue lab, was awarded funding from the Thomas Crawford Hayes Trust Fund. Income from the Fund is applied in the broad area of the Biological Sciences "for the furtherance and promotion of natural knowledge". The award will allow Claire to use human cells for mechanistic studies on triplet repeat expansions and the proteasome.

  • Frizzell competes at national researcher competition

    Aisling Frizzell, fourth year PhD student in the Lahue lab, recently competed in the All-Ireland Researcher of the Year Award 2011, sponsored by Roche Diagnostics. Aisling was one of 10 finalists for the award, which included 8 entries from the Republic and 2 from Northern Ireland. Her presentation was entitled, "Histone deacetylases promote trinucleotide repeat expansion".

  • Novel chromatin method is developed by Santocanale group

    The Santocanale group develops DNA mediated Chromatin Pull down (Dm-ChP) a simple experimental approach to study chromatin replication. The method allows chromatin to be captured and its content analyzed after in vivo replication and labeling of DNA by cellular DNA polymerases. See Nature Scientific Reports.

  • Santocanale group builds on Cdc7 expertise in Mol Cancer Therapeutics

    In a paper in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, Corrado Santocanale's group have built on their research focus on Cdc7 by demonstrating novel separate effects of targetting an inhibitor to quiescent and to actively dividing chronic lymphoid leukemia cells. Attacking CLL cells from both sides may offer a new way of targetting this cancer.

  • Sullivan group PLoS paper is Publication of Week

    A new PLoS Biology paper by Kevin Sullivan's group has been featured as the University of Leiden Cell Observatory's publication of the week. Postdoc Lisa Prendergast and colleagues in collaboration with Stephan Diekmann's group in Jena revealed novel insights into the dynamic assembly of a histone fold protein complex during the cell cycle.

  • Inaugural Scientific Advisory Board meeting for Centre

    The Centre for Chromosome Biology's Scientific Advisory Board of John Diffley (CRUK), Wendy Bickmore (MRC HGU) and Tom Misteli (NIH) travelled to Galway in early June for their first review to provide input and scientific guidance. After presentations by principal investigators and intensive discussions, the SAB provided valuable individual guidance as well as inspiration for CCB to continue its development.

  • Morrison group paper featured by J Cell Biol

    A new paper on centrins by Ciaran Morrison's group was featured by the Journal of Cell Biology in May in their biobyte podcast section (scrobble to 10:22). Using DT40 cells, PhD student and lead author Tiago Dantas showed that deleting centrins had no effect on the cell cycle or centrosome structure but made cells highly sensitive to UV irradiation, suggesting a role for centrins in nucleotide excision repair.

  • Noel Lowndes and Bob Lahue appointed to Irish Cancer Society research advisory committees

    Profs Noel Lowndes and Bob Lahue have been appointed to research advisory committees for the Irish Cancer Society. Lowndes serves on the Research Advocacy & Communication Committee, which advises on communicating the value and impact of cancer research in Ireland. Lahue’s service is on the Research Capacity Building Committee, providing advice on building expertise and resources for Irish cancer research. Both appointments are of two-three years duration.

  • Frizzell and Debacker win NCBES Research Award

    Aisling Frizzell and Dr. Kim Debacker are co-winners of the 2011 NCBES Research Award in Life Sciences and Bioengineering. This award, presented in association with Roche Diagnostics, is ‘to recognize outstanding achievement in research in life sciences an bioengineering at NUIG’. Aisling is a third year PhD student and Kim is a postdoctoral fellow, both in Prof Bob Lahue’s lab. Their joint project is entitled, ‘Histone deacetylase complexes promote trinucleotide expansions’.

  • Noel Lowndes chairs EMBO Young Investigator committee

    Professor Noel Lowndes who has been an European Molecular Biology Organisation Member since 2003 was elected chair of the EMBO Young Investigator Committee recently. This committee selects young European group leaders for one of Europe’s most prestigious awards for talented young scientists. Noel has been a member of the committee since 2008 and will be its chair for the next three years. The ten committee members, all EMBO Members who are themselves recognised for their excellence in research, have the difficult task of choosing the best young researchers among a large pool of high profile applicants. “The committee has been blessed with excellent chairs during its eleven years of existence, and Noel is going to continue this tradition,” says Gerlind Wallon, manager of the EMBO Young Investigator Programme and Deputy Director of EMBO.

  • Eminent chromosome biologists on our CCB Scientific Advisory Board

    The Centre for Chromosome Biology has established its Scientific Advisory Board, comprising Prof Wendy Bickmore (Edinburgh), Prof John Diffley (Clare Hall) and Dr Tom Misteli (NIH). Director of the CCB Noel Lowndes says “I am delighted that such internationally eminent chromosome biologists as Wendy, John and Tom have agreed to give some of their valuable time to assist the Centre for Chromosome Biology achieving its objectives. We are determined to enhance this area of science in Galway and become a significant presence in chromosome biology internationally. We are all looking forward to meeting our first meeting in summer 2011 and benefiting from their advice and considerable expertise. I for one am looking forward to a very scientifically focussed but fun couple of days off campus in a beautiful part of Connemara!”. See also Centre page

  • Frizzell awarded Thomas Crawford Hayes fellowship

    CCB postgraduate student Aisling Frizzell (Lahue lab) was awarded a fellowship from the Thomas Crawford Hayes Trust Fund. Income from the Fund is applied in the broad area of the Biological Sciences "for the furtherance and promotion of natural knowledge". The award will expedite Aisling's mechanistic studies into triplet repeat expansions in human cells.

  • Eykelenboom and Gannon win IRCSET EMPOWER postdoctoral awards

    CCB postdoctoral fellows John Eykelenboom (Lowndes lab) and Anne-Marie Gannon (Lahue lab) were awarded 2010 IRCSET EMPOWER postdoctoral awards. Funding is highly competitive, with 32 awards nationwide from 340 eligible applications. Awards are made “to researchers from all nations who are at an early stage of their postdoctoral research career and who wished to further their research in the sciences, engineering or technology, at an Irish research institution.”

  • Cell biologists awarded Beckman Fellowships

    Beckman Fellowships were awarded to postgraduate students Nadine Quinn and Agnieszka Kaczmarczyk, both members of the Laboratory for Cell Biology working with Prof. Kevin Sullivan. For Agnieszka's work, the fellowship will enable acquisition of novel reagents to study spindle checkpoint behavior. The award will allow Nadine to travel to Germany to carry out experiments on protein complex assembly in living cells using specialized microscopic equipment. Their studies are part of the Cell Biology laboratory's efforts to understand how human cells replicate their centromeres during the proliferative cell cycle.

  • Spillane research group becomes 11th member of CCB

    Recently recruited Professor of Plant Science Charlie Spillane has joined the Centre for Chromosome Biology, becoming our 11th member research group. Research in the Spillane Genetics and Biotechnology Lab focuses on functional genomics and epigenetics of genomic imprinting, dosage effects, non-coding RNAs and genome evolution in both plants and animals.

  • Kevin Sullivan's research group wins SFI Image of Year award

    Kevin Sullivan and his team won the inaugural Science Foundation Ireland "Image of the Year" award at the 2009 SFI Summit with an image entitled 'Chromosomes in Trouble'. Kevin received the award from the Minister for Science, Conor Lenihan, at the 2009 SFI Summit. > See NUI Galway press release

  • Noel Lowndes awarded Biochemistry Society's Irish Area Section medal

    Head of the CCB, Prof. Noel Lowndes was recently awarded the 2010 annual medal for contribution to Irish science by the Irish Section of the Biochemical Society.

  • EMBO workshop on DT40 cell techniques to be held at CCB in June

    Prof Ciaran Morrison is organising a course in DT40 cell techniques from Jun 12-19th 2010 at the CCB in Galway. DT40 is a transformed chicken B-cell line that allows permitting gene targeting into its genome with very high efficiency. The workshop will teach participants the skills to carry out DT40 gene targeting experiments and perform the phenotypic analysis of their targeted cells. > See EMBO workshop website

Seminar events

The Centre for Chromosome Biology has an enthusiastic seminar programme with a regular series of international speakers. These are usually held on Fridays at 1pm in McMunn theatre but times can vary depending on speaker availability.

Seminars are usually held in conjunction with the Department of Biochemistry or National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science semianr programmes. Full details of seminar times are given in their listings: