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A message from the NCBES Director

The central mission of the NCBES is to develop innovative research programmes that promote the understanding and treatment of today's major diseases. We approach this by assembling strong interdisciplinary research teams and by maintaining a sharp focus so that we can achieve excellence in science, critical mass and the opportunity to provide real solutions to today's medical challenges. Our overarching objectives are to serve the needs of patients through research, to provide a real and measurable return on the investment in our research programmes, to enhance regional and national enterprise development and to contribute to society through education and scientific outreach. Researchers at the NCBES focus on some of the major medical challenges that face the world today, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, orthopaedic disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. We provide an environment where molecular biology, cell biology, engineering, imaging technology and clinical sciences merge. With a strong focus on translating our discoveries to improved patient care, these themes are supported by enabling expertise in bioanalytical technology, materials science and glycosciences.

Our research is making a real contribution to the advancement of biomedical discovery through significant research centres and clusters including the Alimentary Glycoscience Research Centre, the Regenerative Medicine Institute, the Centre for Chromosome Biology, the Network for Functional Biomaterials, the Centre for Pain Research, the Prostate Cancer Institute and others. We have strong links with local and multinational industries, including Medtronic Vascular, Boston Scientific, Covidien, Creganna Tactx Medical, Proxy Biomedical, Enbio Materials, Aerogen Ltd., Vysera Biomedical Ltd., Agilent Technologies Ireland, Bristol Myers Squibb and Alimentary Health Ltd. Our doors are always open to companies who wish to collaborate and to develop and enable these exciting new technologies.

We strongly believe that success lies in collaboration. We value the active and enduring research links with our regional partner institutes the University of Limerick and Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. We have significant research partnerships also with University College Cork, University College Dublin and NUI Maynooth.

We are committed to the education and training of the next generation of leaders and innovators in these fields. The NCBES research activities are supported by Masters' programmes in Biomedical Science, Regenerative Medicine and Neuroscience. In addition, new structured PhD programmes in biomedical engineering and regenerative medicine and in Simulation Science have been established this year. We are also proud to be associated with the BioInnovate Ireland Fellowship Programme, launched in NUI Galway in 2011 and designed to produce innovators in biomedicine. All of these illustrate our commitment to the medical technology industry, our determination to train highly qualified workforce in this area into the future.