Stokes Representation at Enterprise Ireland Point of Care Immunotechnology Industry Showcase
Dr Fiona Gilchrist and Fiachra O’Leary represented the Stokes Institute at the Enterprise Ireland Point-of-care immunotechnology (POCit) showcase for industry which was held on Wednesday 28th November, 2007 in the National Diagnostics Centre, National University of Ireland, Galway.
They presented a poster to Industry entitled “The design and performance analysis of microfluidic platforms suitable for an immunoassay on a patient sample of whole blood”.
A number of industrial representatives from companies such as Cellix, Tridelta and Neubiotek attended the showcase in addition to the Stokes Institutes collaborators from DCU, NVRL, UCD, UCC, NUIG and the National Tyndall Institute, Cork.
Stokes Funding News
Stokes Researchers, Fiona Gilchrist and Ronan Grimes have been awarded funding in the latest round of the Enterprise Ireland Proof of Concept scheme, whilst funding has been received through the HEA Equipment Renewal Grant scheme to update the Institute’s optical velocimetry equipment.
Dr. Gilchrist’s project is aimed at the development and commercialisation of a Point-of-Care diagnostic chip for the detection of herpes simplex virus (HSV:Type 1 and 2). The project is being conducted in collaboration with the National Virus Reference Laboratory at UCD, Dublin http://www.clinical-virology.org/pages/dublin/nvrl_start.html, and is due to commence in January 2008, with a 12 month duration.
Dr. Grimes’s project seeks to address the soaring energy consumption of data centres. As a significant proportion of a data centre’s energy consumption is now attributed to thermal management, the project will develop a novel heat sinking technology, which it is believed will be more efficient than traditional heat sink solutions. The project will commence in December and will run for 12 months.
The HEA grant will be used to update the Institute’s existing Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) equipment. A state of the art system will be purchased which will allow three dimensional stereoscopic velocity measurements, with higher resolution than the existing equipment and with enhanced capabilities for both micro scale PIV, and very large field of view macro scale PIV. The new equipment will further enhance the Stokes Institute’s existing global reputation of excellence in the field of fluid velocimetry.
Stokes Researchers win award at Microscopy Society of Ireland Symposium
Ryan Enright (PhD scholar) and Claire Ryan (Research fellow) won joint-1st place award for best poster at the MSI Symposium which was hosted in the University of Limerick from August 22nd – 24th. Both researchers are funded by the Science Foundation Ireland under grant number 03/CE3/I405.
Ryan’s poster presented his research results from a laser scanning confocal microscopy study of post-type superhydrophobic surfaces situated in a microchannel flow. This work comes under the thermal management strand of the Centre for Telecommunications and Value-Chain Research (CTVR) program.
Claire’s poster described some recent research on failures in lead-free solder joints due to impact testing. This work comes under the Test and Reliability strand of the CTVR program
SRI Hosts Fourth International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels and Minichannels
The Stokes Research Institute recently hosted the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels and Minichannels. This is the first time the conference has been hosted outside of North America.
The study of fluid flows on the microscale is a very new field of research, which has the potential to produce new technologies that will transform our understanding and diagnosis of disease, one amongst many applications. It is predicted that microfluidic circuits will one day have the same impact on our lives as microelectronics has. The conference provided a platform for researchers to exchange information and identify research needs in this emerging area encompassing many engineering and bio-medical disciplines.
Speakers presented to the 250 attendees on key issues highlighted for US strategic funding, the development of personalised medicine, the interaction between research and applications, nanofluids and electronic system cooling. The conference organising committee are pictured beow.
For further details please see the conference website.
SRI Researcher Wins Soldertec Global Award
Claire Ryan, a research fellow at the SRI, has been announced as the recipient of Soldertec Global's "Outstanding Researcher" for 2005 under their Lead-Free Solder Awards programme. Claire was selected from a group of industry-nominated candidates in recognition of her work on torsional fatigue, environmental effects on lead-free solder and for the development of a lead-free training course.
For further details, see EMSNow's report.
SRI Warns Irish Electronics Firms to Prepare for Lead-Free
The SRI has recently made the headlines on two prominent industry websites, warning Irish firms to prepare for next year's switch to lead-free electronics manufacturing. ElectricNews.Net and Business World both highlight the fact that companies which ignore the impending legislation may lose business, and could face fines.
For full details, see ElectricNews.Net and Business World.
