Healthy picture of science in Dublin

Science festival aims to help understanding of health issues

Science festival aims to help understanding of health issues

IF YOU are in Dublin this week, keep an eye out for science because there’s a healthy dose of it about.

The Dublin City of Science 2012 “Science in the City” festival is already in full swing and the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2012, which is billed as the largest general science event in Europe, kicks off at Convention Centre Dublin tomorrow, and there’s plenty to do with health.

One initiative may already have caught your eye: Curious? is a series of billboard-sized temporary murals featuring images from scientific research, including the human brain and microscopic views of burst blood vessels, MRSA and dental plaque.

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“It is designed to capture people’s imagination and showcase the magic of science that is rarely seen outside of research groups,” explained Dr Derick Mitchell, a science communications specialist who is working with the Health Research Board on EU-funded programmes.

“The images represent the science of a lot of things people are familiar with, but have little or no concept of what they actually look like,” Dr Mitchell said. “The hospital ‘superbug’ MRSA, at a very basic level, can look like a bunch of grapes and neurons in the brain can seem like an intense lightning strike.”

The idea behind the project, which is co-funded by the HRB and the Dublin City of Science initiative, is to bring science to the streets and encourage people to think about it, he explained.

“Many people do not realise how much research happens here in Ireland, the fact that it impacts their lives every day, supports a lot of jobs and from a health perspective could change their life some day,” he said. “For example, Ireland is now leading several large pan-European research projects, particularly in the area of health research.”

Ireland is also doing well in the field of immunology research, which looks at the immune system, and a number of high-profile immunologists are coming to Dublin to talk this week at ESOF 2012 and related events.

Tomorrow, Prof Peter Doherty, who won the Nobel Prize in 1996 for his work on how our immune systems fight viruses, will give a packed Master Class at the Royal Irish Academy. And today, he will be joined by fellow Nobel laureate Prof Jules Hoffman, who won the prize for discovering fundamental processes in innate immunity common to all animals and plants, at a special symposium on immunology in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute.

“Immunology is a very active area in biomedical research at the moment,” said Prof Luke O’Neill, professor of biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin and academic director of the TBSI.

Prof O’Neill is chairman of the programme committee for ESOF 2012 and will be presenting at the conference in Convention Centre Dublin this week. “We’ll be discussing how advances in our understanding of the inflammatory process, which is a key part of the immune system, is helping in the effort to explain the basis for arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, atherosclerosis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and in fact most diseases,” he said.

Prof O’Neill will also turn interviewer for a session with Nobel laureate James Watson, who co-discovered the double-helical structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick.

On Friday afternoon, Mr Watson will again take the interviewee’s chair, this time at Lighthouse Cinema as part of the UCD Imagine Science Film Festival.

John Bowman will be asking the questions and the evening will also feature an Irish premiere screening of the Race for the Double Helix featuring Jeff Goldblum, Tim Piggot-Smith and Juliet Stephenson, originally produced for the BBC science series Horizon in 1987.

“The film shows how Watson and Crick made the discovery in an atmosphere of fierce competition,” said Des Fitzgerald, professor of molecular medicine and vice-president for research at UCD.

“Dr Watson went on to lead one of the world’s greatest cancer institutes at Cold Spring Harbor and was a driving force in the successful effort to decode the human genome.

“The audience will get an opportunity to hear Dr Watson’s often controversial views explored by one of Ireland’s leading broadcasters,” he said.


For tickets see: entertainment.ie/tickets/ucd-science-film-festival.asp/


See also: hrb.ie/curious; dublinscience2012.ie/ esof2012.org

Claire O'Connell

Claire O'Connell

Claire O'Connell is a contributor to The Irish Times who writes about health, science and innovation