Ireland’s brightest young researchers set to meet Nobel Laureates

Researchers ShuaiShuai Hu, David Burns and Emer Duffy have been selected to represent Ireland at the 68^th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting later this summer.

Supported by the Irish Research Council, the three researchers will meet with 41 Nobel Laureates at the prestigious meeting in Lindau. They will be among 600 other scientists from 84 different countries across the world.

The researchers went through a highly competitive multi-stage, international application process, managed by the Lindau Nobel Meeting Foundation and were selected for the meetings based on the excellence of their respective track records.

The three Ireland-based researchers attending the six-day conference, this year dedicated to the fields of physiology and medicine, are:

• ShuaiShuai Hu, a postgraduate scholar based at DIT, who is exploring the role of cholesterol in microparticles in human cells as potential indicators of cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases;
• David Burns, a PhD candidate based at UCC, who is working to improve the control of breathing in neuromuscular disease;
• Dr Emer Duffy, a postdoctoral researcher based at DCU, whose research is about deciphering the odours emitted from our skin to develop new sensors for odour-based disease diagnosis.

Commenting today at a special award ceremony to mark the researchers’ achievements in being selected to attend the Lindau meetings, Mr Peter Brown, Director of the Irish Research Council, said: “We are delighted to support ShuaiShuai, David and Emer on their visit to Lindau this summer. It is a fantastic opportunity for them to mix with the best and brightest in their fields of research at this early stage of their careers. 

“The most impressive and outstanding young scientists are chosen to attend these prestigious meetings and we are extremely proud that three highly-talented researchers from Ireland are amongst their number.”