Newly discovered ‘Healthy Heart’ probiotic wins Biosciences Invention Award

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Newly discovered ‘Healthy Heart’ probiotic wins Biosciences Invention Award

The Invention of the Year (Bioscience) award, sponsored by Purdy Lucey at gatewayUCC in Cork, was awarded to Kilworth native, Dr Catherine Stanton and her team.

Friday, 14 June 2013
12:00 AM GMT



The Invention of the Year (Bioscience) award, sponsored by Purdy Lucey at gatewayUCC in Cork, was awarded to Kilworth native, Dr Catherine Stanton and her team at Teagasc for their discovery of a new probiotic bacterial strain that has cardio-protective properties and is proven to reduce cholesterol by 53% within 12 weeks of consumption.

This was just one of a number of pioneering new technologies in the area of bioscience and ICT that were recognised on Monday at the Invention of the Year Awards.

Catherine's 'Healthy Heart' probiotic research is a result of collaboration between Teagasc, UCC Microbiology and the Centre for Research in Vascular Biology at UCC, and it is likely that there will be strong commercial interest in this innovative research.

The ICT Invention of the Year Award was presented to a team of researchers from Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG) at UCC including Dr Dominic O’Sullivan, Dr Marcus Keane, Ken Bruton and Dr Paul Raftery. The award winning AHU Fault Finder software finds its application in large industrial facilities, where it will automatically identify faults in Air Handling Units (AHUs) which can cost organisations significant time, money and resources to detect.

Among this year’s shortlist for the coveted Invention of the Year award in the biosciences category is the innovative SmartBandage which automatically monitors the state of health of the wound and controls the rate of delivery of drugs, thereby reducing the recovery time and minimizing infection. An innovative laparoscopic medical device designed to assist surgeons during gastro-surgical procedures was also shortlisted; the “SecuRetract” provides an effective solution to "table tilting" which is currently required in some gastro-surgical procedures to prevent obstruction by the bowel during surgery.

In the ICT category, a Tyndall research team created a highly disruptive invention in the optical communications market globally, with silicon nano-photonics technology. This innovation is the current 'missing link' in the data transmissions market, enabling optical fibres to attach directly to silicon chips without compromising transmission speeds.

“The ongoing research and commercialisation is world-class” said Dr Tim Roche, TTO UCC who is a native of Glanworth. This is evidenced by the well-known companies licensing technology from the many innovation centres on campus at UCC, from gatewayUCC, the Tyndall Institute and the BioInnovation Centre among others. These awards are a celebration of the achievements of UCC in the innovation and commercialisation agenda.”



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