A new state-of-the-art laboratory, worth over £700,000 in funding has opened at Ulster University’s Biomedical Sciences Research Institute in Coleraine, within its Mass Spectrometry Centre.
The new lab is intended to add to the extensive scientific research already being undertaken at the campus, and will ultimately lead to the discovery of new treatment pathways and better patient outcomes.
The Biomedical Sciences Research Institute is the university's largest research institute. The new lab expansion has been made possible by over £700,000 in funding from the Department for Economy’s Higher Education Research Capital investment fund.
This has also enabled the university to upgrade its bio-analytical facilities with three mass spectrometry instruments.
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Coupled with the extensive bio-imaging capacity at Coleraine, it creates the first multimodal biomolecular imaging platform on the island of Ireland.
Researchers can now examine highly detailed images of biological tissues and reconstruct 3D biochemical tissue maps to better inform treatment for patients.
Economy Minister Gordon Lyons tours the new lab at Ulster University's Coleraine campus
Five part-time, high profile international leaders have also recently joined the university's research teams in diabetes therapeutics, metabolic and cardiovascular medicine.
Professors Per Olof Berggren from the Karolinska Institutet and Patrik Rorsman of the University of Oxford/Gothenburg are establishing world pioneering research on transplantation of insulin-releasing cells into the eye.
This is a technique that offers an effective and functional future potential treatment of patients with diabetes, as well as the opportunity for imaging and monitoring insulin-producing cells which normally can't be seen inside the body.
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Professor Carel Le Roux from University College Dublin and Professor Sumantra Ray from Cambridge University Hospitals are experts in obesity and cardiovascular health research, enhancing the internationally recognised nutrition team.
Professor Guoliang Xu of Shanghai Institutes of Biochemical Sciences is a world-leading expert in genomics and in the area of how hidden marks on our DNA which record environmental and parental inputs, might affect how we respond to threat of disease.
Minister Lyons, Dr Diego Cobice and Prof Carol Curran
Economy Minister Gordon Lyons toured the newly-expanded and enhanced facility and saw first-hand the powerful tools within the new lab space.
He said that his department "is delighted to support Ulster University in developing its world class research capability in the Biomedical Sciences Research Institute as a key delivery partner in helping us realise the ambitious targets set out in our Vision for a 10X Economy.”
Biomedical Sciences at Ulster was recently ranked among the top five UK universities for ‘research power’ in the latest UK Research Excellence Framework (REF2014) and first in the UK in the Pharmacy and Pharmacology subject area, according to the Guardian's League Table 2021.
