MEDICAL RESEARCH at Trinity College’s new Biomedical Sciences Institute will improve the lives of millions of people in the coming years, which shows investment in research pays off, the Taoiseach said yesterday.
Enda Kenny was speaking at the official opening of the institute on Pearse Street, Dublin.
The €131 million centre will provide accommodation for 700 researchers and 900 students.
It will put Trinity and Ireland “at the very highest level” for the quality of its research output, he said. “The impact that this is going to have in the future on the lives of millions of people is incredible.”
Trinity scientists were already delivering important findings, including the discovery of genes associated with childhood eczema and new ways to control malaria, he said.
The country was struggling with economic challenges, but continued funding for research could help deliver jobs and new companies.
“I recognise that investment in that kind of research pays off,” he said.
“This is the single most ambitious development in the history of Trinity College,” provost Dr John Hegarty declared before introducing the Taoiseach.
It would foster innovative research that would deliver important discoveries and produce highly trained doctors and scientists. “Innovation is at the heart of this institute,” he said.
European commissioner for research, innovation and science Maire Geoghegan-Quinn said the commission had put research and innovation at the top of the European agenda, and the new institute had to be seen in that context.
The work there would deliver jobs and wealth and help improve public health and quality of life, she said.
We needed “conditions to allow our research to excel”, but the expenditure on research should also deliver benefit to society. Returns from health research could be “potentially enormous” and could become the “key to economic recovery”.
The institute brings together five schools under a single roof as a way to encourage collaboration. These are medicine, biochemistry and immunology, pharmacy and pharmaceutical science, chemistry and bioengineering. It will also host three research centres looking at cancer drug discovery, immunology and medical device technologies.
The €131 million investment includes €80 million from the State, with the rest dealt with by Trinity, including a loan from the European Development Bank, funds from private benefactors and commercial rent income.