lifETIME CDT
Sugunapriyadharshini Sundararama
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
s.sundararaman
nuigalway.ie
Suguna has been awarded a LifeTIME CDT fellowship. She has worked as a Junior Research Fellow (JRF) at VIT, Vellore, TN, India, in the field of polymer biodegradable approach to treat diabetic osteomyelitis under the supervision of Dr. Debasish Mishra. She carried out a M.Tech (Biotechnology) project in 2016 under the supervision of Dr. Deepak Pattanayak, Scientist, CSIR-CECRI, TN, India and went on to work on the surface modification of Titanium metals for orthopedic application.
Aoibhín Sheedy
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
a.sheedy2nuigalway.ie
Aoibhín has a Bachelor of Engineering, Biomedical Engineering from NUIG, Master's of Science, Biotechnology from UCC. An early career biomedical engineer who is currently completing a PhD in the development of an advanced immunotherapy to treat ovarian cancer in the Dolan Lab (Eimear Dolan), NUIG and holds a CÚRAM, lifetime CDT Fellowship. Founder and current auditor(20/21) of NUIGs WiSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) Society.
Bianca Castelli
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
b.castelli1nuigalway.ie
Bianca did her BSc in Biotechnology at the University of Milan (Università degli Studi di Milano) and then moved to Galway to do her MSc in Regenerative Medicine. She is currently doing her PhD as part of the lifETIME CDT program, focusing on neurodegeneration (esp multiple sclerosis) and the development of a point of care (POC) device to detect biomarkers of neurodegeneration. Her supervisor is Dr Una FitzGerald, and her secondary supervisor is Prof John Cooper (University of Glasgow).
Eileen Reidy
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
e.reidy3nuigalway.ie
Eileen graduated with a first class honours Undergraduate degree in Biotechnology from NUI Galway in 2018. She graduated with a Masters in Immunology from Trininty College Dublin in 2019. She is currently carrying out a PhD under the supervision of Dr Aideen Ryan and Prof Abhay Pandit. This project is funded by lifETIME CDT and focuses on developing a 3D model of colorectal cancer and its tumour microenvironment in order to closely mimic different aspects of colorectal cancer in an in-vitro model.
Ibrahim Erbay
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
i.erbay1
nuigalway.ie
Ibrahim holds a double major in Metallurgical and Material Engineering and Bioengineering from Manisa Celal Bayar University and an MSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center. He is a lifETIME CDT student, and his research interests include organ-on-a-chip systems and biomaterials. He is working under joint supervision of Dr. Yury Rochev and Prof. Gerard O’Connor focusing on experimental models of inflammatory bowel disease.
Josep Fumadó Navarro
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
j.fumadonavarro1nuigalway.ie
Josep graduated in Biochemistry from the Rovira i Virgili University (Spain). He has a Master's in Advanced Biotechnology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). During his studies, Josep worked at the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (Spain), Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy (Poland), and the start-up ZIP Solutions SL (Spain). After that, he worked for 2 years as a research assistant in the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC). His research project focuses on the development of cell mimics for the delivery of therapeutics in vascularized brain organoids, under the supervision of Dr Mihai Lomora and Prof Abhay Pandit.
Meenakshi Suku
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
sukumtcd.ie
Meenakshi Suku obtained her MSc in Bioengineering (with a specialisation in Tissue Engineering) from Trinity College Dublin and is currently working on cardiac tissue engineering. She is pursuing her PhD (part of lifETIME CDT) in CURAM on developing a humanized in-vitro model for myocardial infarction, under the supervision of Dr. Michael Monaghan and is based in Trinity Centre for Biomedical Engineering, Trinity College Dublin.
Mirella Ejiugwo
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
M.EJIUGWO1nuigalway.ie
Mirella completed BSc (Honours) Applied Biology and Biopharmaceutical Science from Galway-Mayo IT and a MSc Clinical Research degree from NUI Galway. Her PhD research is focused on developing physiologically relevant models of diabetic foot ulcer for pathophysiological studies and drug testing (especially using microfluidics) - as part of the lifETIME Centre for Doctoral Training group. Her supervisors are prof. Gerard O’Connor, Dr Yury Rochev and prof. Timothy O’Brien.
Narjes Meselmani
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
n.meselmani1universityofgalway.ie
Narjes A. Meselmani's research interest lies in the development of an electrochemical device to detect tissue perfusion through the electrical characteristics of tissues, under the supervision of Dr Manus Biggs. Narjes earned her Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in electronic engineering, with an emphasis on biomedical engineering, from the Lebanese International University in Lebanon before beginning the PhD program. Her earlier research included studies on endoscopic linear cutter staplers and pattern recognition of EMG data for prosthetic limb adaptive control.
Patrick C Hurley
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
p.hurley3nuigalway.ie
Patrick has a BSc in Biomedical Science and an MSc in Regenerative Medicine both awarded in NUIG. Patrick is carrying out his PhD under the joint supervision of Dr Una Fitzgerald and Prof. Gerard O'Connor. This project is funded under the lifETIME Center for Doctoral Training and is focused on the development of a microfluidic model of Multiple Sclerosis to discover novel therapeutics.
Sorour Nemati
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
s.nemati1nuigalway.ie
Sorour obtained MSc and BSc in chemical engineering from Sahand University of Technology, Iran. Her research interests include stem cells, biomaterials and tissue engineering. She is now pursuing a PhD as a part of the LifeTIME CDT program with the main focus on fibrotic glial scar formation and modulation in vitro under the supervision of Dr. Siobhan McMahon, Prof. Dimitrios Zeugolis and Dr. Michelle Kilcoyne.
Viswanath Vittaladevaram
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
V.Vittaladevaram1nuigalway.ie
Viswanath Vittaladevaram obtained his MSc in Biotechnology(with a specialisation in bioinformatics) from Bangalore University, India and gained research experience in Drug discovery technology(Molecular modelling`& Simulation procedures) at University of Bonn, Germany. He is currently working as a PhD Researcher funded by SFI as a part of lifETIME CDT Programme in collaboration with CÚRAM. His research project focusses on "Multiscale characterisation of synthetic blood brain barrier models" using computational and experimental procedures, under supervision of Dr David Cheung (NUIG) and Professor Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez, University of Glasgow, UK.
Yashna Chabria
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
y.chabria1nuigalway.ie
I completed a degree in Biotechnology from Stella Maris College, India and then a MSc in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative medicine in Chettinad University, India. I am currently a lifETIME CDT PhD student in CURAM, based at the Lambe Institute for Translational Research at NUI Galway. My research focuses on development of a 3D in-vitro model of metastatic breast cancer to study modification of extracellular vesicles (EVs) for therapy under the supervision of Dr Róisín Dwyer and Prof. Garry Duffy.