A presentation on "Mother Nature's chemistry set" has won first prize in Conway Institute AccesScience '05, UCD's annual competition for postgraduate research students.
The event challenges Conway investigators to explain their work to a general audience without scientific jargon.
Postgraduate researcher Kevin Murtagh of the department of chemistry and the Conway Institute won last Tuesday with a presentation explaining how scientists take medically active substances from plants and then synthesise them to produce new drugs.
The competition has become an important part of the UCD spring calendar and always attracts a large, enthusiastic audience. The organisers changed the format this year, adding an extra programme for secondary students called AcceScience Junior.
AcesScience includes a poster competition and the six winning posters will be displayed in Dart stations during April.
Winners in the main event were: 1st, Kevin Murtagh: "Mother Nature's Chemistry Set"; 2nd, June Fanning: "Liver Fluke Attack: New Strategy Needed to Win War"; 3rd, Fiona McGillicuddy: "A Good Heart These Days is Hard to Find".
Winners in the AccesScience poster competition: 1st, Aoibheann Greenan, Loreto College, Swords; 2nd, Amaya Garcia, Department of Pharmacology and Conway Institute; Runners-up Danny Holland, Mercy Secondary School, Mounthawk, Tralee; Niall Harvey, Mercy Secondary, Mounthawk; Aisling Galligan, St Joseph's, Cluny Killiney; Linda Feighery, Department of Small Animal Clinical Studies and Conway Institute.
