Prof Shane O’Mara has become the first Irish-based scientist to be awarded a Senior Investigator Award, under the Science Foundation Ireland, Health Research Board and Wellcome Trust Biomedical Partnership. Senior Investigator Awards support exceptional, world-class researchers, who already hold a recognised academic position and whose research will address the most important questions about health and disease.
The award is worth €1.2 million over a six-year period.
Shane O’Mara is a professor of experimental brain research at Trinity College Dublin and is director of the college’s institute of neuroscience. Prof O’Mara will hold the award with Prof John Aggleton from Cardiff University.
The research will focus on understanding the interactions in the brain that support memory. The work will also help in understanding what happens when memory is compromised because of brain damage.
Prof O’Mara said: “Through this funding I will be able to focus on understanding why interactions between certain brain systems support normal memory and how, when compromised, they might contribute to disorders of learning and memory. Our ultimate aim is to understand these processes in order to help explain individual differences in healthy memory, and reveal potential new sites of study and intervention for neurological problems affecting memory.”
Prof Mark Ferguson, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of Ireland, said: “Offering funding opportunities such as the Senior Investigator Award, through our partnership with the Health Research Board and the Wellcome Trust, means SFI can help support those who are leaders in their field, and who are delivering important and impactful scientific research… Facilitating impactful research which has potential economic and societal benefits is key both to enhancing Ireland’s international scientific reputation and to developing a knowledge based society and economy.”
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