Category : Blog

Submission by Zero Waste Alliance Ireland on the National Air Pollution Control Programme

January 28, 2021 / Blog

Pollution, including air pollution, is one of the principal environmental risks to human health in the world. Even in relatively wealthy Europe, exposure to air pollution was responsible for an estimate of more than 410,000 early deaths in 2016 alone. Children are particularly at risk; and research undertaken last year has shown that air pollution is linked to significantly higher rates of death among people infected with Covid-19.
Our Principal Concerns and suggestions on air pollution are given here.

Mentoring and its Secrets

January 25, 2021 / Blog

What I am trying to do with students is to give them guidelines to start writing an article as soon as possible when they start their PhD. Writing a paper makes them seeing the wider picture but it also guides them better into new experiments that they need to carry out. And the second thing that I always encourage them is to take part at the end of Year 1 of their PhDs at an international conference and present as a lecture (not as a poster!) their work. This experience makes them more confident in their work and confidence is a fundamental virtue in research.

The effects of cooking salmon sous-vide on its antithrombotic properties, lipid profile and sensory characteristics

January 21, 2021 / Blog

Let me introduce this paper to you: it’s a collaboration between UL, LIT, SIT and St. Angela’s Food Technology Centre in Sligo.

The first author of the paper is an (ex-)MSc student of mine; with Shane who is a chef, we had decided to study the sous-vide cooking methods and its impact on sensory and nutritional value of salmon.

I met Maria Dermiki when she worked for a short period in UL before moving to SIT but we kept communication alive and Maria introduced me to Shelley. With Maria and Shelley, we did this amazing work on sensory properties in Sligo’s St Angela’s Food Technology Centre.

Katie and Sushanta are our longstanding collaborators in LIT and Ronan has now finished his PhD with me and he is post-docing now at UPenn.

Bioactive Lipids of Marine Microalga Chlorococcum sp. SABC 012504 with Anti-Inflammatory and Anti-thrombotic Activities

January 11, 2021 / Blog

The in vitro assays of the present study showed that the glycolipid and phospholipid fractions of marine microalga Chlorococcum sp. SABC 012504 possess strong anti-PAF and antithrombin activities in human platelets. These bioactivities are likely due to the presence of specific novel Chlorococcum sp. SABC 012504 SQDG molecules, HexCer-t36:2 (t18:1/18:1 and 18:2/18:0) cerebrosides with a phytosphingosine base, phosphatidylcholine (PC), and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) molecules in their lipid fractions.

Interview on Irish Times: “Ireland and Greece are like sister countries”

January 9, 2021 / Blog

In October 2015 he was offered work in Ireland and a month later his wife and younger son flew across Europe while Zabetakis and his then 11-year-old son Nathaniel packed up the car, piled their two dogs into the backseat and set off across Europe.

“My son found it a bit boring; we had to drive around 600km every day. But he loved choosing the music and loved the ferry from Belgium to England.”