September 2016 NUI Galway Emeritus Professor Awarded Prestigious Research Medal

Professor Michael Kane, Emeritus Professor of Physiology at NUI Galway, is the 2016 winner of the Society for Reproduction and Fertility’s premier research award, the Marshall Medal. Professor Kane accepted this prestigious award at the Annual Conference of the Society in Winchester, England recently.

Professor Kane was awarded the Marshall Medal in acknowledgement of his major contribution to understanding the factors that influence ovarian follicular growth and pre-implantation embryo development.

The Marshall Medal was established in 1963 as an annual award to honour an outstanding researcher in the field of reproductive biology. Previous winners of the award include the Nobel prize winner Bob Edwards for his work developing IVF as a fertility treatment and Hilda Bruce and Wesley Whitten who separately discovered the effect of pheromones on mammalian reproduction.

Congratulating Professor Kane, Dr Jim Browne, NUI Galway President said: “This is a wonderful recognition of Professor Michael Kane and his research at NUI Galway over many decades.  On behalf of the University, I’d like to join with his colleagues and friends in congratulating Michael on receiving the prestigious Marshall Medal, acknowledging the impact of his research on the field of reproductive physiology.”

Most of Professor Kane’s professional academic life was spent at NUI Galway and was Head of the Department of Physiology from 1995 until his retirement in 2006 and he also served as pre-clinical Vice Dean and acting Head of Anatomy during that time. Michael was previously awarded the Conway Medal from the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland in 1990, a DSc from the National University of Ireland in 2005 and elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2007.

Professor Tim O’Brien, Dean of The College of Medicine Nursing and Health Science at NUI Galway, said: “This is a hugely deserved award for Professor Michael Kane who made enormous contributions to our medical school and university. His research, honoured with this award, laid the foundations for subsequent research programmes in the school of Medicine such as that in stem cell biology.”

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