Genetics of fruit flies

In June 2015, NUI Galway’s Dr Elaine Dunleavy was announced as the recipient of the Science Foundation Ireland President of Ireland Young Researcher Award (PIYRA). The researcher was welcomed to a special meeting with the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, at Áras an Uachtaráin to mark the announcement.

The award supports Dr Dunleavy’s research in the field of genetics which is focused on gaining an increased understanding of how stem cells divide. Dr Dunleavy’s approach will utilise genetic manipulations in fruit fly stem cells, combined with state-of-theart high-resolution imaging, to investigate genes and molecules that affect stem cell identity. Data generated from this research will substantially improve our knowledge of mechanisms of genome stability in stem cells with implications for fertility, reproduction, ageing, cancer and regenerative medicine.

PIYRA is Science Foundation Ireland’s most esteemed award for researchers who have shown exceptional promise as possible future leaders in international research and are known for excellence in their field.

Dr Dunleavy received funding for her work from the SFI-Health Research Board- Wellcome Trust Biomedical Research Partnership in 2013. Professor Brian McStay, a colleague in the Centre for Chromosome Biology, School of Natural Sciences at NUI Galway, also became a recipient of funding from the Wellcome Trust partnership to study uncharacterised regions of the genome that could advance our understanding of a wide range of human diseases.