Staff Profiles

Professor Terry Smith obtained a BA. Moderatorship Degree in Microbiology, from Trinity College Dublin, in 1981. He was employed as a research scientist in the R&D division of the pharmaceutical company, G.D. Searle, High Wycombe, UK (1981 – 1984), before undertaking a Ph.D. degree at Oxford University.  His Ph.D. research investigated the molecular basis of the devastating human genetic disease, Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy (DMD); he was awarded a D. Phil. degree from Oxford University in 1988. Having completed a Muscular Dystrophy Society post-doctoral Fellowship at Oxford (1987-1988), he was awarded a European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) Long-term Post-doctoral Fellowship to work in the laboratory of Professor Oliver Smithies, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Medicine, at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, where he worked on the development of an animal model for human atherosclerosis using mouse embryonic stem cells (1988 – 1990). In 1990, Prof. Smith took up a Senior Research Scientist and Team Leader position at the National Diagnostics Centre (BioResearch Ireland) at NUI Galway, where he headed up the DNA Diagnostics laboratory. In 1994, Prof. Smith was appointed General Manager of the National Diagnostics Centre, a post he held until 2001. 

Professor Smith was a founder member of the National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science (NCBES), established at NUI Galway in 1999, and was appointed Professor of Biomedical Engineering Science and Director of the NCBES in January 2002.  He led the development, growth and evolution of the Centre's research programmes in Biomedical Science and Engineering.  As NCBES Director, he played a leadership role in the successful submission to the SFI CSET programme in 2003, leading to the establishment of the Regenerative Medicine Institute (REMEDI). He also played a key role in the establishment of the Network for Functional Biomaterials (NFB), in 2007, and the Alimentary Glycosciences Research Centre (AGRC) in 2009. Professor Smith led the NUI Galway research team in the Centre for BioAnalytical Sciences (CBAS), a partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb company and Dublin City University. He also led the negotiation of a four-year €7.3 million research collaboration in molecular diagnostics assay development and commercialisation, with Beckman Coulter Incorporated, 2008 – 2011), and he was Research Director of this programme until its completion.

Professor Smith was appointed Vice President for Research at NUI Galway in July 2008, a post he held until December 2012.  In this role, Professor Smith led the NUI Galway HEA PRTLI 5 Institutional submission in 2010, resulting in the University securing over €65 million from the HEA and private funders.  The most successful Institutional award in NUI Galway's history, the award, included funding for three research buildings (Biosciences; Arts Humanities and Social Sciences; and Translational Research) and a range of structured PhD programmes. He also played a lead role in the establishment of Bionnovate Ireland, a Medical Technologies training and innovation initiative, and the NUI Galway Hardiman Scholarship programme.  As VP Research, he led the University's strategic review of the Moore Institute and the Centre for Innovation for Structural Change (CISC), leading to the establishment of the Whitaker Institute for Business, the Social Sciences and Public Policy.

Prof. Smith's research at NUI Galway involves investigations of the molecular basis of disease, including in particular, infectious diseases and cancer, with a focus on the development and application of novel nucleic acid-based tests for disease diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring. He is a Co-PI with the SFI CSET Centre, the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI), where he leads two research programmes.  He has supervised 20 Ph.D. students to completion, and he directs a taught Masters in Biomedical Science programme, while he led the design and development of a two year part-time distance-learning masters in Biomedical Science programme that was initiated in 2006. He is the author/co-author of over 120 peer-reviewed papers in international journals, as well as being co-inventor of 8 granted patents from two patent families, with 49 other patent applications pending across 8 patent families.  Molecular Diagostics technologies co-invented by Terry Smith have been licensed to four companies, including two global in vitro diagnostics companies, and one Irish company, for commercial development.  He is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of an NUI Galway spin-out company, Advanced Molecular Systems Ltd. (AMS), incorporated in 2012.  AMS provides molecular diagnostic test development services to client companies, and currently employs four staff.