NIBRT’s Prof. Michael Butler And Prof. Niall Barron Secure Funding Through SFI’s TIDA Programme

NIBRT’s Prof. Michael Butler and Prof. Niall Barron secure funding through Science Foundation Ireland’s Technology Innovation Development Award (TIDA) programme.

The SFI TIDA Programme is designed to enable researchers to focus on the initial stages of an applied research project which may have a commercial benefit if further developed.

Dublin, 15th February 2019 – NIBRT CSO, Prof Michael Butler and Principal Investigator, Prof. Niall Barron have secured funding through Science Foundation Ireland’s (SFI) Technology Innovation Development Award (TIDA) programme,

In its 10th year, the SFI Technology Innovation Development Award programme welcomed researchers with funding worth €4.5m across 38 different research projects. Its purpose is to provide the capital and training in entrepreneurship skills to researchers who are looking at commercialising their life’s work.

Prof. Michael Butler’s project, “The production of single structural forms of monoclonal antibodies by solid-state chemoenzymatic transformation” seeks to reduce the complexity of monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) through chemical changes during the purification process. The result will be to decrease the complexity of each sample to produce near homogeneous forms of Mabs. This will enable the most efficacious forms to be used in therapy

Prof. Michael Butler said “ I’m very pleased that the TIDA award will allow research to modify monoclonal antibodies to enhance their potency as high value therapeutic products”.

Prof. Niall Barron’s project, “An epi-transcriptomic-based approach for development of high producer Chinese hamster cells” will be based on improving CHO productivity to help reduce the cost of production and ensure future access for all patients.

Prof. Niall Barron said “This TIDA award will support the development of a novel approach to increasing the efficiency of production of life-changing new drugs and is based on some fundamental discoveries supported by previous SFI funding”.

Commenting on the awards NIBRT CEO Dominic Carolan remarked “NIBRT is delighted to receive two of the recent TIDA awards from SFI, a strong endorsement of the excellent research being conducted by Profs Butler and Barron.”

More details on the funding can be found here.

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