News

Russia’s Belgorod State University and IT Carlow Build Biotechnology Bonds

05/12/2011

Institute of Technology Carlow , 1st December 2011 - Ten senior representatives from one of Russia’s oldest and most prestigious National Research Universities, Belgorod State University, are in the Institute of Technology Carlow this week to participate in an Advanced Training Programme on Biotechnology Research and Development, which has been organised and presented by the members of IT Carlow’s School of Science.

Dr David Dowling, Head of the School of Science at IT Carlow, says that “this visit, by the most senior members of the Department of Biotechnology at Belgorod State University to IT Carlow presents a major opportunity to collaborate in the area of environmental and industrial biotechnology and marks a milestone in the international bonds being forged by the Institute at the highest level of academic research worldwide.”

EnviroCore, IT Carlow’s Centre of Research and Enterprise in BioEnvironmental Technologies, is responsible for much of the Irish-based research that will change our approach to fuel consumption and waste disposal in the future.  Part of IT Carlow’s School of Science, it is at the forefront of Irish scientific research into biotechnology advances in the fields of biofuel development, phyto and microbial technologies for waste treatment and biomass production.  

The programme includes lectures by IT Carlow’s senior academic staff on topics such as genetics, DNA extraction, biopharmaceuticals and bioforensics and will also feature demonstrations of IT Carlow’s state-of-the-art technology, such as gas chromatography mass spectrometry and real-time PCR.  

Belgorod’s representatives will also visit the Plant Biotechnology Centre, Oak Park, the Carlow HQ for Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority in Ireland.  IT Carlow works closely with Teagasc on a number of biotechnology projects and has facilitated the introduction with members of the plant biotechnonology team. In addition the visitors will visit Kilogen Ltd a green energy company based in Kilkenny where they will have the opportunity to visit farms growing bioenergy crops as alternatives to fossil fuels.  Following this, the group will then travel to Dublin to meet members of the research community at NIBRT (National Institute for Bioprocessing Research & Training).

Dr Patricia Mulcahy, Head of Development at IT Carlow says “In hosting this course, IT Carlow widens the research community both in Ireland and worldwide.  Belgorod State University, through the new connection with EnviroCore at IT Carlow, will now become part of the wider conversation between international researchers that includes the Irish life sciences research hubs.  We look forward to further exchanges of staff in the coming months and the development of strong collaborative research programmes in the development of bioenvironmental technologies”.

The visitors from Belgorod are: Professor Irina Batlutskaya D.Sc, Head of Department of Biotechnology; Professor Olga Sorokopudova D.Sc.,  Department of Biotechnology, Olesia Makanina, Assistant Professor, Department of Biotechnology; Ospishcheva Nataliia, Assistant Professor, Department of Biotechnology; Andrey Prisnyi Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy and Physiology of Living; Professor Andrei Shaposhnikov D.Sc., Head of Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology; Elena Shaposhnik Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Department of Forensics and Criminology; Mikhail Tretiakov Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Department of Forensics and Criminology; Professor Oleg Zemlyansky MD, Department of Health-Care Disciplines; Arkadiy Nesterov, Senior Lecturer, Department of Pathology.