University College Dublin (UCD) is Ireland’s largest University with over 30,000 students, and ranked 176th worldwide by the 2016 Times Higher Education Supplement and 100th in Europe. UCD supports the full range of academic disciplines. UCD have made significant investments over the last 5 years in natural sciences, including systems biology, bionano interactions, and medicine. These are active areas of strategic development where UCD is building internationally recognised capacities.
UCD School of Physics has a significant expertise in molecular and mesoscale modelling of bio and nanomaterials. UCD Physics hosts the Irish node of CECAM (European Centre for Atomistic and Molecular Modelling) and organises three international CECAM events (workshops or schools) annually. UCD Physics offers graduate programmes in Nanobio Science, Theoretical and Computational Physics, and Nanotechnology.
Systems Biology Ireland (SBI) was established in UCD in 2009 and is a multidisciplinary centre that combines both wet lab and dry lab techniques in order to design new therapeutic approaches to disease. The centre is located in a newly constructed, state of the art facility that accommodates over 60 researchers, working to answer key questions arising from the design properties of biochemical networks. SBI merges predictive mathematical modelling and bioinformatics with experimental research to gain a systems level, mechanistic understanding of cellular signal transduction networks. This facility boasts top class laboratories, specifically designed to meet the needs of interdisciplinary researchers in this challenging and emerging area of research. SBI has become a flagship programme on UCD’s campus and an internationally recognised leader in the space with a recent assessment by International Scientific Panel judging it to be “one of the top Systems Biology Institutes in Europe”.
