CÚRAM, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research in Medical Devices at NUI Galway has announced a formal collaboration with Rutgers University, New Jersey regarding complementary medical device programs. The formal Agreement will focus on developing multi-disciplinary collaborations involving research on medical device technologies, commercialisation of medical technologies, and business incubation and acceleration. As global leaders in the field of medical device research, and because of its close collaboration with MedTech industry leaders, CÚRAM's expertise was sought by a delegation from Choose New Jersey, an economic development organisation with a mission to encourage and nurture economic growth throughout New Jersey. The organisation is developing an innovation HUB in New Brunswick which will have two million square feet of office, laboratory and incubator space. Together with Rutgers University, the delegation travelled to NUI Galway to learn from the experience and knowledge of CÚRAM with a view to creating a similar program at the HUB, potentially in partnership with CÚRAM. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Rutgers and CÚRAM took place with Scientific Director of CÚRAM, Professor Abhay Pandit, Dr James Walsh and Vincent Smeraglia from Rutgers University, and representatives from Rowan University, Hackensack Meridian Healthcare, DEVCO, the HUB in New Brunswick and BioInnovate Ireland. Speaking at the signing, Professor Abhay Pandit, Scientific Director at CÚRAM, said: “This event is a testimony to CÚRAM's position as a global leader in the field of medical device research and we welcome the opportunity to share our expertise with our colleagues in New Jersey. We look forward to working with them further as they develop the HUB.” Dr James Walsh, Senior Director for Innovation, Rutgers University, said: “On behalf of Chancellor Christopher J. Molloy and Provost Prabhas Moghe, we are very excited to launch this alliance with our friends and colleagues in Galway. We believe that together, we can build on the strong links between New Jersey and Ireland’s highly innovative indigenous and multinational MedTech companies. Rutgers’ extensive research capabilities, faculty expertise, and business incubation leadership offer the alliance a strong foundation. We look forward to building on this with our colleagues at NUI Galway and Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology.” For more information about Rutgers University, visit: https://www.rutgers.edu/ and for Choose New Jersey, visit: https://www.choosenj.com/ -Ends-

NUI Galway student, Róisín McManus, is representing Ireland at the major international Future News Worldwide Summit for young journalism students in London this week. This is the second year that an NUI Galway Journalism student has been chosen for the summit. Third year BA with Journalism student, Róisín is one of two students selected from Ireland to be a delegate at the highly prestigious summit, hosted by Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf in London. She was chosen from more than 3,000 applicants to be one of just 100 delegates from 53 different countries globally at the event. The Future News Worldwide summit is a three-day intensive media training programme where students engage in workshops, lectures and discussion groups with world-leading editors, broadcasters, writers and reporters, and see how publishers around the world are using technology. It is a partnership programme between the British Council and some of the world’s leading media organisations and technology companies including Google, Facebook and Reuters. From Bawnboy in Cavan, Róisín said she was delighted to be chosen to attend the event: “I am so grateful to have been chosen for FNW19 in London. I’m excited to hear all the speakers talks over the next couple of days, to meet people from over 50 countries worldwide, and I’m proud to be representing Ireland doing so.” Tom Felle, Head of Journalism and Communication at NUI Galway, said: “This is a tremendous honour for Róisín and NUI Galway is very proud that one of our students has been chosen to be a delegate. Future News Worldwide brings together the cream of the crop in terms of journalists of the future. They get to meet with and share ideas, listen to industry leaders talk about the importance of journalism in democracy worldwide, and are introduced to digital skills training. Following the conference Róisín will be part of a year-round global alumni network, helping her and other delegates to engage with one another, implement their learning and continue their professional development.” Young journalism students from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, across the US, Europe and South America are attending the event. NUI Galway offers programmes in journalism at undergraduate and postgraduate level. A new BA Journalism launches in 2019 as well as a new MA Sports Journalism and Communication programme.  -Ends-

Side impacts to the head can be just as dangerous as frontal impacts, new research suggests, which was published this week in the international scientific journal Soft Matter. A research team from NUI Galway and UCD measured the effects of rotational accelerations (side impacts) of the head, such as those experienced in football headers, boxing hooks and side impacts. They found stretches and stresses in the brain as high as those of linear accelerations (frontal impacts, whiplash).  Large motions can occur in the brain when the human head is accelerated violently by an impact, be it accidental or even voluntary as in a football header. The resulting mixture of pressure, stretch, shear and twist can impair neurons and lead to concussion, brain injury and even permanent damage. A lot of research has focused on the effects of linear accelerations (frontal impacts) of the brain, such as those happening in frontal collisions, such as car accidents and American football. Rotational accelerations (side impacts) are in fact as likely to happen in modern life as linear accelerations (frontal impacts). In a frontal collision car accident, the head rotates forward and backward (whiplash). Similarly, for many football headers, or for uppercuts in combat sports. These sports also involve rotations of the head about the vertical axis, or tilting from one side to the other.  Linear accelerations are expected to create large stresses and stretches in the direction of the impact. This research shows that rotational accelerations (side impacts) create pressure and forces of the same magnitude in all directions, which could have grave implications for traumatic brain injury. The researchers at NUI Galway and UCD measured the twisting properties of brain matter using advanced torsion techniques. They then fed the data into computer simulations of a rotational acceleration of the head, typical of a boxing punch. Dr Valentina Balbi led the study from NUI Galway (now a Lecturer of Industrial and Applied Mathematics at University of Limerick) with co-authors Professor Michel Destrade, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Mathematics at NUI Galway, and Dr Aisling Ní Annaidh and Dr Antonia Trotta from the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University College Dublin. Commenting on the findings, Dr Balbi, said: “We found that large shear forces develop in the horizontal plane, as expected. But we also found that a high-pressure level and large vertical forces also develop in the brain, especially in the frontal cortex, as a result of the twisting motion.” Mark Ganly, CEO of Contego Sports, a company that developed the N-Pro Rugby headguard, which is scientifically proven to provide impact protection, said: “We are keenly aware of the dangers of impacts in the game. This research confirms my intuition that it is crucial to protect Rugby players from side impacts as well as from frontal impacts to the head. In my experience, they are just as likely to lead to concussion or mild traumatic brain injury.” To read the full study in the journal Soft Matter, visit: https://doi.org/10.1039/c9sm00131j To view a short video about the study, visit: https://youtu.be/JjFCuFkdYts  -Ends-