NUI Galway recently hosted the first UniStem Day to take place in Ireland, which took place on Friday, 14 March. UniStem Day is a day in which 45 universities, 20,000 secondary school students and more than 250 researchers, managers, communicators, ethicists, clinicians, technicians from around Europe came together to learn about and discuss cutting edge stem cell research.

Now in its sixth year, UniStem Day is about pushing the boundaries of stem cell knowledge and disseminating it across Europe. During the day events happened simultaneously in Ireland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

Hosted by the Regenerative Medicine Institute (REMEDI) at NUI Galway and sponsored by Orbsen Therapeutics, over 50 students from St Endas and St Marys schools in Galway city learned about stem cells, what they can and cannot do and also about their potential as future treatments from REMEDI Professors Rhodri Ceredig and Sanbing Shen.

REMEDI Manager Kieran Ryan said: “We are so delighted to host a Unistem Day event here in Ireland for the first time ever. It’s a wonderful experience for the students to be part of such an exciting initiative happening all over Europe.”

Teacher Emma Dalton from St Endas said: “It was a great event. The talks were very inspiring and I hope that it opened the student’s eyes to the amazing research that is being done on their doorstep. The combination of top class facilities and world renowned scientists now boasted by NUI Galway will be a major motivational factor for our students to stay and study Science in Galway.”

UniStem Day is all about fostering learning, discovery and debate about stem cell research and building and strengthening knowledge amongst secondary school students. The UniStem events are designed to give participants experiences connected directly to research and to give them an insight into the day-to-day life of scientists.

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