October NUI Galway Scientist’s TEDx Talk Will Broadcast to a Global Audience of 30 Million on TED.com

NUI Galway Scientist’s TEDx Talk Will Broadcast to a Global Audience of 30 Million on TED.com

Dr Michel Dugon from the Ryan Institute at NUI Galway has had his TEDxGalway 2017 talk, ‘Spider Dust and Scorpion Juice: Are Bugs the Future of Therapeutic Drugs?’ selected by TED.com and it will feature on their website on Friday, 5 October, 2018. The talk will be distributed to over 30 million registered TED.com users around the world, a significant opportunity for an Irish academic to showcase their work to a global audience.

Dr Michel Dugon, a lecturer in Zoology and founder and lead researcher of the Venom Systems and Proteomics Laboratory in NUI Galway, investigates the toxicity and the medical properties of spider venom with the hope of developing next generation antibiotics. His work focuses on the evolution of venom systems and on the potential of arthropod venom as a source of novel therapeutic agents.

In his TED talk, Dr Dugon outlines the potential of spider venom as a source of novel chemicals and therapeutic compounds. Only about 0.01% of spider venom compounds have been characterized so far and millions remain to be discovered. Some of these complex compounds may be harvested in the future to address global concerns such as antimicrobial resistance.

Dr Dugon is also the founder and director of the Eco Explorers science outreach programme at NUI Galway where he dedicates a sizable amount of his time promoting ecological awareness in the media and in schools throughout Ireland. Dr Dugon’s work has been featured on national and international networks including RTÉ, the BBC, Euronews and Sky.

Dr Dugon says: “TED.com offers the largest online stage for academics to share ideas with a global audience. It is a huge honour to be featured on their website and this would not be possible without the fantastic work by organisers of local TEDx events throughout Ireland. I hope that my experience will encourage other academics to take to the stage in the future and inspire members of the public to engage with Irish science and technology.”

Michel Dugon was awarded the 2015 Irish National Teaching Award in Higher Education and the 2017 NUI Galway Ryan Award for Innovation, and is currently working on developing the Venom Investigations for the Development of Antimicrobial Agents (VIDAA) network in collaboration with Irish, French and Belgian researchers.

To ‘Take Action’ and support Dr Dugon’s continued research into Venom Investigations for the Development of novel Antimicrobial Agents, visit: http://www.nuigalway.ie/zoology/research/venom/

To view Dr Michel Dugon’s talk on TED.com on Friday, 5 October at 11am EST, visit: www.go.ted.com/micheldugon

To read more about antimicrobial resistance and how the scientific community tries to address it, visit World Health Organization, at: http://www.who.int/antimicrobial-resistance/en/

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