Welcome to new researchers, best wishes to departing staff (August 2007)

In August 2007, two new members joined the CAMBio team, bringing staff recruitment under the Enterprise Ireland ARE programme to completion.

Dr. Maria Hayes from Tipperary joined the team after completing her Ph.D. research at Teagasc Moorepark on the identification of bioactives from dairy waste under the guidance of Prof. Paul Ross, Dr. Catherine Staunton and Prof. Gerald Fitzgerald. As postdoctoral researcher at CAMBio she will continue her work on the identification of bioactives from waste; however the search will focus on crab processing waste from the Donegal processors – Errigal Eisc Teo and Atlanfish Ltd. Maria has settled in rapidly at CAMBio, has already established a culture collection of micro-organisms from various sources for fermentation of the waste and has commenced work with a new INFORS fermentation unit for optimising the fermentation process. Progress has been speedy and we all welcome Maria to the team and can assure her of our support in developing her research programme.

The other new recruit to the CAMBio team is Ms. Sonja Nitecki from Finland. Sonja transferred to Ireland from the University of Turku where she had just completed her Master Degree in Biotechnology. She has accepted the post of Research Technician vacated by Aaron Maloy, who has transferred to the position of Research Assistant and registered for a Ph.D. with University College Cork under the HEA Strand III project investigating shellfish larval diets. Sonja has settled down well learning all the new procedures used by the different sections at Letterkenny Institute of Technology. Always willing to learn, Sonja has become particularly involved with Wolfram’s project developing multiplex real-time PCR protocols for bacterial pathogens associated with the salmon processing industry.

Just as new faces come to the group, so others depart. Dr. Ivan Bendezu was the first postdoctoral researcher to undertake research work at Letterkenny Institute of Technology. Ivan was employed in 2003 on the first HEA Strand III project awarded to the Institute to develop biotechnological techniques for shellfish larval identification. After this three-year contract, he was successful in procuring another two-year contract to work on the development of fluorescence in-situ hybridisation techniques for shellfish larval identification using molecular beacon probes. Ivan’s contract ended in February 2008 with completion of this work programme. Best wishes for the future go to Ivan and his family from the CAMBio team at Letterkenny.