People:

Dr. Eithne Demsey  

Principal Investigator  

Dr. Eithne Dempsey BSc. PhD, MRSC, CCHEM, received her BSc.(Hons) and PhD in Electroanalytical Chemistry from Dublin City University, followed by a two year EU funded postdoctoral research programme at St. Vincent’s Hospital (Dublin) in the area of  Total Analysis Systems. In 1996, she joined the Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT Dublin) as a chemistry lecturer. She currently manages the Centre for Research in Electroanalytical Technologies (CREATE) and research areas include electroanalytical methods, sensor technology, environmental and biomedical analysis, microdialysis, nanofabrication/nanomaterials. She has >40 peer reviewed publications in these areas, and has successfully supervised 12 MSc. and PhD students to completion.

Dr. James Hayes

Centre Manager

James graduated with a degree in biochemistry form Trinity College, Dublin following which he obtained his M.Sc. and subsequently a Ph.D. in molecular genetics, also from Trinity. To date James has worked for four diagnostics companies including Murex Biotech, Trinity Biotech, DxTech and most recently as Director of R&D for Audit Diagnostics. James’s expertise lies in the development, validation and commercialisation of in vitro diagnostic assays for both high-through put systems and point of care devices. James has been involved in both Irish government funded and European projects aimed at addressing unmet need in the human diagnostics sectors and he has also been on various centre of excellence steering committees and on the board of the competence centre for applied nanotechnology (CCAN).

 Dr. Mary Deasy

BSc PhD CChemMRSC graduated with a BSc (1^st Hons) and PhD in Chemistry from University College Cork, before going on to work as a Research and Development Chemist for the American multinational pharmaceutical company Syntex (now Roche Ireland), based in County Clare. She took up a postdoctoral position in their drug discovery headquarters in Palo Alto, California in 1991. She joined the Institute of Technology Tallaght to take up a lecturing post in 1993 and is now a Senior Lecturer within the Department of Science. She has been involved in the development of all Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Degree Programmes set up within the Department, and has acted as Project Manager for landmark academic quality Institute reviews in recent years, particularly those involved with delegated authority for our PhD programmes. Her PhD research was conducted in collaboration with Loctite Ireland (now Henkel Loctite) and has led many industrial projects with companies in Ireland since joining the Institute in 1993, where she now manages a synthetic chemistry research group. Her research feeds into many research centres within the Institute including MiCRA (nanomaterial and electrocatalyst development) and the Centre for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (antimicrobial and field), and also the National Centre for Sensor Research which is based at DCU. Her publication record is primarily in the area of design and synthesis of calixarene compounds for industrial use. She has 10 peer reviewed publications in the area of sensor/nanomaterial development and numerous conference publications. Key research and industrial expertise areas are as follows: Heterocyclic Chemistry; Calixarenes; Supramolecular Chemistry; Molecular Recognition; Host-Guest Chemistry; Pharmaceutical R&D which includes Process Development / Validation

Dr. Brian Seddon

Research Scientist

Following pesticide sensor research at Shell Research Centre, UK, Brian Seddon PhD MRSC, worked on Thorn-EMI funded R&D in 1980s concerning immunochemical applications of silicon-based micro-sensors. He received a doctorate degree from Edinburgh University in 1989 specialising in analytical electrochemistry. Since then he has worked in Europe and Asia within several industrial-academic collaborations involving the design and micro-engineering of gas sensors, environmental chemical detectors and antibody-functionalised biosensor platforms. He has more than ten peer-reviewed scientific publications and is co-inventor of four sensor-related patents.

Interests span physical and chemical phenomena important to electroanalytical micro-systems – including mechanisms associated with protein-electrode interactions and interfacial processes relevant to electronic signal generation for molecular sensors. He is currently involved in developmental projects on chemo-electronic sensors integrated with autonomous-continuous monitor systems and immunodiagnostic test kits.

He is employed by ITT-Dublin to commercialise immuno-sensors for application to veterinary and agri-science businesses. His work on Fasciola hepatica (liver fluke) in livestock concerns the development of portable electronic assay technology and is a collaborative project with the Veterinary Science Centre at UCD.

 Dr. Rodica Doaga

Postdoctoral Researcher

Rodica graduated with a B.Sc. in chemistry form the University of Bucharest following which she obtained an M. Sc. in analytical chemistry from the same university. Rodica completed her PhD in the Institute of Technology, Tallaght in the area of novel biosensing materials. Rodica has completed a number of industry lead post doctorial projects within MiCRA primarily in the area of electrochemical detection of enzyme biomarkers.

Dr Susan Warren

Postdoctoral Researcher

Susan graduated with a B.Sc. in Chemical Sciences from the Dublin Institute of Technology, following which she obtained her Ph.D. in biosensor mediation from the Institute of Technology, Tallaght. Susan has worked as research chemist for Henkel technologies. Susan is currently a post doctoral researcher in the MiCRA centre in ITT working on the development of sensors arrays coupled with micro dialysis for in vivo detection of neurochemicals, such as glutamate, lactate and dopamine.

Dr Anna Tsigara

Postdoctoral Researcher

Anna graduated with A B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Ioannina following which she obtained an M.Sc. in photonics form the same university. Anna completed her Ph.D. in material science from the National Technical University of Athens. Anna is currently researching the use of nanosphere lithography as a method for developing biosensors with unique and improved sensing characteristics

 David Ward,

Post Graduate Student

David is currently a post graduate student in MiCRA working on an electrochemical based sensor for the determination of nitrate and nitrite in drinking Water. This project is funded by EPA Ireland under the STRIVE Masters Scholarship. This project employs nanostructured materials to modify working electrodes with selective catalytic layers, composed of cationic (e.g. osmium, iron complexes, osmium metallodendrimers) and anionic (i.e. polyoxometallates) components. The integration of this sensor into a custom designed flow cell device will result in small sample volume requirements and increased speed of analysis, with capability for continuous environmental monitoring.

Dhanraj Rathod

Post Graduate Student

Dhanraj is currently a post graduate student in MiCRA working in the area of nano structured materials for biomedical applications. Previously Danraj completed his M.Sc. in physical chemistry form Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University Aurangabad, MS, India.