Dr. Mario A. Fares was born in Valencia, Spain. He completed his secondary level studies in Valencia and enrolled at the University of Valencia in 1992. After completing his studies in the university, he graduated with a degree in Biology in 1997, with special focus in Genetics and Statistics. During his degree studies he showed an early interest in the evolutionary mechanisms responsible for the evolution of RNA viruses, completing his Masters thesis in the study of the molecular dynamics of the foot-and-mouth disease virus. The University of Valencia awarded him with the Extraordinary Prize for the academic accomplishments in July of 1998. In 1998 he started his Ph.D. in the analysis of the role of heat-shock proteins in the maintenance of bacterial endosymbiosis using bioinformatic and molecular techniques.

He was one of only three Ph.D students in Spain awarded the First Extraordinary prize in 2002.

During his postgraduate studies, he also devoted part of his time to the study of the evolution of RNA viruses in the department of Zoology in Oxford University in 1999, under the supervision of Dr. Edward C. Holmes. Dr. Fares was offered an award funded by the Fulbright Foundation and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology. He was also offered and accepted a postdoctoral position in Bioinformatics in the laboratory of Prof. Kenneth H. Wolfe in the Department of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin. Eleven months later he secured a permanent position as lecturer in the Department of Biology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth in 2003. Dr. Fares’ publication record spans his different fields of expertise and includes journal articles in Nature, Journal of Molecular Evolution and Bioinformatics. He has also presented a number of papers at International meetings across Europe. Dr. Fares has maintained strong collaborations with prestigious research groups in Spain and Oxford and hopes to build new collaborations with both bioinformatics and biomedical groups around the globe. He is committed to developing a multi-disciplinary Computational Biomedicine Research Team at NUI Maynooth through the training of postgraduate students and the development of new course material spanning these two important disciplines.

Dr. Emmeline Hill is a graduate of the Department of Genetics, University of Dublin, Trinity College. Her Ph.D., completed in 2000, was conducted under the supervision of SFI Investigator Dr. Dan Bradley and investigated the molecular genetic origins of the Irish people. During her Ph.D. she also worked at the International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya, to understand the genetic origins of African cattle populations.

After her Ph.D. she spent time as a consultant at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations both at headquarters in Rome and in Accra, Ghana, working on projects including the documentation of farm animal genetic resources and producing education and extension materials for urban-dwellers to breed and produce giant cane rats.

In Ghana she also worked as a volunteer primary school teacher in a small peri-urban community. She also completed a 10-month post-doctoral position at the Department of Genetics, Trinity College, Dublin, investigating the genetic origins of the thoroughbred.

More recently she has spent two years as senior post-doc with SFI Investigator Dr. David MacHugh in the Department of Animal Science, University College Dublin, using functional genomics tools to understand the host response of cattle to infection with the trypanosome parasite. She is also currently involved in a project investigating the genetic structure of the endangered Irish Draught horse population.

Her publication record includes journal articles in Nature, Science, American Journal of Human Genetics and Animal Genetics, all of which led to widespread media coverage. She has also published articles in the non-scientific press including The Racing Post and Inside Ireland Magazine. She has presented papers at meetings around the world including Europe, Africa, Australia and North America and has established a solid network of scientific collaborators.

Dr. Hill and her family have a longstanding involvement with the thoroughbred breeding and racing industry. She is consultant to top-class internationally renowned horse breeding operations and has established important industry collaborations with Monksgrange Stud, Co. Wexford, Ballylinch Stud, Co. Kilkenny and The Oaks Stud, New Zealand.

Dr. Jens Erik Nielsen received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark in 1995. He continued his studies by performing an interdisciplinary structure-function study of α-amylases with Novozymes A/S, Copenhagen. This work resulted in a M.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Copenhagen in February 1997. Following his graduation Dr Nielsen moved to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany where he worked under the supervision of Dr. Gert Vriend in a collaborative project with Dr. Torben V. Borhcert at Novozymes.

In May 2000 Dr. Nielsen was awarded a Ph.D with a thesis entitled “The pH-dependence of α-Amylase Catalysis” from the EMBL/Phillips Universität Marburg. After taking a brief postdoctoral position with Dr. Luis Serrano (EMBL) on an EMBO bridging postdoc fellowship, Dr Nielsen moved to a postdoctoral position with Prof. J. Andrew McCammon at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in May 2001. During his time at UCSD he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Danish Natural Science Research Council and a postdoctoral fellowship from Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

In October 2004 Dr Nielsen returned to Europe to take up a permanent position as a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry in the Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research at University College Dublin (UCD). At UCD, he has continued to pursue his long-time research interests which revolve around understanding enzymes. Dr Nielsen enjoys combining theoretical and experimental work, and believes this approach to be particularly effective in increasing our knowledge of complex biological phenomena. Jens is the author of the WHAT IF pKa calculation package and co-author of the FOLD-X program (protein stability prediction) as well as being involved in several international research collaborations that aim of increasing our understanding of enzyme structure-function studies.

Dr. Nielsen has authored a number of scientific articles where he has explored protein pKa calculations in depth, including publications in Protein Engineering, Journal of Biological Chemistry and Nucleic Acids Research. In addition, he has published a number of invited book chapters on enzyme engineering and presented his work at meetings in Europe, Australia and the USA.

Dr. Nielsen is now poised to pursue research that involves a combination of Computational Biology, Experimental Molecular Biology and Advanced Software Development. Dr Nielsen is particularly committed to the general applicability of his research findings and spends a good deal of time on making his software and results available to biologists world-wide. Jens furthermore believes in a very down-to-earth approach to teaching, with focus on active student participation during lectures.

Dr Fergal O’Brien is a graduate in mechanical engineering from Trinity College, Dublin. After receiving his degree in 1997, he carried out research for his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Clive Lee in the Dept. of Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and Prof. David Taylor at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering in TCD. His thesis work was in the area of bone mechanics and studied in particular the relationship between microcracks and the fatigue behaviour of bone. Following his Ph.D., he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in RCSI and TCD in the area of bone mechanics. In June, 2001, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to carry out research in orthopaedic tissue engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA. The research he worked on was part of an interdisciplinary research cluster on orthopaedic biomaterials and tissue engineering between MIT and Cambridge University, UK and was funded by the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) and the Fulbright Program. The research was carried out in collaboration between groups in the Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering and the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering in MIT and the Dept. of Orthopaedic Surgery in Harvard Medical School. The research funded by the SFI President of Ireland Young Researcher Award will be an extension of the work initiated during his time in the US and combines his two main areas of expertise, bone mechanics and biology and tissue engineering. During his time in the US he participated in the HST010-Human Functional Anatomy course run by the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology. He has received a number of awards for his research including a New Investigator Recognition Award at the Orthopaedic Research Society’s annual meeting in Dallas, Texas in January, 2002.

In May, 2003 he left the US to take up his present position as Lecturer in Anatomy in RCSI. Since his return he has been appointed Principal Investigator in the Higher Education Authority (PRTLI) funded Trinity Centre for Bioengineering and he is also Co-chairman of the Bioengineering Research Group in RCSI. He is the Newsletter and Website Editor of the European Society for Engineering and Medicine and is also a Council Member of the Society. He is a reviewer for a number of research journals in the biomedical engineering and bone fields. His present research interests include the mechanical bahaviour of bone, bone remodelling, osteoporosis and tissue engineering and he has a number of postgraduate students working in this area under his supervision.

Dr. O’Brien has an extensive publication record spanning the fields involved in tissue engineering, including journal articles in Journal of Biomechanics and Biomaterials and book chapters in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering. He has also given a number of invited talks at International meetings of both medical and engineering organisations, including a presentation at the 2004 workshop of the Irish Medical Devices Association.