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06 Sept 2025
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06 Sept 2025
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Dr Karen English (right) is presented with IRC Award by Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, Chair of the Irish Research Council
Arva’s Dr Karen English has won the Early-Career Researcher of the Year Award of the Irish Research Council (IRC).
Dr English was presented with the IRC Award in recognition of her research on developing ‘calming’ cells in therapies for inflammatory conditions such as asthma, and for immune system disorders, such as organ transplant rejection.
Accepting her award at an event held in the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in Dublin last night, Dr English said she was humbled and delighted by the recognition of the work conducted by herself and the team.
Meanwhile, the local woman is a Principal Investigator at Maynooth University’s Department of Biology and head of the Cellular Immunology Lab.
“My research focuses on how we can use cell therapy, for example, in asthma patients, to try to control or re-programme the condition so that the immune system is calmed, and we can give patients a better quality of life,” she said, before pointing to the fact that the body makes mesenchymal stem cells in the bone marrow which are naturally able to calm inflammation in the body.
She says her aim is to make those cells even stronger and to use them as a form of therapy in inflammatory diseases.
“Additionally, our immune systems can resist potentially life-saving operations such as organ transplants and bone marrow transfusions,” Dr English adds.
“These patients often have to take immune-suppressing drugs for life to stop that rejection. But these drugs can have unwanted side-effects, so we are always looking for new and less toxic therapies to help.”
The IRC Researcher of the Year Awards commend the very best of current awardees or alumni working in academia, industry, civic society or the public sector.
One yearly award is made to an Early-Career Researcher currently working in research in an academic institution who is, or previously has been, a named awardee of the Council, and who has demonstrated an exceptional level of achievement in their field at this stage in their career.
For full details of research by Dr Karen English see Spotlight on Research.
Read Also: Arva scientist Karen English nabs big award for stem cell research
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