Limerick academic made head of ‘world-leading’ research centre

A Limerick professor has taken a leap forward as he becomes head of one of the world’s top research centres, based in University of Limerick.

Treaty County native, Professor Damien Thompson has been officially appointed as Director of the world-leading SSPC the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals at the University of Limerick.

As course director of the Master of Science in Bioprocessing, and professor of molecular modelling at UL, Prof Thompson leads the predictive materials modelling group at SSPC and the Bernal Institute at UL. His research focus is in the area of modelling and design of nano-structured materials for health and sustainability.

He played a key part in the development of new molecular materials for health and sustainability applications, most recently in brain-inspired organic computing.

Last year, Prof Thompson was made SSPC’s Investigator of the Year after making a significant impact to SSPC through development of the Modelling theme in Phase II, which has been branded world-leading by an international review panel.

His modelling group publishes regularly in world-leading journals including Nature, Nature Materials and Nature Chemistry.

According to the SSPC website, he has previously worked with scientists in Zurich and Madrid developing a new kind of medical sensor that can detect a substance down to the level of a molecule. They believe it may provide fast and accurate point-of-care detection for diseases such as Ebola, HIV or even the common cold.