University of Galway PhD student wins John Lynch Award for the best poster at the 60th Annual Irish Neurological Association Meeting in Kilkenny.

Bianca Castelli, a Neuroscience PhD student at the University of Galway, has won the prestigious John Lynch Award for best poster at the Irish Neurological Meeting in Kilkenny for her work on biomarkers in multiple sclerosis (MS). The meeting, run annually by the Irish Institute of Clinical Neuroscience, brings together clinicians and scientists to discuss the latest developments in neurological research and clinical practice. Bianca’s research and her knowledge of the subject impressed the judges so much that she beat stiff competition from neurologists and researchers from Ireland and Europe to scoop this prize.

Bianca, supervised by Dr Una FitzGerald and Dr Jill McMahon, is an early career researcher in the lifETIME (Engineered Tissues for Discovery, Industry and Medicine) CDT programme (https://lifetime-cdt.org/), a partnership between the University of Glasgow, Aston University and CÚRAM. Her research involves investigation of non-imaging biomarkers in MS with a view to developing point-of-care devices for easier diagnosis and disease-monitoring. It is very fitting that she has won an award named in memory of our colleague, Dr John Lynch, a neurologist at Galway University Hospitals, much missed and who contributed so much to Galway Neuroscience Centre.