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Shane Kenny Memorial Biotechnology Lecture Tuesday 22nd February 2022

Shane Kenny Memorial Biotechnology Lecture Tuesday 22nd February 2022

 Shane Kenny

Dr Shane Kenny, UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, passed away unexpectedly in his sleep on 27 July 2020. It came as a huge shock to his colleagues and friends at UCD, who are still suffering as a result of their loss. Shane was a huge personality with so much energy and dedication. He was based in UCD for over a period of nearly 20 years.

Shane was a graduate of Industrial Microbiology from SBBS and joined the laboratory of Prof Kevin O' Connor as a PhD student, where he studied a combination of Chemistry and Microbiology to convert waste plastic to biodegradable plastic.  He continued his research as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof O' Connor’s lab and published his work in the American chemical society journal Environmental Science and Technology. This paper has been cited over 100 times since 2008. His research was also successfully patented in the US and EU and licensed to the UCD spin-out company Bioplastech.  Shane became Bioplastech's first employee and led the development of the technology through multiple international collaborations and scale up projects.

Shane helped so many undergraduate students, visiting students, graduate students and postdocs during his time at UCD together with the MSc Biotechnology students placed with Bioplastech. He was always willing to help, always willing to do that little bit extra for the success of a project. His energy and willingness to help others meant he was forever fixing and maintaining equipment so that projects could keep going. In a university and in a start-up his skills and his mindset were critical to keeping the boat afloat and moving forward. His passing has left a huge hole and his absence is felt every day.
The School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science and BiOrbic Bioeconomy SFI Research centre held the inaugral memorial Biotechnology lecture in honour of Shane on what would have been his 38th birthday on Feb 22nd 2021.This year, the   2022 Shane Kenny Memorial Biotechnology lecture will be delivered by  Prof Auxi Prieto of the  Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), CIB, Madrid, Spain, and Mix-UP partner 
Prof Auxi Prieto is full Professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and is the coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Platform for Sustainable Plastics towards a Circular Economy SusPlast ((opens in a new window)www.susplast-csic.org), which consists of eighteen institutes in the CSIC with multidisciplinary research groups devoted to implementing plastic circularity. At the Biological Research Center-Margarita Salas (CIB-CSIC), Prof Prieto is the Head of the Polymer Biotechnology group in the Plant and Microbial Biotechnology Department. The group aims to explore and exploit the bacterial abilities to produce and degrade bio-based polymers in order to contribute to global sustainability, using tools of molecular biology and metabolic engineering, combined with omic technologies and synthetic biology.
The lecture will take place via Zoom as follows:

2022 Shane Kenny Memorial Biotechnology lecture

Date: Tuesday February 22nd 2022 at 13:00 Irish time, 14:00 CET

Topic:   Bacterial polyesters from a microbiological view beyond bio-based plastics production
VIRTUAL EVENT (ZOOM) - Zoom link will be available when you register at:  (opens in a new window)https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/2022-shane-kenny-memorial-biotechnology-lecture-tickets-240099984517

Contact the UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science

H1.38 O’Brien Centre for Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
T: +353 1 716 2130 | E: undergrad.sbbs@ucd.ie | Location Map(opens in a new window)