University of Galway has announced that renowned Irish singer Mary Coughlan will be the special guest at the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre conference. The 11th biennial international conference entitled ‘Promoting Equality Through Family Support’ takes place on campus on Thursday and Friday, June 13th and 14th, to examine how social exclusion, discrimination, poverty, migration, displacement and the accompanying trauma can impact parenting and family life. The critical role family support can play in contributing to the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by confronting inequality and exclusion will also be discussed. Mary Coughlan will offer her own perspective on the conference themes, interweaving three songs into her special guest speaker slot. The UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre was established at University of Galway in 2007 by Professor Pat Dolan and Professor John Canavan, and the following year the UNESCO Chair in Children, Youth and Civic Engagement was awarded. Professor Dolan will be honoured this week with the formal presentation of the Medal of the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw for life-long achievements in the field of children’s rights. Professor John Canavan, Director of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at University of Galway, said: “The award of the Maria Grzegorzewska University medal to Professor Dolan brings great honour to University of Galway and the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre and reflects his immense contribution to the improving the lives of children in Ireland and globally. The timing of the award is perfect as 200 delegates gather on campus at the Institute for Lifecourse and Society to reflect how to challenge inequality and discrimination in their day-to-day practice. It is a great privilege to have the renowned singer Mary Coughlan with us to reflect on those themes.” Mary Coughlan said: “I am going to explore in words, and some songs, the way I felt when I was younger, and my experience around trauma and the way I was treated, and contrast that with children and teenagers experiences in 2024.” Born in Shantalla in Galway City, Mary Coughlan has made some of the most uncompromising, wholly personal, and universal music by any Irish artist. In May of this year, she released new music ‘More like Brigid’, a homage to Brigid of Kildare who was a pagan and a healer before she was canonized by the Catholic Church. Ends

University of Galway has announced its annual information evening for adult learners, with scores of opportunities for professionals, the unemployed and those returning to work to take short courses and longer-term studies. The Centre for Adult Learning and Professional Development hosts the annual event on campus on Thursday June 20, 2024, from 5.30-7.30pm, in the Human Biology Building. The part-time courses for 2024/25 include fully-funded Springboard+ and Human Capital Initiative courses for the unemployed and returners, and 90% funding for those in work but seeking to upskill. New this year are micro-credentials courses with special subsidies worth 50-80% of fees for courses addressing skills in key priority areas, including renewable energy, sustainability, construction and planning, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, ICT, and electronic engineering. This event creates an opportunity for would-be students to meet representatives from our part-time courses, including in the area of Business and Management, Science and Technology, Languages, Arts and Humanities, Community Education, and pre-university courses.             Nuala McGuinn, Director at the Centre for Adult Learning and Professional Development at University of Galway, said: “We have created flexible learning pathways from micro-credential to masters for learners seeking a short, accredited module or a longer-term course. This event allows would-be students to meet representatives from our part-time courses to learn more about the benefits of newly funded and flexible learning opportunities, while also getting a chance to hear from our graduates and students on how to maintain a healthy work-life-study balance.” Over the course of the evening prospective students will have an opportunity to join talks exploring part-time courses and micro-credentials, understanding NFQ Levels, and grasping the Recognition of Prior Learning process and how it can support eligibility for study. Students will get expert tips from our Multimedia Content Developer on online learning and the Career Development team will share advice and resources to support you in your next step. Springboard+ approved courses for 2024/25 available here and our current list of micro-credentials can be found here. Student support services will also be on hand on the night to answer any queries learners may have as they decide on course options. For further information on this event and to register for this event visit universityofgalway.ie/adultlearning/info_eve  Ends

 Researchers at University of Galway have created digital babies to better understand infants’ health in their critical first 180 days of life. The team created 360 advanced computer models that simulate the unique metabolic processes of each baby. The digital babies are the first sex-specific computational whole-body models representing newborn and infant metabolism with 26 organs, six cell types, and more than 80,000 metabolic reactions. Real-life data from 10,000 newborns, including sex, birth weight and metabolite concentrations, enabled the creation and validation of the models, which can be personalised - enabling scientists to investigate an individual infant’s metabolism for precision medicine applications. The work was conducted by a team of scientists at University of Galway’s Digital Metabolic Twin Centre and Heidelberg University, led by APC Microbiome Ireland principal investigator Professor Ines Thiele. The team’s research aims to advance precision medicine using computational modelling. They describe the computational modelling of babies as seminal, as it enhances understanding of infant metabolism and creates opportunities to improve the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions during the early days of a baby’s life, such as inherited metabolic diseases. Lead author Elaine Zaunseder, Heidelberg University, said: “Babies are not just small adults - they have unique metabolic features that allow them to develop and grow up healthy. For instance, babies need more energy for regulating body temperature due to, for example, their high surface-area-to-mass ratio, but they cannot shiver in the first six months of life, so metabolic processes must ensure the infant keeps warm. “Therefore, an essential part of this research work was to identify these metabolic processes and translate them into mathematical concepts that could be applied in the computational model. We captured metabolism in an organ-specific manner, which offers the unique opportunity to model organ-specific energy demands that are very different in infants compared to adults. “As nutrition is the fuel for metabolism, we can use breast milk data from real newborns in our models to simulate the associated metabolism throughout the baby’s entire body, including various organs. Based on their nutrition, we simulated the development of digital babies over six months and showed that they will grow at the same rate as real-world infants.” Professor Ines Thiele, study lead on the project, said: “New-born screening programmes are crucial for detecting metabolic diseases early on, enhancing infant survival rates and health outcomes. However, the variability observed in how these diseases manifest in babies underscores the urgent need for personalised approaches to disease management. “Our models allow researchers to investigate the metabolism of healthy infants as well as infants suffering from inherited metabolic diseases, including those investigated in newborn screening. When simulating the metabolism of infants with a disease, the models showed we can predict known biomarkers for these diseases. Furthermore, the models accurately predicted metabolic responses to various treatment strategies, showcasing their potential in clinical settings.” Elaine Zaunseder added: “This work is a first step towards establishing digital metabolic twins for infants, providing a detailed view of their metabolic processes. Such digital twins have the potential to revolutionise paediatric healthcare by enabling tailored disease management for each infant's unique metabolic needs.” The research was published this week in Cell Metabolism This work was led by University of Galway and completed as part of a collaboration with Heidelberg University, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies and Heidelberg University Hospital, Germany. Ends