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INSPIRING FUTURE LEADERS It’s 80 years since donor Dr Joan McCormick studied in Trinity. A pioneer for women in science, she returned to campus to meet with two of the incredible students she has supported I n 1946 – when few women were going to university and fewer still were choosing to study science – a young Joan McCormick came to Trinity. She stayed to do a PhD and join the research lab of Dr Stanley McElhinney. She spent her career in Trinity, researching cancer compounds and co-authoring 42 papers. A true pioneer, she helped prepare the way for today’s women scientists. A passionate believer that education should be open to all, Joan has long supported student scholarships in the Trinity Access Programmes (TAP) and in 2022 she gave a significant gift to the university to support initiatives in cancer research, as well as in TAP. Joan has supported generations of students through Trinity including Deirdre McAdams, now a postdoctoral student in material chemistry, and Josh Flynn, winner of the recently established Joan McCormick PhD Cancer Scholarship . We brought Joan, Deirdre, and Josh together in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute to discuss all the things that unite them. Joan is now 95 years old and in the near eight decades since she first entered college, there have been extraordinary advances in cancer research and huge changes on campus, but the three still speak the same language of Trinity, research, trailblazing, and ‘giving back’. Joan: After I did my PhD in chemistry in the early 1950s, I got a job with the Medical Research Council [forerunner to the Health Research Board]. It was a small unit, which rented space in Trinity. We had labs in what was then the Parade Ground, at the Westland Row end. When the Medical Research Council closed in the 1980s, Trinity took over our unit. I spent my entire working life on the college campus, which was a joy. Deirdre: I did my PhD in labs here in TBSI. Now I work in the Sami Nasr Institute, opposite the Business School. My PhD was in synthetic chemistry, synthesising anti-cancer drugs, but I’m now doing postdoctoral work in material chemistry, funded through Sustainable Energy Ireland. The project I’m currently working on explores how seaweed can generate new materials [research that was also established through philanthropy and a gift from Dr Beate Schuler]. I love that it’s a novel area, more so than my PhD actually. Josh: I’m over in the St James’s Hospital campus. My PhD is clinically based so we need that proximity to patients. There have been huge advances over the last twenty years in treating many cancers, but far fewer advances in my field of small cell cancers. I’m looking at how platelets contribute to disease spread in small cell lung cancer. 11
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Joan: Most of my research was in cancer. In the 1950s and ’60s that was still a new field. I was one of the only women in the lab. Deirdre: I remember meeting you for coffee, Joan, alongside your friend Mai, when I was an undergraduate. We would meet in the café in the Science Gallery every few months. I was really aware of what a pioneer you were, as one of the first women to study chemistry and make a career in research. I could see some similarities between us because at the time there weren’t a lot of girls like me from Ballyfermot doing chemistry in Trinity, and I think I was the first TAP student to get ‘schols’. That was a decade ago. Joan: I sat ‘schols’ too! My tutor really encouraged me, but he didn’t know how bad my physics was! So, I didn’t actually get ‘schols’ but remember studying for it. That was just after the war and the college was short on funds for heating – you can’t imagine how cold it was in the library. I’d sit up near the radiators trying to keep warm. And as a woman, I had to be out of the Reading Room and off campus by 6pm. Deirdre: That’s astonishing! How could you even study if you couldn’t stay late in the library? And I guess that means there were no women living in rooms. What a difference. I’ve lived in rooms across campus: in Botany Bay, New Square and Goldsmith Hall. I was living on campus when Covid struck – we had to leave overnight, more or less, which wasn’t easy, and my research was really affected: we had only just prepared cell lines and we had to kill them when the lab closed. Josh: I started my Master's in molecular medicine in September 2019, so I’d done about six months when we went into lockdown. I wasn’t doing lab research so there wasn’t an issue about switching to online, though of course it had its challenges. Joan: I caught Covid very badly in the first lockdown – so bad I don’t actually remember much about it. I was unlucky to get it – the nursing home I’m in was really careful, and very few others got it. Josh: After my Master's, I got a job with the Covid screening taskforce in college, which I was grateful for because it took so long to get funding for my PhD. I was three years looking. It was really frustrating. My supervisor suggested I apply for the Joan McCormick PhD Cancer Scholarship . You get a bit numb to the application process, so I wasn’t allowing myself to hope. When I got word I’d been successful, it took a few days to sink in. Thank you Joan! Deirdre: I know that feeling when you hear you’re going to be supported to study. There’s nothing like it. I’m so appreciative always of people like Joan who give us that opportunity. I want to give back, which is why I was really involved in TAP throughout my time in college, going out to schools and talking to students, and I’m still involved – I now teach on the Foundation Course. I have to say I love teaching even more than research. Joan: Becoming a donor was an easy decision for me. I was lucky enough to get a family inheritance. As one person, I don’t need that much. I was very happy to use my legacy to support the two things that really matter to me: Trinity and cancer research. 12
