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Tackling fatal bloodstream infections A group of researchers have secured a €5.3 million Wellcome Trust award to combat fatal bloodstream infections, with a focus on the leading culprit, Staphylococcus aureus. Led by women, this collaborative effort involves specialists from Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, APC Microbiome Ireland, University College Cork (UCC), University of Exeter, and University of Bristol. Despite medical progress, Staphylococcus aureus remains a global threat, especially with antimicrobial-resistant strains like MRSA. The rising incidence of bloodstream infections poses a challenge, compounded by a lack of understanding of the bacteria’s behaviour. Approximately one-third of the population carries Staphylococcus aureus in their microbiome, heightening infection risks. Rachel McLoughlin (Trinity), Professor Ruth Massey (UCC), Professor Mario Recker (University of Exeter), and researchers from University of Bristol aim to decode how Staphylococcus aureus damages human tissue and evades immune responses, thanks to this Wellcome Trust grant. The Decant of the Research Collections from the Old Library As part of the Old Library Redevelopment Project (OLRP), the Old Library has now been emptied of its collections amounting to over 700,000 items, including 350,000 volumes. To mark the conclusion of this first phase and decant of material, the video captures the work by Library staff and project assistants over two years, from the spring of 2022 to the present. Significant thought, great care and immense effort has gone into safely moving collections on this scale and the dedication of everyone involved has been remarkable. A new Interim Research Collections Study Centre will be opening in the basement of the Ussher Library on 7 May. It will be the new temporary home of a Joint Research Collections Reading Room for Early Printed Books, Special Collections and Manuscripts & Archives for the duration of the OLRP. The collections include the Library’s oldest and most precious books, maps, manuscripts, and archives, with collections dating from 3,000 years ago to the present day. The Glucksman Map Library Reading Room will also reopen alongside the temporary new Study Centre. Trinity on the move On 14 March, Trinity’s Health and Sport Week began with ‘Trinity on the Move,’ a college-wide initiative featuring events to raise money for the Student Hardship Fund. Led by Registrar Neville Cox and organized by Trinity Sport and the Healthy Trinity Committee, the event raised over €10,000. Activities included a campus-wide relay race, the Library Loopers circuit, the Day Nursery’s sponsored walk, and the Trinity Access Programme’s team walk from distant TAP-linked schools to campus. The Senior Tutor’s Office and the college’s tutors completed a full 12-hour relay led by Senior Tutor Stephen Smith. Speaking at the event, Professor Neville Cox, Registrar, said: ‘People have been fantastic and it’s been an incredibly sociable experience. Over the last two decades I’ve seen so many students whose lives have been saved in the university by the hardship fund.’
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The ethical lens Trinity’s Professor of Ecumenics, Linda Hogan explains why campuses and workplaces are seeking ethical solutions to 21st century challenges L inda Hogan, Professor of Ecumenics, is in demand as an ethicist, both within the university and beyond: she represented Ireland in the negotiation of the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. She has been high profile within the university since serving as vice-provost from 2011 to 2016 and running for the provostship in 2020, an experience she describes as ‘refreshing’ in that all three candidates were women, ‘which took gender off the table’ but ‘frustrating’ because it was during lockdown so the entire campaign took place online and she ‘missed the personal connection with people’. (She also has the distinction of being named, in the Sunday Times in 2013, as a potential candidate for first female cardinal, though the article went on to admit the unlikeliness of a ‘married feminist’ being appointed, however liberal the new pope). As Vice-Provost, she was known for getting difficult things done by building consensus, including rethinking the undergraduate curriculum and developing the new Strategic Plan. This leadership style, together with her disciplinary expertise in ethics, is what now sees her in such demand for initiatives across the campus. Ethics investigates the principles governing the moral evaluation of conduct and the practical reasons why people should act one way rather than another. While it has its roots in ancient philosophies and world religions, it has always had broad application to emerging issues – as a young lecturer in the early 1990s, Hogan
