Tag Archives: CRANN

International art/science script competition ceremony will be hosted by Trinity College Dublin’s nano centre and STAGE

CRANN (Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices) at Trinity College Dublin has announced that it will be co-hosting the winner’s ceremony (and a reading of the winning script) for an international scriptwriting contest featuring science- and technology-inspired plays. From the Jan. 11, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

CRANN, the SFI [Science Foundation of Ireland] funded nanoscience centre based at Trinity College Dublin, today announced that it is bringing the STAGE International Script Competition to Ireland during Dublin City of Science 2012. The competition judges will include a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Nobel Laureate.

The STAGE International Script Competition is a unique collaboration between art and science that awards a prize of $10,000 for the best new play about science and technology. STAGE – Scientists, Technologists and Artists Generating Exploration – began as an alliance between the Professional Artists Lab, a dynamic artistic laboratory, and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Through CRANN’s relationship with CNSI, Dublin has beaten off stiff international competition to bring STAGE to Ireland.

As the 2012 City of Science, Dublin will host a programme of science-related events and activities throughout the year. The city will host Europe’s largest science conference, the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) 2012 from July 11-15, 2012, at which the winner of the 5th STAGE International Script Competition will first be announced to the public.

Later in the year, STAGE and CRANN will collaboratively host the award ceremony, at which the winning playwright will receive their STAGE Award from a science Nobel Laureate. In tandem with the ceremony, there will be a staged reading of the winning play, performed by professional Irish actors. Nancy Kawalek, Founder/Director of STAGE, will direct the reading.

Unfortunately, it’s too late for interested parties to submit their plays for this cycle (the 5th); submissions were closed as of Dec. 1, 2011.

The competition certainly seems to have attracted some high profile interest in past years (from the news item on Nanowerk),

Each cycle, the winner of the STAGE International Script Competition is chosen by a stellar panel of judges. Judges for the last cycle were Pulitzer Prize and Tony-Award winning playwright David Auburn; Tony, Olivier, and Obie Award-winning playwright John Guare; Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger; Nobel Laureate and KBE Sir Anthony Leggett; and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. In addition to Mr. Lindsay-Abaire, who has shown his support for STAGE by signing on as a judge ‘in perpetuity’, the judges for this 5th cycle of the competition will include two science Nobel Laureates and two additional distinguished writer-artists from the theatre world. The names of these jurors will be announced in early 2012.

The 3rd cycle winner was a play about Rosalind Franklin; I’ve long been interested in her story and  I mentioned it in a July 28, 2010 post about science-inspired knitting (there’s a ‘Rosalind’ scarf),

For anyone not familiar with Franklin (from the San Diego Super Computer Center at the University of Southern California web page),

There is probably no other woman scientist with as much controversy surrounding her life and work as Rosalind Franklin. Franklin was responsible for much of the research and discovery work that led to the understanding of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA. The story of DNA is a tale of competition and intrigue, told one way in James Watson’s book The Double Helix, and quite another in Anne Sayre’s study, Rosalind Franklin and DNA. James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received a Nobel Prize for the double-helix model of DNA in 1962, four years after Franklin’s death at age 37 from ovarian cancer.

Here’s a bit more about the 3rd cycle STAGE winner, Photograph 51, from the news item on Nanowerk,

A film version of third STAGE Competition winner Photograph 51 is being produced by Academy Award-nominated director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), Academy Award-winning actress Rachel Weisz, and Ari Handel. Playwright Anna Ziegler will adapt her play for the screen. Photograph 51 was featured at the 2011 World Science Festival in New York City; the play has also enjoyed prestigious productions in New York City and Washington, D.C.

 

About the Play: What does a woman have to do to succeed in the world of science? It is 1953 and Dr. Rosalind Franklin, brilliant, passionate and ambitious, pours herself into her work at King’s College Lab in London. When fellow scientists Watson and Crick find out about her discoveries in the field of DNA, her work is suddenly not her own – and shortly thereafter they claim credit for a major breakthrough. A compelling drama about a woman’s sacrifice for professional success, Photograph 51 asks how we become who we become, and whether we have any power to change.

I checked the playwright’s, Anna Ziegler, website for more information about the upcoming movie and found this,

Anna has been awarded [April 2011] a Tribeca Film Festival / Sloan Grant to adapt her play PHOTOGRAPH 51 into a film. Rachel Weisz, Ari Handel, Audrey Rosenberg and Darren Aronofsky are producers.

You can find out more about STAGE and other winners of the competition here.

Pretty nanopicture from Ireland

'The Hive', taken by Dr David McGovern at Trinity's Nanoscience Institute, CRANN.

The Hive was named the Research Image of the Year for 2011 by the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI). From the Nov. 22, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

The SFI Research Image competition offers SFI-funded researchers the opportunity to submit digital images created during the course of their research. The winning image was taken by Dr. David McGovern under supervision by Professor John Boland, CRANN’s [Center for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices] Director and Principal Investigator from TCD’s [Trinity College of Dublin] School of Chemistry.

The image is of a porous surface of the polymer polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA).  From the Nov. 18,  2011 news release on the Trinity College website,

Porous polymers have the potential to deliver new biocompatible nanodevices or nanotemplates for medical applications and are of significance not only in the biomedical industry but also for materials science.  CRANN’s research on porous polymers, during which the image was taken, has the potential to enable a wide variety of applications including therapeutic devices such as in implants, sutures, prosthetic devices and for drug delivery and wound care.

The image was produced using the Zeiss Auriga Focused Ion Beam (FIB) in CRANN’s Advanced Microscopy Laboratory (AML). The Auriga FIB is the only system in Europe and has the narrowest beam width of any such instrument on the market, enabling image resolution of less than 3 nanometres, approximately 30,000 times smaller than the width of one human hair.

Congratulations Dr. McGovern.

Irish nanoscience goes to school

The ‘Nano in My Life’ educational package for students in the senior or transitional year (TY) was launched today, Nov. 17, 2011, by Trinity College Dublin’s CRANN ( Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices). From the Nov. 17, 2011 news  item on Nanowerk,

The ‘Nano in My Life’ package, for the first time, will bring nanoscience – an area of research at which Ireland excels and which is a key enabler for innovation and economic growth – to the Irish classroom. It will encourage students to relate science subjects to innovative careers, with exciting and challenging applications. There are seven modules, each using a range of teaching and learning approaches, including video captured at CRANN, designed to engage students and encourage active learning.

Approximately 10% of Irish exports (€15 billion) are enabled by nanotechnology with tens of thousands of jobs in the ICT [Information and Communication Technology] and medical devices sectors dependent upon this research. Ireland is ranked 6th in the world for nanoscience research and 8th for materials science research (a branch of nanoscience), with CRANN enabling the majority of this research. Earlier in the week, Prof Jonathan Coleman, Principal Investigator at CRANN and Trinity College Dublin’s School of Physics was announced as the ‘Science Foundation Ireland Researcher of the Year’ for 2011.

Commenting on the launch, Mary Colclough, CRANN’s Communications and Outreach Manager said, “There is a real need to introduce secondary school students to cutting-edge nanoscience research which is driving innovation, providing jobs for highly skilled graduates and is now forming an important part of studying science at third level. CRANN is at the cutting edge of nanoscience research, which has the potential to revolutionise a number of industries, so we feel it is important to open students’ eyes to the opportunities that will be available in the future and hopefully inspire the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg.”

Teachers are being encouraged to apply for a package by contacting  nanoinmylife@tcd.ie. BTW, I was not aware of highly ranked Irish nanoscience research has become. Bravo!

There is also a Trinity College Dublin (TCD) YouTube channel which features a number Nano in My Life videos including this one,

I wonder when we’re going to see similar science education initiatives in Canada.

Ireland’s nanotechnology scene

I missed this back when it was launched in August 2010: NanoNet Ireland. From the Jan. 17, 2011  news item on Techcentral.ie,

Organisations working with nanoscience from academia and industry have come together to form NanoNet, a single body designed to represent and promote awareness of nanotechnology.

Of €150 billion in goods and services exported by Ireland in 2008, it is estimated 10% were enabled by nanoscience and related nanotechnologies. By focusing on the area of nanotechnology there is the potential to grow this figure to 20% allowing Ireland to take a significant share of an estimated global market of €3 trillion in 2015.

NanoNet brings together the key stakeholders from [the] nano ecoysystem in Ireland which comprises academic institutions, multinational companies and indigenous Irish companies. Ireland has more than 500 companies, both multinational and indigenous, employing approximately 130,000 people in the ICT, medical devices and biopharmaceutical sectors. These companies utilise nanotechnology for continued product innovation and competitiveness.

NanoNet is made up of two major nano related consortia. INSPIRE, funded by the HEA, is comprised of internationally leading researchers across ten third level institutions and coordinated by CRANN (TCD), a Science Foundation Ireland funded Centre for Science and Engineering Technology. The recently announced Competence Centre for Applied Nanotechnology (CCAN), funded by Enterprise Ireland and the Industrial Development Agency, includes both leading multi-national companies such as Intel, Analog Devices and Seagate and indigenous Irish companies such as Creganna, Aerogen, Audit Diagnostics and Proxybiomedical. CCAN, hosted by the Tyndall National Institute at UCC and CRANN, together with INSPIRE represents an impressive Nano-ecosystem for Ireland.

In the works for Jan. 31 – Feb. 1, 2011 is a Nanoweek Conference in Carton House, Co. Kildare. From NanoNet Ireland’s Nanoweek conference webpage,

Following the success of Nanoweek 2009 and the INSPIRE-09 National Scientific Meeting, NanoNet Ireland is pleased to announce the second Nanoweek Conference, to be held from the 31st January – 1st February 2011 in Carton House, Co. Kildare.

Nanotechnology is now impacting products and businesses in most major industry sectors. This event will bring together leading Irish and international nanoscience researchers and invited speakers with direct experience in building technology companies from world class nanotechnology research.

The conference will also allow researchers to identify and interact with other leading nanotechnology researchers from Irish research institutes, to meet with funding agency representatives, and to network with and present their work to potential industry partners.

Questions addressed

For researchers

What nanoscience areas are viewed as key for commercial success? Who is working in these areas in Ireland? I want to commercialise my research – what are the first steps I should take? What funding is available? What opportunities exist for collaboration? What expertise are companies seeking? What is the international view of nanoscience commercialisation? What is best practice in technology transfer? What changes have taken place in the funding landscape? – the funding agencies’ view?

For industry attendees

How can nanotechnology help my business? How can nanotechnology improve my competitiveness? How are companies currently using nanotechnology? What nanotechnology expertise is currently available in Ireland? How do I access it? How can I get financial support for the work?

For everyone

How have nanotechnology-enabled ideas been commercialised? Where are the market opportunities? What are the hurdles? What is the investor viewpoint?

Delegate Profiles

Product developers and designers from the medical device, diagnostics and ICT industries.

Manufacturing and quality engineers keen to learn how advanced characterisation tools can help troubleshoot product issues more efficiently.

Nanoscience researchers keen to understand the leading new nanoscience research topics, meet the researchers, understand the commercial possibilities and processes, and network with potential industry partners promote and develop commercial potential of their research.

Investment professionals seeking business opportunities from nanotechnology

I last posted about some of the nanotechnology initiatives in Ireland, Oct. 27, 2010.