Award for UCC academic inventor

A UCC professor has added another string to his bow.

Prof. Fergus Shanahan, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at UCC and founding Director of APC Microbiome Ireland, the SFI Research Centre at UCC, was elected to the National Academy of Inventors which recognises prolific academic inventors across the globe.

Prof. Fergus Shanahan, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at UCC and founding Director of APC Microbiome Ireland, the SFI Research Centre at UCC, was elected to the National Academy of Inventors which recognises prolific academic inventors across the globe.

Prof. Shanahan is an inventor of more than 20 patents in the field of microbiome science and gastroenterology. Shanahan has also published more than 500 scientific papers and co-authored or edited ten books and 80 book chapters. He is a Fellow of Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, Canada, and UK, and American College of Physicians.

His most significant patent relates to the use of a unique probiotic strain of Bifidobacterium targeted at people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. This patent was licensed to industry and subsequently marketed on a global scale. Prof Shanahan is also a co-founder of three spin-out companies, PrecisionBiotics Ltd, Atlantia Food Clinical Trials Ltd and 4D Pharma Cork PLC, all of which continue to thrive in the Cork region and have created over 100 high-tech jobs.

Prof. Shanahan expressed gratitude for the award but credited it to others including “shared minds and collaboration among friends and colleagues at UCC and in industry”.

Prof. Shanahan also emphasised the “importance of protecting intellectual property not as a metric of personal achievement but as a means of ensuring that knowledge becomes translated in a way that benefits everyone.”

Prof Shanahan is invited to be inducted at the Fellows Induction Ceremony to be held at the NAI Annual Meeting June 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona.