Maynooth University student wins 2015 Wesley Cocker Award

Friday, October 9, 2015 - 09:15

Alice Blumlein has been awarded the 2015 Wesley Cocker Prize from the Society of Chemical Industry, All Ireland Group.
Professor Cocker was instrumental in establishing the Irish Section of the Society of Chemical Industry in 1947. The award, named in his honour, is given to the best paper or patent by a student on a topic of relevance to industrial chemistry.

Blumlein, who won the award for her work on tough protein gels, explained: “A bigel is composed of two discrete interpenetrating networks, with both networks contributing to the mechanical properties of the bigel.  My research describes, for the first time, an all-protein bigel with properties of both parent gels. This hydrogel may have applications that include drug delivery and cell scaffolds or as a biomimetic.”

The research was conducted in the Soft Matter research group in the Maynooth University Department of Chemistry under the supervision of Dr Jennifer McManus. The project was funded by a Maynooth University Teaching Fellowship to Alice Blumlein and an SFI Stokes Lectureship to Dr McManus.