A NEW kind of cleaning device that can easily kill hospital superbugs will be fast-tracked into clinical use through a research award.
It is one of four awards made yesterday under the new Translational Research Award programme run by the Health Research Board and Science Foundation Ireland.
The four winning projects, selected from 61 applications, will share €3 million. Other awards went to researchers working on heart attacks, ovarian cancer and prostate cancer.
The new method of killing hospital superbugs is being developed by researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and Dublin City University.
A team from University College Cork is looking at methods to repair heart muscle after damage caused by heart attack.
The project to develop a way to predict how a woman will respond to ovarian cancer treatment is under way at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
A key objective of the scheme was to get research discoveries made in the lab into clinical use as quickly as possible, said Minister for Health James Reilly.
This meant improved treatments for patients but all four projects also offered strong commercial potential, he said.