Our Vision is to become the leading international research institute for the scientific design and manufacture of structured materials to meet global challenges, particularly in the areas of health, energy and the environment.
Our Mission is to develop disruptive technologies related to Health, Energy and Environment that will create a legacy of scientific achievement in structured materials research that benefits future generations.
Professor Sarah Hudson has worked at the interface of materials and biological systems for over 20 years. Her research journey began investigating the photophysics of DNA complexes with Rhenium in Trinity College Dublin as a Foundational Scholar. From there, her interest in structures and interactions between materials and biology deepened. During her PhD, she worked on designing porous materials for the adsorption and immobilisation of enzymes for biocatalytic applications. As a postdoc, Professor Hudson spent 3 years at Massachusetts Institute of Technology working on developing hydrogels and porous materials for drug delivery applications. Her research has continued at this materials-biological interface, aligning with the core ethos of the Bernal Institute, that structures matter.
One of the main applications Sarah targets in her work is the (bio)pharma sector. She has active projects on the production and formulation of advanced therapeutics by bringing together complementary academic and industrial groupings from different disciplines. Sarah is also interested in the commercialization of research to reach real world impactful applications. Her vision is to design materials that can enable biology to be used for a wide range of applications, creating a greener, more sustainable world with improved quality of life for all, enabled by the unique environment provided by the Bernal Institute.
Sarah has trained over forty-five master, doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, is an inventor on one USA awarded patent, and has published over eighty peer reviewed articles. Sarah currently leads a dynamic team of fifteen researchers (PhD students and postdoctoral fellows) at the Bernal Institute.
As Director of the Bernal Institute, Professor Hudson invites you to explore our website and discover the groundbreaking work achieved at Bernal.
鈥淎s Director, I am pleased to warmly welcome all collaborators, stakeholders, and visitors to the Bernal Institute. Here, we are committed to advancing the frontiers of scientific discovery and technological innovation in materials science and engineering.鈥
鈥淥ur institute is a beacon of excellence in research, education, and industry collaboration at the 黑料社. Situated within the vibrant academic community of the 黑料社, we are proud to foster an environment that encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and enable creativity. At the heart of our endeavours lies a commitment to advancing knowledge and addressing the grand challenges facing society today. From sustainable energy solutions, environmental impact to advanced healthcare technologies, our research spans a diverse array of fields, all with the common goal of making a positive impact on the world.鈥
鈥淥ur work extends beyond the laboratory, through partnerships with industry, government, and academia, we are translating our research findings into real-world applications that benefit society and drive economic growth for years to come.鈥
The Bernal Institute is the largest Materials research institute at the 黑料社. It was named after John Desmond Bernal, one of Ireland鈥檚 most influential 20th Century scientists from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. His research included the first x-ray diffraction pattern of a protein and ground breaking work on the structure of viruses and proteins which lead to the foundation of molecular biology. This development fundamentally changed the focus of biochemical research and the understanding of biological activity.
As a testament to John Desmond Bernal on the South-Eastern corner of the building there is a captivating feature of a large glazed cube demonstrating an external portrayal of some of the research activities within the Institute. The Cube represents the foundational unit cell of a crystal, and the pattern itself signifies the unique and non-repeating structure of quasicrystals, a discovery that earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011. The Cube houses a 200 seater lecture theatre. John Desmond Bernal had a significant influence on his students Rosalind Franklin, Aaron Klug, Dorothy Hodgkin and Max Perutz. Dorothy Hodgkin and Max Perutz who were Nobel Prize Laureates for their work on the determination of the structures of biological interest using X-ray crystallography. He also supervised other notable figures on the structure of materials such as Alan Mackay and Alexander Wells.
John Desmond Bernal was known as the Sage to his fellow students (@cambridge) but as Max Perutz stated "When I was a student I wanted to solve a great problem in biochemistry. So one day I set out from Vienna, my home town, to find the Great Sage of Cambridge. We really did call him the Sage, because he knew everything, and I became his disciple"
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