Animal Bioscience

The Animal and Bioscience Research Department (ABRD) was founded in 2008. The ABRD headquarters and main facilities are located at the Teagasc research centre, Grange in Co. Meath. The department also comprises facilities and staff spread across two other Teagasc research centres; Teagasc Moorepark in Co. Cork, and Teagasc Athenry in Co. Galway.

The department was founded by integrating existing animal science staff at these three locations into a single department. Currently the department has researchers, postdoctoral fellows, technologists and technicians. It also hosts MSc and PhD students. Students are funded internally through the Walsh Scholars Scheme, or by externally sourced grants. They carry out their studies in collaboration with either an Irish or international University.

The main facilities at the ABRD are state-of-the-art genomic, proteomic and endocrine laboratories. There are also excellent laboratories for nutrition, physiology and animal health focused analysis and a modern facility for in-depth animal experimentation.

The ABRD is a major part of the Teagasc animal science programme. It provides additional capacity in the core animal science disciplines of nutrition, physiology, genetics and immunology as well as in the rapidly developing area of functional genomics and related technologies (e.g. proteomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics).

The scientific findings from the research programme will be applied to industry, and where these relate to genetic control, the close links with the Teagasc and national animal genetic programme will be used to exploit these finding in the national interest.