Knowledge Based Bio-Economy towards 2020

 

Mr. CUNNINGHAM PATRICK 

Chief Scientific Adviser to the Irish Government 

Professor of Animal Genetics in Trinity College, Dublin

 

Biography

Patrick Cunningham is Chief Scientific Adviser to the Irish Government and Professor of Animal Genetics in Trinity College, Dublin. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the National University of Ireland, a PhD from Cornell University, USA, and Honorary Doctorates from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, the University of Dublin and University College Dublin.

 

He was formerly Deputy Director (Research) at the Irish National Agriculture and Food Research Institute(1980-88), visiting Professor at the Economic Development Institute, World Bank (1988) and Director of the Animal Production and Health Division, Food & Agriculture Organisation of the UN, Rome (1990-93). During this period he directed the Screwworm Eradication Programme for North Africa, the largest international campaign of biological control ever undertaken.

 

Prof. Cunningham’s early research focused on quantitative genetic methods of improving animal populations, and on the economic evaluation of breeding strategies. In the 1990s he exploited newly-developed methods of reading DNA to measure genetic diversity and plan livestock improvement in developing countries. The first results of this work rewrote the history of animal domestication, demonstrating for the first time the separate domestication of cattle in India on the one hand and in Africa and Europe on the other. This work has since been expanded by Prof. Cunningham and his colleagues to other species including horses, salmon and humans.

 

Prof. Cunningham’s research has been published in some 100 papers in refereed journals, and has twice featured on the cover of Nature. Following the BSE crisis in 1996, Professor Cunningham and his colleagues developed a system of DNA traceability for the meat industry, which has been used throughout Europe since. They went on to establish a biotechnology company IdentiGEN, which deploys these technologies in Europe and the USA. Professor Cunningham is the chairman of the company.

Prof Cunningham was a member of the High Level Group on Life Sciences which advised Commissioner Busquin. He is a former president of the European and World Associations of Animal Production.

Professor Cunningham recently chaired a high-level committee of representatives from science, education and industry which successfully competed to host the European City of Science in Dublin, in 2012.

 

Programme

Part II Defining present achievements and needs - Plenary session: Setting the perspective