Mullingar scientist receives prestigious award
(Above) Prof Kingston Mills.
An immunology professor from Mullingar has been awarded on the most prestigious accolades in Irish science.
Kingston Mills, professor of experimental immunology and director Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), has been named the Researcher of the Year by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). Prof Mills has been recognised, the SFI says, for achieving “exceptional scientific and engineering research outputs combined with a clear demonstration of the ability to communicate their research”.
Professor Mills, who has been one of the most prominent media commentators from the scientific community during the Covid-19 pandemic, says that he is “absolutely delighted to receive this prestigious award from SFI”.
“I have been committed to the fascinating field of Immunology for nearly 40 years, but my research achievements would not have been possible without the financial support from SFI, the commitment and dedication of my research team and the support of colleagues, especially those at Trinity College Dublin,” he said.
A graduate of TCD, Prof Mills trained at as a Postdoctoral Fellow at University College London and the National Institute for Medical Research, London (now the Crick Institute). From 1987-1992, he was the Scientific Staff at NIBSC, the research arm of the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. He returned to Ireland in 1993 to take up an academic position at Maynooth University, where he was Dean of the Science Faculty from 1997-2000.
He was appointed to a Personal Chair at TCD in 2001 and was Head of the School of Biochemistry and Immunology from 2008-2011. He is currently Leader of The Immunology, Inflammation and Infection research Theme at Trinity and co-leads the COVID-19 research Hub funded by SFI with additional co-funding from Allied Irish Bank through the Trinity Foundation.
He has won continuous Principal and individual Research grants from SFI since its foundation in 2001 and was lead PI on a SFI strategic research Cluster and two Strategic Research Partnerships with Industry. He has co-founded 3 Biotech start-up companies, Opsona Therapeutics, TriMod Therapeutics, and Parvalis Tx.
He currently heads an active research team focusing on T cells in infection and autoimmunity and has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters that have been cited over 31,000 times (h-index: 96). He is an editorial board member of several Immunology journals and was section Editor of the Journal of Immunology for four years. He is a member of a number of international scientific advisory panels on Immunotherapeutics and vaccines, including two at the World Health Organization and is a member of the ERC advanced grant panel on Infection and Immunity.