Innovation Partners for Aerobiology & Biomedical Research

The neighbourhood bordering the Grand Canal Docks in Dublin where airmid healthgroup's facilities are based has become a hub of start ups, entrepreneurs, tech giants, and innovation, leading to it becoming known as “Silicon Docks”.  Following in the footsteps of Google & Facebook, a myriad of leading international companies and investors are being attracted to the area. 

Figures from Ireland’s Industrial Development Authority, (the “IDA”) show that in 2012, 140 foreign companies either expanded or launched in Ireland.  One of the principal reasons that companies invest in Ireland is access to skilled labour.  In a recent Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report commissioned by Citibank, Dublin ranked first for “human capital” in their Global City Competitiveness Index. 

Ireland has a rich history of achievements in science and technology and continues to invest in world class research institutes and universities.  CRANN, a nanoscience institute and neighbour to airmid healthgroup on Trinity College’s Enterprise Campus, recently secured a lead role in the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Graphene Flagship project. The EU Commission has committed €1 billion to this project, the largest ever research project funded in the history of the European Union.

This week members of the airmid team went along to the Big Ideas Showcase organised and sponsored by Enterprise Ireland. “Big Ideas” has become the key event in the Irish technology commercialisation calendar since its successful debut in 2009. The Big Ideas Showcase is the largest gathering of inventors and venture capitalists in the country. The event showcased the latest collection of twenty investment opportunities which are the culmination of years of research by some of Ireland’s finest researchers.

Eleven Technology Transfer Offices also exhibited on the day, illustrating what their Higher Education Institutes in Ireland can offer industry.

airmid healthgroup (AHG) Air Filtration & Biomedical research representatives will be attending the International Filtration Conference in Philadelphia, USA during the 14th – 15th November.

November 13-15, 2012

The 2012 Annual Meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology starts today and will run from November 8-13 in Anaheim, California. The meeting will offer an exciting array of educational sessions for physicians and allied health professionals, as well as some fantastic social events.

You can download the full program guide here: http://www.acaai.org/annual_meeting/Documents/ACAAIProgramGuide2012c.pdf

Dr Bruce Mitchell from airmid healthgroup will be presenting data during Session C; Aerobiology on Sunday 11th November at 2:30 pm. The data relates to surface and airborne allergen associated with carpets.

For this blog entry, we discuss the occurrence of "Popcorn workers lung" attributed to diacetyl inhalation, following the recent legal proceedings of a Bronchiolitis obliterans (BO) sufferer who contracted the respiratory disease following exposure to diacetyl from Popcorn. BO is an obstructive respiratory disease, whereby the bronchioles are obstructed by tissue damage and aberrant epithelial repair. The result is a narrowing of the bronchioles, restricting normal respiratory function. This should be of concern to managers and safety officals of manufacturing plants producing diacetyl and whos employees or consumer base may be at risk from exposure. 

This post has been written by Peter Desmond, a scientific contributor at airmid healthgroup. Peter is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin with a B.A (mod) in Microbiology.

As a world leader in Environmental Research, Development & Testing, airmid healthgroup recognises the importance of being an ISO 17025 accredited laboratory. The benefits include: 

• Data which is accepted by regulatory bodies anywhere in the world
• Increased customer confidence
• Minimised risk of unreliable results.
• Reduced cost on unreliable results and re-testing

airmid healthgroup is an ISO/IEC 17025:2005 INAB accredited testing laboratory Reg. no. 284T for Der p 1 & Fel d 1 Analysis.

The Irish National Accreditation Board (INAB) is the national body responsible for accreditation in Ireland. INAB ensures international acceptance of issued certificates through its Multilateral Agreements (MLAs) with the European and the worldwide accreditation body organisations.

There is a bewildering array of ISO and ASTM antimicrobial surface validation studies and a whole host of biocidal activity testing available. It can be very complex for companies to navigate their way through this and the results they get may not always translate into market valuable data. Control of indoor pathogens on surfaces and in the air is a highly topical issue, so we have asked John Fallon PhD, Head of Microbiology at airmid healthgroup, to talk us through some of the testing they do at the laboratory and the relevance of this testing. This blog is transcribed from an interview with John on three of the most commonly used ISO antimicrobial surface validation tests.

John, what exactly is an antimicrobial surface?

The New York Times recently published an article in its health section on the problem of ultrafine particles following a recent study published out of Australia. The study has raised serious concerns as to the safety of many of today’s most popular vacuum cleaners but is it confined to vacuum cleaners?

    by Dr Bruce Mitchell, CEO Airmid Healthgroup and Consultant Immunologist

That the emission of ultrafine particles from certain Vacuum Cleaners which incorporate HEPA based filtration can result in consumers being exposed to bacterial fragments, and other noxious particulate materials is of concern and some surprise.

However, recognising that the composition of household dust includes bacteria, viruses, mold and toxins, and with a knowledge of their associated particle sizes, perhaps it should not be surprising.

The 11^th World Filtration Congress starts today and will embrace the whole spectrum of filtration and separation technologies from around the world for five days from 16^th- 20^th April 2012.

It will be held in Graz, a Unesco World Heritage Site.  It is the largest and most important Filtration Event in 2012 world-wide.

http://www.wfc11.at/index.htm

Exhibitors from the world-wide filtration and separation industry, manufacturers of particle measurement instruments as well as related industries will feature the latest innovations and technology. Airmid Healthgroup will be there joining the debate on Airborne Infectious Agents, Aerobiology Research and Ultrafine particles.