bioMérieux opens office in Irish tech transfer centre

In vitro diagnostics company bioMérieux has opened an office at NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre at University College Dublin. NovaUCD says it wants to support its extensive Irish customer base of clinical, food and pharmaceutical laboratories.

Emphasis will be placed on training, making use of the university’s conference and laboratory facilities. Drawing on the microbiology expertise available through the UCD Centre for Food Safety at the UCD Veterinary Sciences Centre, bioMérieux will provide training programmes, seminars and hands-on workshops as part of its support to microbiologists throughout Ireland, says UCD.

bioMérieux established a research collaboration 18 months ago with the UCD Centre for Food Safety, working on the neonatal pathogen Cronobacter sakazakii. The presence of this bacterium in infant food products, including powdered milk, can cause meningitis, sepsis and other serious infections, primarily in newborn or premature infants.

As part of the official office opening, bioMérieux held a series of parallel seminars for Irish customers at NovaUCD followed by a plenary session to introduce the company’s microbial strain typing system, DiversiLab.