Food & Nutritional Sciences

Contact Details

Title	Lecturer
Address	School of Food & Nutritional Sciences University College Cork Cork Ireland
Telephone:	+353-21-490-3000
Email:	ei.ccu@nayr.a

Biography:

Aoife Ryan graduated from Trinity College Dublin/Dublin Institute of Technology with a BSc in Human Nutrition and Dietetics in 1999 and was the recipient of a university gold medal. She later went on to complete her PhD in 2007 at the Department of Surgery. She then moved to New York and took up a faculty position as Assistant Professor of Nutrition at New York University until 2010. Aoife is a Registered Dietitian and has 12 years of dietetics experience in both acute care and clinical research in both Ireland and the United States. Her main research interests are in the metabolic consequences of central obesity and how they relate to cancer risk. Aoife is also interested in modulation of the immune system and inflammation by nutritional means.

While working as a PhD student; Aoife was awarded research grants of half a million Euro. The first was a research Fellowship from the Health Research Board for a study she designed to examine the effect of central obesity and metabolic syndrome, on cancer stage and survival in oesophageal, colorectal and breast cancer. The second; an educational grant from Abbott Laboratories to design and conduct a randomized double-blinded clinical trial with a tube feed enriched with Omega-3 fatty acids in the setting of major cancer surgery. She was awarded Research Dietitian of the Year in 2009 by the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute (INDI). In 2011 she was awarded a Health Research Award of 300,000 Euro from the Health Research Board to further examine the role of immunonutrition in major cancer surgery. She has taught Nutrition at Trinity College Dublin and New York University to nursing, medical, public health and dietetic students, and has presented her research at several international scientific meetings