Teresa Dillon, Naomi Griffin-Murtagh, Claire Dempsey, Aisling McCrudden

Artists

Naomi Griffin-Murtagh studied at the National College of Art and Design Dublin and is now working as a product designer in Northern Ireland. Claire Dempsey has a degree in Immunology from Trinity College Dublin, and is currently undertaking her PhD at the University of Birmingham. Aisling McCrudden has a degree in Human Health and Disease from Trinity College Dublin. This project is a result of a collaboration in an Idea Translation Lab in the Science Gallery, offered to TCD and NCAD students and coordinated by Dr Teresa Dillon. The project ran over 12 weeks and the students had to pool their resources to come up with projects centred on the field of synthetic biology. The team decided to pose the question ‘What if farmers were pharmacists’. The answer they came up with was Opimilk. The project explores the potential of synthetic biology to use Opiorphin as an alternative to treat chronic pain. Following this the team was selected to attend the ArtScience Innovation Workshop in Le Laboratoire Paris, in June 2013. The annual ArtScience Innovation Workshop sees teams of students from around the world come together for an intensive week of discussion and immersion in idea translation. Consequential the project was showcased at Ars Electronica’s exhibition “Project Genesis” from August 2013 to July 2015.