The Investigators is an Irish scientific television series broadcast on RTÉ One. The series examines some of the most interesting projects being worked on by leading Irish scientists across the globe and assesses what potential impact they may have in the future. The selection of projects is diverse, ranging from the identification of a protein which may help to arrest and even reverse the onset of Alzheimer's disease to the design of a camera which can capture an extraterrestrial event that happened billions of years ago. Each programme focuses on a specific area of life such as Ireland in Space, Ageing, Sensors, Climate Change, Crops of the Future and the Nano Revolution.[1] The series airs each Thursday at 23:05.
Synopsis
Series one
Series one was broadcast on RTÉ in seven parts from 8 November 2007.[2]
Research has opened up new horizons for crop growers in areas such as human health, from "superbreads" to plants that could help in the production of a HIV/Aids vaccine.
Irish researchers are working on new materials for use in the European Space Agency's 2013 mission to Mercury, a device to measure radiation on satellites and a camera that can picture an event in space which happened billions of years ago.
Research is being carried out at UCD, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin and Remedi, Galway into the earlier diagnosis and possible prevention of related diseases. It includes research to identify a protein which may help to arrest and even reverse the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
Interviews with several pioneers in this area - Professor Mike Coey from TCD, UCD's Professor Ken Dawson and DIT's Dr Suresh Pillai, who has designed a nanoparticle which can be activated by fluorescent lighting designed to kill the MRSA hospital bug.
