The Research & Innovation Conference & Exhibition was held earlier this week. It was a busy day, especially as this year the conference was co-located with the inaugural National Health Expo. Each of the events had a main stage and several seminar rooms where talks were held throughout the day. With a line-up of over 100 speakers it’s an event worth attending as a team, because so many interesting talks were on simultaneously!

Sometimes people can mix up these indoor pests, so this blog post will describe some of the differences between the two.

June marked the first annual National Healthy Homes Month. This initiative of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was launched to provide people with the opportunity to learn more about housing and its effects on health. The National Center for Healthy Housing estimates that approximately 35 million metropolitan U.S. homes have at least one health and safety hazard. As a means to tackle this issue, HUD set out eight healthy home principles that can be followed to make the home environment healthier.

Yesterday the Science Gallery was the venue for a Health Research Board (HRB) sponsored talk on antimicrobial resistance entitled “Bugs versus Drugs”. It was an evening of insightful discussion between Dr Fidelma Fitzpatrick (Consultant Microbiologist Beaumont Hospital and Senior Lecturer at RCSI), Dr Andrew Murphy (a General Practitioner and Professor in NUI Galway) and science journalist Maryn McKenna. The broadcaster Jonathan McCrea hosted the conversation. As the audience included non-scientists, Dr Fitzpatrick started by explaining that while “bugs” in microbiology include bacteria, viruses and fungi, antibiotics only work against bacteria and often only against a specific type of bacteria. Antibiotic resistance refers to the strategies bacteria develop to prevent antibiotics from acting against them.

airmid healthgroup is pleased to announce Dylan Johnston will be joining the business team on an internship program for the next two months. Dylan will be entering his 4th year as an undergraduate at Michigan State University this fall. He is currently a double major in Biochemistry and Biotechnology with hopes to continue his education after his undergraduate career to achieve a masters in business administration. Dylan is very excited to be part of the Digital Content and Marketing team and will be helping to plan and deliver various sales and marketing initiatives.

May is a busy time in the asthma and allergy world. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) designates May as Asthma & Allergy Awareness Month. The month starts off with World Asthma Day (May 3^rd) and Air Quality Awareness Week (May 2^nd to May 6^th).

We updated this blog post throughout the month to keep track of some of the events held to raise awareness of asthma, allergies and air quality.

Every year since 1999 the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) designates the first Tuesday in May as World Asthma Day. This year World Asthma Day is on May 3^rd. The purpose of this annual event is to raise awareness of asthma and its care around the world. Since 2007 the theme of the day has been “you can control your asthma”.

We are setting up an Interlaboratory Comparison (ILC) for the quantification of Influenza A nucleoprotein. ILCs measure the ability of a lab to deliver accurate results and are an important part of quality assurance programs. Participating in an ILC or Proficiency Testing (PT) scheme is one of the criteria necessary to gain ISO 17025 accreditation for a particular testing method. As there is no PT scheme available for Influenza A nucleoprotein quantification, we are setting up an ILC.

April 4th – 10th is World Allergy Week. This annual event is an initiative of the World Allergy Organisation (WAO). This year the theme is the effect of climate change on pollen and mold allergies.

On the 7th of March members of the Health Friendly Air team went down to the RDS for the Facilities Management Ireland conference and exhibition. The conference was launched to respond to the increasing demand from Irish companies for solutions to improve their efficiency and reduce the cost of running their business environment.