Prof. McInerney – in keeping with the public engagement ethos of the research unit – spoke last night at the Odessa club and restaurant on Dame Court in Dublin as part of a city-wide series of events called the Pint of Science talks.
He spoke about horizontal gene transfer and how it seems to have affected almost all of life on the planet and how it is having a significant impact on how we view issues such as antibiotic resistance, the emergence of new viruses and indeed the origins of major groups of organisms such as the eukaryotes and the archaebacterial halophiles.
There was a crowd of about 60-70 people in the audience and it was a hugely enjoyable experience for all concerned and it was lovely to see so many former Maynooth students turning up on the night.