Engineering Regenerative Strategies in Cardiovascular Tissue Biology

Our Lab's mission is to develop novel strategies towards treating cardiac disease using interdisciplinary approaches from Biology, Stem Cell Technologies, Advanced Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering, and Chemistry.

Our research group is based in Trinity College Dublin at the Department of Mechanical, Manufacturing and Biomedical Engineering, and Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute

• 11th September 2025: A great week at the ESB 2025 meeting in Turin with presentations from Antonio Pellico and Sara Corbezzolo.

• Sara won a Best Oral Presentation award!!

• 1st of August: Prof. Michael Monaghan got a new position as Head of School of Engineering (Interim) at Trinity College Dublin!

• 28th July 2025: Having a brilliant week at the #GRC Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering meeting in Castelldefells an VERY excited to be elected Vice co-chair with Fan Yang to help Greg Hudalla and Karen Christman with the 2027 meeting and Chair the 2029 meeting!!

• 1st of August: Prof. Michael Monaghan got a new position as Head of School of Engineering (Interim) at Trinity College Dublin!

• 20th March 2025: BRILLiant addition to the lab!! 🔬🔬 The first BioBrillouin system on the Island of Ireland and among the first commercial systems in the world from CellSense Technologies GmbH.

  Looking forward to working with Vitaliy Oliynyk and Raimund Schlüßler, who have provided a dedicated and motivated installation, and collaboration in the future, together with Diana Eveline S. and Matteo Nosè.
  Thanks to the European Research Council (ERC) and Research Ireland funding for supporting this.
  Trinity College Dublin Trinity Centre for Biomedical Engineering Trinity College Dublin School of Engineering

• January 2025: Prof. Michael Monaghan started a new position as TERMIS-EU Council Member at Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society, Inc. (TERMIS)

• 12th December 2024: An early present from Christmas! Dr Rajiv, Dr Meena, and Daniel had a paper published on electrically Conductive Injectable Silk/PEDOT: PSS Hydrogel for Enhanced Neural Network Formation. Read more: 10.1002/jbm.a.37859

• 5th December 2024: Dr Meenaksi Suku was awarded for Best Presentation for Postdoctoral Researcher!

• 31st October 2024: Dr Meenaksi Suku was officially conferred with her PhD!

• 19th July 2024: Team-building day out with the lab.

• 8th July 2024: Prof Michael Monaghan was invited to give a talk at Controlled Release Society 2024 meeting in Bologna.

• 3rd July 2024: Dr Rajiv Borah and Prof Michael Monaghan attended the Bioelectronics meetings hosted by Bioelectronic System Technology (BEST) Group and Bioelectronics Lab at Cambridge University.

• 28th June 2024: Prof Michael Monaghan participated in TERMIS 2024 in Seattle.

• 20th June 2024: We had the great opportunity to contribute to Nature’s discussion on approaches to managing lab finances. Check it out for our own experience and resources for managing budgets in a research lab: Securing your science: the researcher’s guide to financial management

• 29th May 2024: Prof Michael Monaghan attended the 12th World Biomaterials Congress (WBC 2024) in Daegu, Korea.

• 22nd April 20024: Prof Michael Monaghan was honored as Fellow in TCD.

• 12th April 2024: Prof Antonella Motta from the University of Trento gave a fascinating seminar journeying through her career in silk development and application in biomaterials and tissue engineering.

• 29th March 2024: Exciting day for Monaghan’s Lab as we are delighted to announce a new Doctor. Congratulation to

  Dr. Meenakshi Suku!

• 19th March 2024: Dr. Rajiv Borah has had a paper published showing the importance of tuning the conductivity of silk-graphene biomaterials to impact axonal growth behavior. Read more: Impact of the Reduction Time-Dependent Electrical Conductivity of Graphene Nanoplatelet-Coated Aligned Bombyx mori Silk Scaffolds on Electrically Stimulated Axonal Growth | ACS Applied Bio Materials

• 14th March 2024: Prof. Michael Monaghan participated in “Trinity on the Move”, running 60 min as part of a 12-hour tutors on the run relay to raise funds to assist students in need.

• 19th February 2024: Frist Network Wide Event of flIMAGIN3D in TCD.

• 14th February 2024: Prof. Michael Monaghan and Meena had a brilliant week at the 2024 Gordon Conference for Immunoengineering, where he learnt so much and caught up with old friends along the way.

• 15th December 2023: Christmas Lab meeting!

• 12th December 2023: Just in time for Christmas- last of Nuno Neto‘s PhD thesis, where we profile hMSC osteogenesis using FLIM, which leads to our hypothesis that lactate supplementation can promote glutaminolysis and impact osteogenesis. Read more: 2P-FLIM unveils time-dependent metabolic shifts during osteogenic differentiation with a key role of lactate to fuel osteogenesis via glutaminolysis identified | Stem Cell Research & Therapy

• 6th December 2023: BioBrillouin Meeting 2023 at TCD.

• 23rd November 203: Prof. Michael Monaghan was awarded an ERC-CoG for the project 'PiezoMac' - a pragmatic and intelligent design approach in biomaterials to drive cardiac regeneration.

• 9th November 2023: Dr Rajiv Borah and Prof. Michael Monaghan have had accepted and in Print paper which outlines the importance of inflammation in the context of diabetic wound healing - identifying promising biomaterials strategies to control inflammation and support wound healing and regeneration. Thanks to Dr Shane Browne to lead this paper. Read more: Thou shall not heal: Overcoming the non-healing behaviour of diabetic foot ulcers by engineering the inflammatory microenvironment

• 30th October 2023: Prof. Michael Monaghan completed the Dublin City Marathon in support of CRY Irelands.

• 21st September 203: Pleasure to host Catherine Le Visage, supported by Irish Research Ulysses Research Exchange Scheme. Brilliant scientific discussions across the board and plans for the future.

• 2nd September 2023: Lab day out! Starting a new year with a brilliant team!

• 2nd August 2023: Matteo Solazzo’s thesis is fully published with the final part of his research detailing the workflow of an electrostimulation bioreactor designed for porous biomaterial scaffolds, contributing valuable insights to the field. See more: A Workflow to Produce a Low-Cost In Vitro Platform for the Electric-Field Pacing of Cellularised 3D Porous Scaffolds | ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering.

• 13th July 2023: Monaghan Lab will collaborate with Pinar Zorlutuna through the support of the Naughton Fellows Faculty Research Accelerator Program between TCD and the University of Notre Dame to study cardiac disease.

• 6th July 2023: We are proud to host CRY Ireland's inaugural 2023 Summer Studentship in fitting memory of Michael Greene. This studentship supports Daniel Diez Clarke, a TCD School of Engineering student, in his research on cardiac disease models. This initiative honors Michael Greene’s legacy while fostering innovative research in cardiovascular health. See more: Michael Greene Summer Studentship – Cry

• 27th June 2023: MXene functionalised collagen scaffolds for cardiac applications https://rdcu.be/dft9h. This paper is the latest interdisciplinary work from our lab with the Nicolisi group, RCSI TERG and Prof. Fergal O’Brien.

• 21st June 2023:

• 13th June 2023: Prof. Michael Monaghan hosted the BioBrillouin23 Meeting at TCD from the 6th to the 8th of December.

• 1st June 2023: Prof. Michael Monaghan delivered an extraordinary presentation on two photon FLIM and metabolism at the International Clinical Research Center, hosted by Prof. Giancarlo Forte.

• 28th April 2023: Impressive seminar presentation by Peter Loskill from MicroOrganoLab on Organ-on-Chip technologies. The seminar provided a deep dive into the latest advancements in this field, highlighting groundbreaking innovations with significant potential for biomedical research.

• 30th March 2023: Prof. Michael Monaghan was honored and delighted to receive the Robert Brown Early Career Investigator Award from Termis-EU.

• 23rd March 2023:

• 28th January 2023: Both Meena and Sara from the lab presented at the 2020 BioEngineering in Ireland Meeting in Enfield Dublin. Huge congratulations to PhD student Meenakshi Suku on winning 2nd prize in the Regenerative Medicine Track at the BioEngineering In Ireland 2023 meeting!

• 16th December 2022: Nuno passed his viva with flying colours! Great discussions with Examiners Prof Melissa Skala and Prof David Finlay.

• 10th December 2022: Congratulations to PhD student Meenakshi Suku who was awarded a prestigious short term travel fellowship from the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) to conduct studies in the laboratory of Prof Giancarlo Forte at the Center for Translational Medicine at the International Clinical Research Center of St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno, Czech Republic.

• 4th November 2022: Wonderful day at the front square of Trinity College Dublin with the PhD conferring ceremonies and Dr Matteo Solazzo graduating. Congrats Matteo!

• October 18th 2022: One of the latest works from Nuno Neto; and a first report of our Machine Learning collaborations in classifications and optimisation. This work published in eLife caught the attention of local and international media and highlights our FLIM approach for non-invasive macrophage classification.

• June 29th 2022: First group conference in a very long time which we were delighted to attend. At the TERMIS-EU 2022 meeting in Krakow Poland where Matteo, Meena and Michael delivered Podium Presentations; joined by visiting Notre Dame exchange student Meghan Swantkowski

18th May 2022: We were delighted to host Prof Giancarlo Forte from Brno, Czech Republic to TCD supported by a Faculty visiting Professorship fund. While touring the historic campus we organised several sessions of exchange, collaboration and ideation.

• 3rd May 2022: Matteos latest publication in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces and caught the attention of both national and international media.

• April 1st 2022: NOT an April fools! We have been awarded a large Horizon Europe grant to coordinate an excellent consortium based on FLIM imaging. Excited to start this program!

• March 22nd 2022: A first from the lab; Matteo passes his viva voce with flying colours. Matteos PhD was enormous in setting up critical infrastructure in the lab ; and will be long remembered!

• 9th September 2021: Congratulations to PhD student Sinead O’Rourke on winning ‘Best Talk’ at the British Society for Cardiovascular Research 2021!

• June 22nd 2021: Hot off the press; the labours of almost a year in lockdown; special edition in Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews edited by Michael and Prof Ciara Murphy (RCSI). Great to see the front cover which was inspired by a Netflix series.

• March 29th 2021: Delighted to host Prof Carmine Gentile for an online seminar in our series, where he discusses his work on 3D bioprinting cardiac tissues.

• March 3rd 2021: Continuing with online meetings; we were delighted to be awarded a Irish Canadian University Fellowship to run the a Beacon Fellowship Lecture series between Trinity College Dublin and the University of Toronto. Highlight of the talks was the plenary lecture from Prof Molly Schoichet of University of Toronto.
  

• Thursday 12th March 2020 - ????: COVID-19 has gripped our international community and we are staying at home for our safety and for the safety of others. Although there is no experimental work underway; we take this time to reflect, write, look after ourselves and make preparations for when we can return.

• 13th February 2020: Dinoraths latest work published in Advanced Functional Materials caught national and international press attention. This platform work leverages mesh design to add another element to mechanical control and support with the intended application being the infarcted myocardium.

• 19th January 2020: We were delighted to be part of the organisation of the 2020 Microscopy Society of Ireland Meeting. Two highlights of the meeting; seeing Nobel Laureate Prof W.E. Moerner and Nuno winning the prize for best poster!

• 28th September 2019: We had a great time engaging with the public during European Researchers Night which was taking place all across Europe. Pictured are Cristina, Ines and Jack who took part in the AMBEr tent at TCDs historic front square.

• 27th July – 2nd August 2019 Matteo and the “Irish crew” at 2019 "Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering" Gordon Research Conference in Castelldefels, Spain.

• 27th - 31st June 2019 Michael, Dinorath and Matteo all three presenting their latest works at TERMIS EU 2019 in Rhodes, Greece.

• 18th April 2019 Matteo is awarded with the second prize at the paper competition for the 22nd Sir Bernard Crossland Symposium at Ulster University.

• 11th April 2019 Matteo has been selected to represent the school of engineering at Fit for Industry workshop in The Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) de Lyon, France.

• 18th January 2019 Matteo, Nuno and Sinead attended the 25th Bioengineering in Ireland (BinI) conference in Limerick, Ireland; Nuno won the best early stage researcher presentation in the other bioengineering category.

• 21st November 2018 Michael and Nuno attended the 5th Annual Matrix Biology Ireland (MBI) Meeting in Galway, Ireland.

• 12th July 2018 Matteo, Dinorath and Michael attend the 2018 World Congress of Biomechanics in Dublin. Over 4100 delegates with an excellent scientific program.

• 12th July 2018 Matteo Solazzo presented his poster; An electroconductive 3D porous PEDOT:PSS scaffold for cardiac tissue engineering applications, at the 2018 World Congress of Biomechanics in Dublin

• 20th April 2018 Congrats to Robert Greensmith who successfully conducted and completed his BAI thesis project in Bioengineering in the Monaghan Lab, in collaboration with Prof. Garry Duffy in NUI Galway.

• 17th April 2018 Congrats to Song Wong and Ciara Corcoran who successfully conducted and completed their MAI thesis projects in Bioengineering in the Monaghan Lab. Ciara is progressing to industry while Song will join us during the summer as a research engineer.

• 14th March 2018 Ciara Greaney from the Monaghan Lab is awarded overall first prize at Trinity GSU's Multidisciplinary Research Showcase of all graduate research (PhD and Masters Level) being performed in Trinity College Dublin- 13th March 2018.

• 27th January 2018 Well done Grace (Catherine, from the Monaghan Lab) for winning the best MSc Research Presentation at the recent Bioengineering in Ireland Annual Meeting!!

• 27th January 2018 Members of the Monaghan Lab recently attended the Bioengineering in Ireland Annual Meeting in Co. Meath!

• 25th January 2018 Michael has just been elected as a council member to the TERMIS EU Council (2018-2021). Looking forward to continuing with this great society! 

• 5th January 2018 Welcome Robert Greensmith and Gaëtan Roudier  to the Monaghan Lab! Robert will perform his BAI thesis in collaboration with NUI Galway and Gaëtan will do an internship as part of his Master's degree in Health Engineering at the University of Bordeaus, France.

• 14th December 2017 The Monaghan Lab has been awarded Innovation Partnership Program Funding from Enterprise Ireland to support an exciting project in collaboration with Spraybase® Instruments at Avectas Ltd. 

• 3rd October 2017 Welcome Grace Brogan and Ciara Greaney to the Monaghan Lab! Both Grace and Ciara will spend the 17/18 year in the Monaghan Lab as part of their MSc in Bioengineering theses!

• 22nd September 2017  Welcome Matteo Solazzo to the Monaghan Lab!! Matteo joins as a PhD student under Dr. Monaghan's supervision in developing multifunctional smart biomaterials for cardiac tissue engineering applications

• 14th September 2017 Welcome Ciara Corcoran and Song Wong to the lab! Both Ciara and Song will spend the 17/18 year conducting research in the Monaghan Lab as part of their MAI in Engineering theses. 

• 25th August 2017 Caroline Patel successfully submitted her MSc in Bioengineering Research Thesis from the Monaghan Lab. Congrats Caroline!

• 2nd May 2017 Jackson Rose successfully submitted and defended his MAI in Biomedical Engineering Thesis. Congratulations Jackson!

• 24th April 2017 Thomas Storwick leaves to continue his Bachelors Degree Program in the University of Waterloo- Great having you here!

• 18th March 2017 MonaghanLab v.2 is online!

• 10th March 2017 The Monaghan Lab has been awarded a large equipment grant through Trinity College Dublin's Research Ireland Opportunistic Funds. The equipment itself will be a fluorescent lifetime imaging microscope (FLIM) with custom capabilities towards simultaneously acquiring fluorophores (exogenous and exogenous) through numerous excitation channels! 

• Jan 19th 2017 Monaghan Lab is now online!

• Jan 9th 2017 Welcome to Thomas Storwick who joins us from Waterloo, Canada

• 20th Dec 2017 The Monaghan Lab has just been awarded Seed funding from Trinity College Dublin, supported by the Wellcome Trust.

• Dec 7th 2017 Monaghan Lab welcomes Harry Burns who is conducting his BAI project in the lab.

• 17th Nov 2017 The Monaghan Lab is hosting the 2017 meeting of Matrix Biology Ireland!

• 17th Nov 2017 Dr Monaghan has been elected to the council of Matrix Biology Ireland and the treasurer of the Society!

• 20th Sept 2017 Monaghan Lab welcomes two new members. Caroline Patel (MSc in Bioengineering) and Jackson Rose (MAI in Biomedical Engineering)