Patrick Cunningham

Patrick Cunningham I Clongowes 1947-1952

Patrick Cunningham (b.1934), geneticist, international public servant, and chief scientific adviser to the government, is a native of Waterford, who attended Clongowes in 1947-52. He graduated from UCD with degrees in agricultural science and animal nutrition, before completing his doctorate in animal genetics at Cornell University, USA. He held various posts in An Foras Talúntais (now Teagasc), becoming director of research (1980-88). In 1988 he moved to the World Bank, and in 1990 he was appointed director of animal production and health at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations in Rome. He was elected president of the European (1980-84) and World (1984-88) Associations of Animal Production. Since 1974 he has held a personal chair of animal genetics at TCD. His research has focused on quantitative genetic theory, the efficiency of livestock-improvement programmes, the genetics of cattle, horses and salmon, and the use of molecular methods in studies on domestic animal evolution. This included the use of new methods of reading DNA to measure genetic diversity and plan livestock improvement in developing countries. This work demonstrated for the first time the separate domestication of cattle in India on the one hand and in Africa and Europe on the other. He has written two books and over 100 scientific papers, and has twice featured on the cover of Nature. Following the BSE crisis in 1996, he led a team that developed a system of DNA traceability for the meat industry, which is now used successfully by their company IdentiGEN in Europe and North America. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and several international academies of science. In 1996 he received the RDS’s prestigious Boyle Medal, and he holds honorary doctorates from TCD, UCD and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. In 2007-12 he was chief scientific adviser to the government.