Julie Wallace Award Winner

Dr Elaine McCarthy, University College Cork

Iam honoured to have been awarded the 2021 Nutrition Society Julie Wallace Award. At the beginning of my nutrition research career, I distinctly remember attending the inaugural Julie Wallace Award Lecture delivered by Dr Kirsty Pourshahidi at the University of Ulster, in memory of their friend, mentor and colleague Professor Julie Wallace. I certainly did not think that a few years later I would be delivering my own award lecture entitled ’Iron deficiency in the first 1,000 days: are we doing enough to protect the developing brain?’ at the Irish Section’s online conference organised by the University of Limerick. This is perhaps the greatest gift that a career in nutrition research offers you – it really can take you anywhere!

Following my degree in nutritional sciences in University College Cork (UCC), I moved straight into a PhD under the wonderful supervision of Professor Mairead Kiely, Head of the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences and Professor Deirdre Murray, Consultant Paediatrician and Head of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health in UCC. Our early work focused on iron and its associations with health outcomes in toddlers in the Cork BASELINE Birth Cohort, one of Ireland’s first maternalinfant birth cohorts. Initial findings showed that iron deficiency remained an issue for young children, even in our apparently healthy, well-nourished cohort in Ireland.

The multidisciplinary nature of our research team has allowed us to focus on clinically validated health outcomes, most notably in the area of neurological development. We have observed poorer cognitive outcomes in children with suboptimal iron status, who do not qualify as having iron deficiency according to current thresholds and definitions. While more recently, we reported long-lasting behavioural consequences of iron deficiency at birth, particularly in those at high-risk of deficiency, secondary to maternal obesity and associated early-life events.

Given iron deficiency and its neurological consequences remain a serious public health issue, we urgently need strategies to tackle the issue. My research is now directed towards the development of screening strategies to help identify the pregnant women, infants and children at highest risk of deficiency so that we can protect the developing brain. As I progress into this next phase of research, the Julie Wallace Award has already provided me with new avenues and opportunities to explore, for which I’m very grateful to The Nutrition Society.