Irish Medicines Board at the BT Young Scientist Exhibition

20 January 2011

Thousands of students from all over Ireland last week visited the Irish Medicines Board’s exhibition stand at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2011.

The exhibition, which took place from Tuesday 11th to Saturday 15th of January in the RDS, welcomed huge numbers of visiting students, teachers, parents and members of the general public.

The IMB stand focused on building awareness of the significant role the IMB plays in protecting public and animal health. In particular, the important issue of medicines and medical devices safety was highlighted. The stand also focused on the many interesting science related career opportunities that are available in the healthcare products industry.

Interactive
Visitors to the stand were able to participate in an interactive scientific demonstration that helps to identify fake medicines. This demonstration highlighted the risks associated with purchasing medicines via the internet. A broad range of medical devices were also on display at the stand and visitors were able to test their knowledge of devices in our interactive quiz.

The Irish Medicines Board Special Award
The IMB special award was presented to Eilish Bonner and Aideen Meehan from Rosses Community School, Dungloe, Co. Donegal. The title of their project was “How child-proof are child-proof containers?”.

The IMB Award is granted to a project that best assists an increase in understanding by people of the safe use of, or access to, medicines and/or medical devices. Eilish and Aideen investigated the effectiveness of child-proof containers amongst young children. Their findings very much reinforce the IMB message that medicines should be stored safely in the home out of the reach and sight of children. 

Further Information
Further information about this year's event, including all the winners, is available from www.btyoungscientist.ie

Congratulations to all of the students who participated.