Westport native given OBE by King Charles

A SCIENTIST who was born and reared on Westport’s Lodge Road has been bestowed an OBE by British monarch King Charles for his work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Martin Walsh, a structural biologist and deputy director of Life Sciences at Diamond Light Source institute in Oxford, was included among the king’s list of honours for his contribution to science during the pandemic.

Part of the work directed by Dr Walsh has indirectly led to the development of vaccines and antiviral medication to treat Covid-19.

Speaking to The Mayo News over Zoom, a humble Dr Walsh paid tribute to his colleagues at Diamond, which employs approximately 800 people.

“It’s not just me, I’m kind of a figurehead there. It’s great to be acknowledged and get the award personally, but really, it’s on behalf of a lot of people,” said Dr Walsh, who is the son of Carmel Quinn ( Walsh). 

“It’s good to get recognition and hopefully it recognises the work that not just I’m doing, but the whole group of people here in Diamond and further afield. We worked with people all over the world during the last three or four years.”

After completing his secondary education in the school formerly known as CBS Westport, Dr Walsh spent eight-and-a-half years in NUI Galway, where he graduated with a PhD.

Well travelled

His scientific career took him to the United States, Italy and France eventually back to Oxford, where he has resided since 2009.

Some of his more recent work has included research on upper respiratory tract infections, which came into increased focus during the pandemic.

While ‘completely separate’ to the development of the Oxford/Astra-Zeneca vaccine, Diamond’s research has contributed heavily to the recent development of a Covid-19 antiviral drug in Japan.

“We kept working throughout the pandemic. So it was a crazy time for trying to provide structural data to help people understand how the virus works and try to identify potential targets for us to develop drugs against and also help with the vaccine development,” explained Dr Walsh.

“I wasn’t directly involved in the vaccine work. We decided to basically focus on looking at some of the proteins that are essential for the replication of the virus. So if we could actually inhibit their function, then you stop the virus replicating, therefore you can stop the virus from spreading to other cells in your body and causing Covid,” he added.

“The protein we were working on turned out to be a very good target for drug discovery. The Pfizer compound which is now being licensed is targeting that particular protein.

Global initative

“We’ve been involved in a massive global initiative that’s now also potentially going to lead to a drug being licensed in the near future. But developing new drugs is exceedingly complicated and it typically takes anything from 15 to 25 years.”

Reflecting on the development of vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr Walsh said it was ‘quite a feat’ that vaccines and other therapies against the virus were developed so quickly.

“These things take typically 20 years on average to come up with something. So the fact that we’ve got a couple of antivirals already and numerous vaccines is really quite a feat,” he said.

“But it wouldn’t have happened unless we had that investment and continued investment and we still don’t have enough investment.”

The ceremony to honour Dr Martin Walsh and King Charles’ other OBE nominees will take place at a later date. A party to celebrate his nomination will be held in Westport later on this year.