Research Laboratory for Pulmonary Research named after Trinity alumnus Dr Seamus Ó Floinn

Posted on: 24 June 2008

A research laboratory at the Trinity Centre for Health Sciences at St James’s Hospital was named after a distinguished Trinity alumnus, Dr Seamus Ó Floinn, at a special ceremony on June 20th last. The research laboratory named after Dr Ó Floinn will house the pulmonary group, headed up by Dr Joseph Keane, Director of Research at the School of Medicine. Dr Keane is currently conducting ground-breaking research into the pulmonary diseases – lung cancer and tuberculosis, and has recently published a new test for lung cancer in Nature Medicine. This test was generated by using samples from over 100 patients with the disease in St James’s Hospital. In collaboration with Boston University, the research team identified 80 genes whose expression in normal airway cells predicts lung cancer elsewhere in the lung with high accuracy. When combined with bronchoscopy, it improves the sensitivity of that test to 95%.

The recently deceased Seamus P. J. Ó Floinn qualified in medicine at Trinity College before emigrating to the United States. There he studied and did his residency training in preventative and internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore. He went on to obtain his Masters Degree in public health from the Hopkins School of Public Health.

Dr Ó Floinn had illustrious career in medicine and medical administration. As a pulmonary specialist, he had been the chief of the Division of Respiratory Diseases. He had served as the Director of both the Montebello Rehabilitation Hospital and the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems. He had also been the Chief Medical Officer at both the University Specialty Hospital and the Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Hospital. He subsequently became head of the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Centre and the Medical Officer for the Maryland National Guard.

Throughout his life Seamus retained a deep loyalty to Trinity College. Dr Mary Henry initiated the efforts to dedicate a laboratory in Seamus’s memory. Seamus’s wife Lacy from Baltimore, Maryland, and his brother, Rear Admiral Cathal Flynn from California, as well as other family and friends and colleagues from the School of Medicine attended the ceremony.