BEST
Bright Eyes, Sharp Minds, Better Lives
(start date 2026)
Lead researchers:
Dr Alfonso Prado-Cabrero, Dr Anne Graham Cagney, Dr Fraser Horn
Founding body:
The Howard Foundation
BEST is an interdisciplinary school-based study that addresses a growing problem: most children consume only a fraction of the recommended intake of carotenoids such as lutein, which accumulate in the retina and brain and support visual and cognitive development. Set in an Irish primary school with 8–10-year-old children, it is the first Irish interdisciplinary study to impart an in-school nutrition intervention for children, teachers and parents to measure its impact on children’s lunch selection, skin carotenoid levels and academic achievement. BEST will also carry out a vision screening to assess vision in these children. The project will develop age-appropriate curriculum resources and build the evidence base for a future national research programme. (Funding agreed with The Howard Foundation.)
SPECTRUM
Selective-eating in Paediatrics: Enriching Common foods To Reduce Undernutrition in Minors
(start date 2026)
Lead researchers:
Dr Anne Graham Cagney and Dr Alfonso Prado-Cabrero
Most autistic children with marked food selectivity eat from a very narrow range of foods, and the foods they refuse are precisely those richest in the nutrients a developing brain and retina need. Existing feeding interventions try to widen what the child will eat. This approach demands a lot of effort from parents, and it has rarely been shown to improve nutritional status in the child. SPECTRUM takes the opposite approach: rather than changing what the child eats, it changes what the foods the child already accepts deliver. Substituting the cooking oil in a familiar dish, for example, alters its essential fatty acid content without changing how it looks, tastes or is prepared, and asks nothing new of the child. Working with parents, autistic adults, clinicians and school staff, the project audits what each household actually cooks with, formulates modifications tailored to that starting point, and establishes how far a substitution can go before a child notices. The result is a tested, openly published repertoire of strategies, and a method that transfers to other food cultures, even where the particular substitution does not.
EIRE
Enclosed Integrated Recirculating Ecosystem
(start date 2017)
Lead researcher:
Dr Alfonso Prado-Cabrero
Founding bodies:
Enterprise Ireland, Nutralgae Ltd, Aqua Nutrients Ltd
EIRE is a land-based platform for producing marine zooplankton without taking anything from the sea. Within a single enclosed unit, microalgae and the copepod Tigriopus californicus are cultured together as one coupled ecosystem: the algae feed the animals, and the water is continuously recovered and returned rather than discharged. It yields a year-round supply of copepod biomass naturally rich in astaxanthin and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, grown with no fishmeal, no fish oil, no formulated feed and no effluent. Because the system holds its own conditions steady rather than following season and weather, composition stays consistent and specifiable — something wild-caught marine ingredients cannot offer. Developed in Waterford, Ireland.