Dr. Chantelle McCann Kiernan joined IDA in September of 2009 and is responsible for attracting research related foreign direct investment for Ireland. Chantelle has responsibility for the Multinational research portfolio - spanning Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology and Medical Device industries. In addition Chantelle is actively engaged in a number of Government driven strategic research initiatives aimed at positioning Ireland optimally to win future RD&I investments. Chantelle has spent her career equally dispersed between academia and industry. She holds a PhD in Immunology from Trinity College Dublin in the area of immunomodulation. She continued her academic career with a Post-Doctoral fellowship in Harvard University, Boston, where she evaluated immuno-prophylactic prevention of HIV transmission from mother to child. Chantelle has spent almost fifteen years in industry. She was employed as a formulation scientist in Procter & Gamble, UK and holds twelve patents in new product development. She also managed an R&D group in ACE Biosciences, a Danish Biotechnology SME, involved in the development of protein based vaccines. On returning to Ireland, she held the position of global project manager for Biovail, a specialty pharmaceutical company, with responsibility for driving new product regulatory filings. In her current role as Scientific Advisor for the IDA, she has been integrally involved in attracting and securing large scale R&D foreign direct investments for IrelandGroup.