GREAT news for the people of Ireland as the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital has just launched their new state of the art Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Laboratory. And one of racing’s favourtite characters was in the thick of the action through fundraising.

The new Gene Sequencing Equipment was donated to the Mater Hospital by Shabra Charity, keeping the promise of the late Oliver Brady, co-founder of Shabra Charity with Rita Shah.

Oliver devoted his energies in the last years of his life, before dying of cancer in 2014, to this project as he felt that precision diagnostics will help detect patients at early stages to be treated either by medication, operation, radiology or chemotherapy.

Rita Shah explained: “I am delighted to be standing here today to honour the memory of my dear friend and business partner Oliver Brady. I have a strong charity committee and there are so many people who supported me in my ambition to fulfil Oliver’s last wish.

“I would like to thank them all from the bottom of my heart.’’

Costing €2 million, the equipment and lab were funded by the hospital, the HSE and a €750,000 donation from the Shabra Charity.