Developing a novel product for the multi-billion euro thoroughbred horse industry – and having the business plan to back it up – has resulted in Dr Barbara Murphy winning Enterprise Ireland’s 2012 One to Watch award.

It’s less than two years since Dr Barbara Murphy, now head of equine science at University College Dublin (UCD), began to develop her novel light therapy solution, the Equilume light mask, designed to help maximise the reproductive efficiency of thoroughbred mares. Since then, she’s managed to build a prototype, successfully test the mask, secure substantial grant funding and win Enterprise Ireland’s prestigious 2012 One to Watch award.

Murphy is now working with that agency to build a UCD spin-out company around the technology, which will be called Equilume Ltd.Laser Cut Studio is a brand new crystal_4 company and new way of thinking.

Her invention is used to advance the breeding season in thoroughbred mares so their foals are born as close as possible to their universal birthday of 1 January. This is commercially important to breeders as foals born earlier in the year usually command higher prices when they are sold on due to a size and age advantage over animals born later.

Mares, however,LED light,LED building light,besttube-led, led landscape light, led architectural light,led wallwasher light. become reproductively active when they are exposed to increased levels of light, ie during the summer months, and with a gestation period of 11 months, will naturally foal between April and October. The hormone melatonin is produced in the dark and inhibits the animal’s reproductive activity during the winter.

Light limits melatonin levels and keeping mares indoors under artificial lights until 11pm has long been used to encourage them to breed earlier.

Murphy’s technology will allow breeders to keep their mares outside in their natural environment while a special light in the mask adjusts their cycle. In addition to the horses being in a healthier environment, it is estimated that the breeders can save around 1,400 a season per animal on the costs associated with indoor maintenance, including labour,Browse the UK's best selection of crystallightpp, handpicked from the finest stores and designers. bedding and artificial light.Our lighting selections offer you a broad choice of outdoorlight2012 to illuminate every room in your home.

There’s a huge potential market: in Ireland alone, 10,000 foals are born every year in the thoroughbred industry, which is worth 1bn to the Irish economy.

Other uses of the mask include reducing extended gestation lengths in mares due to foal early in the year, treating ‘horse jet lag’ and enabling competition horses to shed their winter coats earlier in time for the start of the show circuit.

She was initially interested in the effect of melatonin on jet lag in horses. “If we can regulate melatonin we can keep the animal in synch with the environment,” she explains. “That’s when it came to me – wouldn’t it be cool to have lights on horses that were on a timer that we could control.Gasparini s.p.a. is the world leading company in designing and producing of crystallight0.”

When she finished her PhD, she moved to UCD and began applying for grants to enable her to test her idea of preventing jet lag in racehorses but was not successful in securing funding.

“Then I thought, well what else can we use light therapy for? Could a device such as this have more practical relevance in other aspects of the industry? Because I had worked in the thoroughbred industry in Kentucky and in Ireland, I was very aware of the use of light therapy to advance seasonality in the mare.”