John Stuart O’Neill (born 2 June 1979) is a British molecular and circadian biologist. O’Neill is currently a Principal Investigator at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in

Cambridge, United Kingdom Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became ...

. His work focuses on the fundamental mechanisms that sustain

circadian rhythm A circadian rhythm (), or circadian cycle, is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep–wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours. It can refer to any process that originates within an organism (i.e., Endogeny (biology), endogeno ...

s in

eukaryotic cells Eukaryotes () are organisms whose Cell (biology), cells have a cell nucleus, nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms, are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the ...

Academic career

O'Neill studied undergraduate biochemistry at New College,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. He went on to join

King's College King's College or The King's College refers to two higher education institutions in the United Kingdom: *King's College, Cambridge, a constituent of the University of Cambridge *King's College London, a constituent of the University of London It ca ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, where he undertook his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, under the supervision of

Michael Hastings Michael or Mike Hastings may refer to: *Michael Hastings (playwright) (1938–2011), British playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and poet *Michael Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun (1942–2012), English-born Australian rice farmer, Scottish aris ...

, on the subject of cAMP signalling in the

suprachiasmatic nucleus The suprachiasmatic nucleus or nuclei (SCN) is a tiny region of the brain in the hypothalamus, situated directly above the optic chiasm. It is responsible for controlling circadian rhythms. The neuronal and hormonal activities it generates regula ...

of the

hypothalamus The hypothalamus () is a part of the brain that contains a number of small nuclei with a variety of functions. One of the most important functions is to link the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland. The hypothalamu ...

(SCN). For his post-doctoral research, O’Neill investigated circadian rhythms in plants and algae with

Andrew Millar Andrew Millar (17058 June 1768) was a British publisher in the eighteenth century. Biography In 1725, as a twenty-year-old bookseller apprentice, he evaded Edinburgh city printing restrictions by going to Leith to print, which was considered be ...

at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

and then subsequently in human cells with

Akhilesh Reddy Akhilesh Reddy is a British physician-scientist. He studied on the MB/PhD programme at the University of Cambridge and received a PhD from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He was a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow in Clinical Sciences at th ...

at the Institute for Metabolic Science at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. During this time, O’Neill contributed to a number of papers on non-transcriptional mechanisms of circadian timekeeping, most notably a letter and an article in same edition of ''Nature'' showing that transcriptional cycles are not essential for circadian rhythms in human and algal cells, which have been cited over 700 and 400 times respectively, according to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

. These observations were subsequently independently replicated and extended but were considered controversial at the time since transcriptional feedback repression had been thought essential for circadian rhythms in eukaryotes. O'Neill was awarded a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship in 2011 and in 2013 was recruited to become an independent group leader in the Cell Biology Division of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. In 2016, he was awarded an EMBO Young Investigator Prize. In collaboration with Cairn Research, O'Neill pioneered the development of the ALLIGATOR for long-term

bioluminescence Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by living organisms. It is a form of chemiluminescence. Bioluminescence occurs widely in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some fungi, microorganisms including some b ...

imaging.

Current Research

The O'Neill group’s research is focused on the evolution and mechanisms of circadian timekeeping in eukaryotic cells, and how biological clocks regulate cellular function to impact upon human health and disease. In a 2019 paper, published in the journal '' Cell,'' the group identified

insulin Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the ''INS'' gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism o ...

as a primary signal synchronizing mammalian circadian rhythms with feeding time. In 2017, the lab also demonstrated that cell-autonomous circadian regulation of

actin Actin is a family of globular multi-functional proteins that form microfilaments in the cytoskeleton, and the thin filaments in muscle fibrils. It is found in essentially all eukaryotic cells, where it may be present at a concentration of over ...

dynamics in

fibroblast A fibroblast is a type of cell (biology), biological cell that synthesizes the extracellular matrix and collagen, produces the structural framework (Stroma (tissue), stroma) for animal Tissue (biology), tissues, and plays a critical role in wound ...

and other skin cells leads to differences in

cell migration Cell migration is a central process in the development and maintenance of multicellular organisms. Tissue formation during embryonic development, wound healing and immune responses all require the orchestrated movement of cells in particular dire ...

during wound healing that depend on the biological time of day that the wound was incurred. These findings predicted the striking 40% difference in the number of days that human burn injuries required to heal which they subsequently identified. Most recently, the O'Neill lab has been working to determine the basis for understanding metabolic oscillations in yeast.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:ONeill, John S 1979 births Alumni of New College, Oxford Alumni of King's College, Cambridge British molecular biologists People from Doncaster Living people Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge