Clodagh C. O'Shea is a professor of molecular and cell biology and current Wicklow Chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences and a scholar at the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, f ...

. She is also an adjunct professor at

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is th ...

and the Scientific Founder of IconOVir Bio.

Education

Born and raised in

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, O'Shea has a BS in biochemistry and microbiology from

University College Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh) is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one ...

, Ireland. She obtained a PhD from

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a ...

, revealing key signals that regulate the development of our

immune system The immune system is a network of biological processes that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to parasitic worms, as well as Tumor immunology, cancer cells and objects such ...

s. After her graduate studies, she was selected for a

Raleigh International Raleigh International is a youth expedition organisation based in the UK. On 19 May 2022 Raleigh International Trust ceased operations and entered Creditors' Voluntary Liquidation. The Raleigh International brand was bought by Impact Travel Group ...

expedition to

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and e ...

where she worked on environmental, conservation and development projects. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the

UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is an NCI-designated Cancer Center, affiliated with the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Medical Center. It is one of 69 cancer research institutions in the United States supported by the Nat ...

, San Francisco, United States.

Career and research

O’Shea joined the faculty at the Salk Institute in 2007. She was promoted to associate professor in 2013, and Full Professor in 2018. O’Shea's group designs synthetic

virus A virus is a wikt:submicroscopic, submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living Cell (biology), cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and ...

es. Her team also developed ChromEMT, which enables the 3D folding of genomic DNA to be visualized in the cell nucleus, revealing the

chromatin Chromatin is a complex of DNA and protein found in eukaryote, eukaryotic cells. The primary function is to package long DNA molecules into more compact, denser structures. This prevents the strands from becoming tangled and also plays important ...

structures that determine gene activation and cell fate. O’Shea is the Scientific Founder of IconOVir Bio and Chair of IconOVir's Scientific Advisory Board. The clinical-stage biotechnology company hopes to pioneer the next generation of

oncolytic virus An oncolytic virus is a virus that preferentially infects and kills cancer cells. As the infected cancer cells are destroyed by oncolysis, they release new infectious virus particles or virions to help destroy the remaining tumour. Oncolytic virus ...

therapy to improve the treatment of patients with cancer.

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * *

Awards

* 2007 Emerald Foundation Scholar * 2008 ACGT Young Investigator Award for Cancer Gene Therapy * 2008 Arnold and Mabel Beckman Young Investigators Award * 2009 Sontag Distinguished Scientist Award * 2011 Science/NSF International Science & Visualization Challenge, People's Choice * 2016 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar * 2018 Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group's Allen Distinguished Investigator

Education

Career and research

Selected publications

Awards

References

Further reading