Luke Anthony John O'Neill (born 17 June 1964) is an Irish biochemist. He has been a professor of

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

since 2009.

Early life and education

O'Neill was born on 17 June 1964 in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, Ireland, to Kevin O'Neill and Carmel O'Neill (). He was educated at St Peter's School and Presentation College in Bray, County Wicklow, and went to

, where he was awarded an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) in 1985. He completed his postgraduate study at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

, where he was awarded a PhD in

pharmacology Pharmacology is the science of drugs and medications, including a substance's origin, composition, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, therapeutic use, and toxicology. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur betwee ...

, for research investigating the characterisation of prostaglandin E₂ release induced by interleukin-1 in human synovial cells, in 1988. Following his PhD, he worked at the

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

at the Strangeways Research Laboratory in Cambridge funded by the Medical Research Council.

Research

O'Neill's research investigates

inflammation Inflammation (from ) is part of the biological response of body tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. The five cardinal signs are heat, pain, redness, swelling, and loss of function (Latin ''calor'', '' ...

, a highly complex process that is provoked in the body during infection by bacteria and viruses but also in response to

major trauma Major trauma is any injury that has the potential to cause prolonged disability or death. There are many causes of major trauma, blunt and penetrating, including falls, motor vehicle collisions, stabbing wounds, and gunshot wounds. Dependi ...

and injury. Inflammation restores us to health but for largely unknown reasons it can go rogue and give rise to a whole range of inflammatory diseases which remain difficult to treat. He has worked on the

innate immune system The innate immune system or nonspecific immune system is one of the two main immunity strategies in vertebrates (the other being the adaptive immune system). The innate immune system is an alternate defense strategy and is the dominant immune s ...

, which lies at the heart of inflammation. He has uncovered new molecules and biochemical processes that are triggered by sensors of infection and tissue injury, including the

toll-like receptor Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a class of proteins that play a key role in the innate immune system. They are single-pass membrane protein, single-spanning receptor (biochemistry), receptors usually expressed on sentinel cells such as macrophages ...

s and

inflammasome Inflammasomes are cytosolic multiprotein complexes of the innate immune system responsible for the activation of inflammatory responses and cell death. They are formed as a result of specific cytosolic pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) sens ...

s, and the signals they drive that stimulate inflammation, notably

cytokine Cytokines () are a broad and loose category of small proteins (~5–25 kDa) important in cell signaling. Cytokines are produced by a broad range of cells, including immune cells like macrophages, B cell, B lymphocytes, T cell, T lymphocytes ...

s in the

interleukin-1 family The Interleukin-1 family (IL-1 family) is a group of 11 cytokines that plays a central role in the regulation of immune and inflammatory responses to infections or sterile insults. Discovery Discovery of these cytokines began with studies on t ...

. He has made pioneering discoveries in the area of metabolic reprogramming in immunity and

immunometabolism Immunometabolism is a branch of biology that studies the interplay between metabolism and immunology in all organisms. In particular, immunometabolism is the study of the molecular and biochemical underpinnings for i) the metabolic regulation of imm ...

. He is using his findings to help in the effort to develop novel

anti-inflammatory Anti-inflammatory is the property of a substance or treatment that reduces inflammation, fever or swelling. Anti-inflammatory drugs, also called anti-inflammatories, make up about half of analgesics. These drugs reduce pain by inhibiting mechan ...

medicines. He has co-founded Inflazome with Matt Cooper which developed NLRP3 inhibitors and was acquired by Roche Ltd in 2020, and Sitryx with Houman Ashrafian, Johnathan Powell, Jeff Rathmell and Mike Rosenblum. In 2023 he was appointed Chief Scientific Officer of Senda Biosciences, a company pioneering programmable medicines. His research has been funded by the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the European Research Council (ERC), the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predec ...

and

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with headquarters in London. It was established in 2000 by a Mergers an ...

Awards and honours

O'Neill was awarded the

Royal Dublin Society The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) () is an Irish philanthropic organisation and members club which was founded as the 'Dublin Society' on 25 June 1731 with the aim to see Ireland thrive culturally and economically. It was long active as a learned ...

& ''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

Robert Boyle Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, Alchemy, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the foun ...

Medal for scientific excellence in 2009, the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the natural sciences, arts, literature, and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned society and one of its le ...

Gold Medal for Life Sciences in 2012 and the European Federation of Immunology Societies (EFIS) Medal in 2014. He was elected a member of the

(MRIA) in 2004 and the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) in 2005. O'Neill was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: In 2019 he won the Landsteiner Award from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 2021 he won the UCD Biological Society George Sigerson Award for Inspiring Aspiring Scientists. In 2022, he was made an honorary Doctor of Science by the University of Bath and was presented with an honorary lifetime membership award by the International Cytokine and Interferon Society. In 2023 he was appointed to the governing body of the European Research Council, the European Union's premier funder of fundamental research and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by UMass Chan Medical School. In 2024 he was made Honorary Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society.

Public engagement

O'Neill has a weekly science slot with Pat Kenny on the Irish national radio station

Newstalk Newstalk (formerly NewsTalk 106) is a national independent radio station in Ireland. It is operated by News 106 Limited, a subsidiary of Bauer Media Audio Ireland, and broadcasts under a sound broadcasting contract with the Broadcasting Aut ...

and a Podcast entitled ''Show Me the Science''. A book entitled ''Show me the Science'' was published in 2023. He has a weekly column on science in the '' Sunday Independent'' and wrote extensively concerning the

COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland The COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In Ireland, it has resulted in 1,753,206 cases ...

. He contracted

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

himself in December 2021, and experienced symptoms. In 2018, he published ''Humanology: A Scientist's Guide to our Amazing Existence'' with Gill publishers. In 2019, he published a science book for children, ''The Great Irish Science Book'' with Gill. In 2020 he won the An Post Irish Book of the Year Award for best popular non-fiction book for ''Never Mind the B*ll*cks, Here's the Science'', published by Gill, which was a best seller. He also won the Science Foundation Ireland Science Communicator of the Year Award, for his media work on COVID19. In 2021 he published ''Keep Calm and Trust the Science: A Remarkable Year in the Life of an Immunologist'', which is his diary covering the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. In 2023 he published ''To Boldly Go Where No Book has Gone Before'', with Penguin Random House. In the same year he also published ''What Makes Us Human: A Scientist’s Guide to our Amazing Existence'' with Tara O’Neill. In 2024 he published ''The Great Australian Science Book''.

Personal life

O'Neill married Margaret Worrall in 1993. They have two sons. O'Neill is a musician and plays with the band Metabollix.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:ONeill, Luke Living people Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Members of the Royal Irish Academy Sunday Independent (Ireland) people 1964 births People educated at Presentation College, Bray Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Alumni of the University of London Academics of Trinity College Dublin 20th-century Irish chemists 21st-century Irish scientists Scientists from County Dublin 20th-century Irish biologists