Luke O’Neill is Professor of Biochemistry in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He is a world expert on innate immunity and inflammation. His main research interests include Toll-like receptors, Inflammasomes and Immunometabolism. He is listed by Thompson Reuters/ Clarivates in the top 1% of immunologists in the world, based on citations per paper. Professor O’Neill is co-founder of Sitryx, which aims to develop new medicines for inflammatory diseases. Another company he co-founded, Inflazome was recently acquired by Roche.
He was awarded the Royal Dublin Society / Irish Times Boyle Medal for scientific excellence, the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal for Life Sciences, The Society for Leukocyte Biology (SLB) Dolph O. Adams award, the European Federation of Immunology Societies Medal and in 2018 the Milstein Award of the International Cytokine and Interferon Society. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy, EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organisation) and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Luke also has a passion for communicating science to the public. He has a weekly radio slot on the Pat Kenny show on Newstalk. In 2018 he published with Gill the best-selling ‘Humanology: a scientist’s guide to our amazing existence’ and in 2019 Gill published ‘The Great Irish Science Book’, a Science book for 10-12 year olds. His latest book, also published by Gill is called ‘Never Mind the B#ll*cks Here’s the Science’. Luke has presented at previous Robert Boyle Summer Schools in 2014 and 2019.
‘Humanology’, June 2019.
Comic books and Hollywood have always had a great time with enhanced humans created by genetic engineering – stories featuring a dystopian future where modified humans go out of control. However, recent advances in genetic engineering, notably a technique called CRISPR , have made the prospect of altering humans genetically a more feasible occurrence. Might it be possible to make humans disease resistant by altering faulty genes? And how about making humans who are naturally superior in terms of resisting diseases? Can we make everyone disease resistant, or will this just be for the rich? Would it be possible to make a human like Fionn Mac Cumhaill or Spiderman?
‘COVID19: update on vaccines and therapeutics’, March 2021.
In 2020, the world experienced a pandemic that caused a global economic freeze for several months. What distinguishes COVID from the common cold? How does it replicate? How does our immune system respond? What medical tools do we have to combat COVID19? What will vaccination do? Watch Professor Luke O’Neill, a world expert on innate immunity and inflammation, explain the science behind COVID19.
