Luke O’Neill has held the Chair of Biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin since 2008. He completed his postgraduate study at the University of London where he was awarded a PhD in Pharmacology for the research investigating the characterisation of interleukin-1-induced prostaglandin E₂ release in human synovial cells in 1988. Following his PhD, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Strangeways Research Laboratory in Cambridge funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC).
His main research focus is innate immunity and its key output – inflammation. His work has explored the key sensors and mediators of infection, including the Toll-like receptors, inflammasomes and cytokines in the interleukin-1 (IL-1) family. Luke received the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal for Life Sciences in 2012 and the European Federation of Immunology Societies Medal in 2014. He was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) in 2005 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016.
Luke has published nearly 400 scientific papers and is in the top 1% of Immunologists in the world, based on citation per paper.
He is the author of the best selling book ‘Humanology: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Amazing Existence’ (2018).
In late 2020, he published his next book‘ Never Mind the B#ll*cks, Here’s the Science: A scientist’s guide to the biggest challenges facing our species today”. In this thought-provoking book, he grapples with life’s biggest questions and tells us what science has to say about them.
He is co-founder of two startup companies – Opsona Therapeutics and Inflazome, which are developing new treatments for inflammatory diseases. Luke is a regular contributor on national TV and radio at home and around the world. Luke has an incredible talent for communicating science to the public and to engaging with them on critical issues facing public and personal health matters.
