Cliona O’Farrelly is an Irish immunologist, with a background in comparative, liver and cancer immunology, focuses on the innate immune response to viruses to identify new or improved therapeutic strategies to control resistance to viral infection.

Biography

As a child living in

Adare Adare (; ) is a village in County Limerick, Ireland, located southwest of the city of Limerick. Adare is designated as a heritage town by the Irish government. The village is in a townland and civil parish of the same name. History The River M ...

, County Limerick, Ireland, O’Farrelly hoped to study architecture at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

, but because that major wasn't offered at the College, chose science instead and earned her BS and PhD in immunology. There, she was once taught by physicist and Nobel laureate

Ernest Walton Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (6 October 1903 – 25 June 1995) was an Irish nuclear physicist who shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Cockcroft "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerate ...

. After her studies, she spent almost three years as a lecturer and researcher at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

followed by three years at Trinity College Dublin. In 1993, she began working at University College Dublin’s St. Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH) where she directed research (such as with Christine Loscher) and supervised the PhD studies of immunologist Lydia Lynch, among others. In 2007, O’Farrelly joined the faculty at Trinity College where, she was named Professor of Comparative Immunology at the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute with a leading role in finding immune response therapies for viruses, including COVID-19. She has conducted collaborations with National Liver Centre SVUH, National Fertility Clinic, Holles Street Hospital, Cancer Institute at Trinity College Dublin, along with international research at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

, Harvard University,

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (, ) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Th ...

and Moffite Cancer Center in Florida. She also develops industry relevant training opportunities for students. In 2022, O’Farrelly was named a

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

. Candidates are elected to these lifetime positions for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements throughout their careers.

Selected publications

According to

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

, O'Farrelly has more than 279 publications as of 2023. * O'Farrelly, Cliona, J. Kelly, W. I. J. M. Hekkens, B. Bradley, A. Thompson, C. Feighery, and D. G. Weir. "Alpha gliadin antibody levels: a serological test for

coeliac disease Coeliac disease (British English) or celiac disease (American English) is a long-term autoimmune disorder, primarily affecting the small intestine. Patients develop intolerance to gluten, which is present in foods such as wheat, rye, spelt ...

." ''Br Med J (Clin Res Ed)'' 286, no. 6383 (1983): 2007-2010. * Doherty, Derek G., and Cliona O'Farrelly. "Innate and adaptive lymphoid cells in the human liver." ''Immunological reviews'' 174 (2000): 5-20. * Dunne, Jean, Sara Lynch, Cliona O’Farrelly, Stephen Todryk, John E. Hegarty, Conleth Feighery, and Derek G. Doherty. "Selective expansion and partial activation of human NK cells and NK receptor-positive T cells by IL-2 and IL-15." ''The Journal of Immunology'' 167, no. 6 (2001): 3129-3138. * Nemeth, Eszter, Alan W. Baird, and Cliona O’Farrelly. "Microanatomy of the liver immune system." In ''Seminars in immunopathology'', vol. 31, pp. 333-343. Springer-Verlag, 2009.

Selected awards and honors

* Honorary secretary of

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

. * 1997: Fellow of the

Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland The Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (RAMI) is a learned medical society in Dublin, Ireland. History RAMI was established in 1882 by the amalgamation of the Dublin Society of Surgeons, the Medical Society of the Royal College of Physicians of I ...

* 2001-2007: President, Irish Society of Immunology * 2008: Irish Society of Immunology Public Lecture Award * 2022:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OFarrelly, Cliona Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Immunologists Women immunologists University College Dublin Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Irish immunologists Alumni of Trinity College Dublin