Dr O’Mahony’s research group focuses on the long-term consequences of early-life stress in particular the impact on the neural and molecular communication pathways between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract and how dysfunction of this communication can lead to an exaggerated pain response. The article that won Siobhain the award titled “Early life stress alters behaviour, immunity, and microbiota in rats: implications for irritable bowel syndrome and psychiatric illnesses” was published in Biological Psychiatry in 2009. Co-authors included Professors John Cryan, Timothy Dinan, Eamonn Quigley, Drs Julian Marchesi, Paul Scully, Caroline Codling and Anne-Marie Coelho.

About the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre
The Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, (APC; http://apc.ucc.ie) is a research centre funded by Science Foundation Ireland and industry partners.  The APC, a partnership between University College Cork, Teagasc, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority, and the Cork Institute of Technology, focuses on research in gastrointestinal health.  Pharmabiotic is a neologism devised by the APC to represent any material (including molecules and microbes) originating from the gut ecosystem that can be exploited for a health benefit, and includes probiotics, prebiotics, metabolites, and potential new anti-microbials and anti-inflammatories. The independent international ratings agency Thomson Reuters Science Watch global analysis, recently ranked University College Cork at number 2 in the world for probiotics research, due primarily to publications from researchers in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre ( http://sciencewatch.com/ana/st/probiotics/institution/