Siobhain O’Mahony
Biography
Dr Siobhain O'Mahony is a neurobiological scientist with over 20 years of experience in the area of the microbiome. She graduated with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Neuroscience from University College Cork (UCC) in 2001. She then went on to complete a Masters in Neuropharmacology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. As part of a Marie Curie Fellowship Siobhain carried out preclinical research on the impact of gestational stress on the immune and behavioural profiles of female rats in the Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology in the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands. Siobhain obtained a PhD from the Department of Psychiatry, UCC in 2006 where she carried out novel investigations into the effects of postnatal stress on the developing microbiome-gut-brain axis being one of the first people to identify aberrant gastrointestinal microbiome changes following postnatal stress. She continued her research on adverse early life events during a post-doctoral post in the APC Microbiome Ireland, Biosciences Institute, UCC and took up a post-doctoral position with GlaxoSmithKline where she employed the pre-clinical model developed during her PhD to investigate novel pharmacological interventions for visceral pain. In 2008 Siobhain was appointed as a Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience at UCC and now works as a Senior Lecturer teaching Anatomy and Neuroscience across ten Programs at UCC. She established the taught MSc in Human Anatomy in 2017, which is the first of its kind in Ireland.
Research Interests
Siobhain's research assesses outcomes of disruption of the gut microbiome and how this can lead to miscommunication within the microbiome-gut-brain axis. Outcomes assessed include visceral and somatic pain, neurodevelopment of children and stress-related disorders and how these may be impacted by sex differences and ameliorated through manipulation of the gut microbiome. Siobhain also focuses on women’s health investigating the impact of stress and diet in endometriosis, menopause and during pregnancy. Her research group is based in the APC Microbiome Ireland and the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience in the Biosciences Institute and the Western Gateway Building, UCC.
She has made significant contributions to the fields of microbiome, neurogastroenterology and pain research (H-index of 49 (Google Scholar); 12868 citations). She was in the top 100 researchers on the Plos List 2019. She has made important contributions to this field including the establishment of a pre-clinical model of early life stress and subsequent gut-brain axis dysfunction and associated co-morbidities. This model has been consistently used to attract industry funding since 2008 including GlaxoSmithKline and Mead Johnson Nutrition to inform interventions for visceral pain and stress-related behaviour.
Her research has helped inform infant nutritional strategies through collaboration with Mead Johnson Nutrition and has shown that a particular component of breast milk combined with a prebiotic reduces the impact of early life stress on the developing brain-gut-microbiota axis. The addition of these components to infant formula can help to bridge the gap between breast and formula feeding when needed.
Siobhain received an honorary fellowship into the College of Anaesthesiologists Ireland in June 2024 and has received many awards over her career and more recently she received the Innovation and Teaching Award 2021, College of Medicine and Health UCC; Engaged Research Award 2023, APC Microbiome Ireland, UCC, Clinical Impact Award 2023, SPRINT Accelerator Programme, UCC Gateway, UCC and Entrepreneur and Industry Person of the year Award 2023, APC, Microbiome Ireland, UCC.