Clodagh O'Shea

Clodagh C. O'Shea is a professor of molecular and cell biology and current Wicklow Chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences and a scholar at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is also an adjunct professor at UCSD and the Scientific Founder of IconOVir Bio.

Education
Born and raised in Cork, Ireland, O'Shea has a BS in biochemistry and microbiology from University College Cork, Ireland. She obtained a PhD from Imperial College London, revealing key signals that regulate the development of our immune systems. After her graduate studies, she was selected for a Raleigh International expedition to Namibia where she worked on environmental, conservation and development projects. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, United States.

Career and research
O’Shea joined the faculty at the Salk Institute in 2007. She was promoted to associate professor in 2013, and Full Professor in 2018. O’Shea's group designs synthetic viruses. Her team also developed ChromEMT, which enables the 3D folding of genomic DNA to be visualized in the cell nucleus, revealing the chromatin structures that determine gene activation and cell fate.

O’Shea is the Scientific Founder of IconOVir Bio and Chair of IconOVir's Scientific Advisory Board. The clinical-stage biotechnology company hopes to pioneer the next generation of oncolytic virus therapy to improve the treatment of patients with cancer.

Awards

 * 2007 Emerald Foundation Scholar
 * 2008 ACGT Young Investigator Award for Cancer Gene Therapy
 * 2008 Arnold and Mabel Beckman Young Investigators Award
 * 2009 Sontag Distinguished Scientist Award
 * 2011 Science/NSF International Science & Visualization Challenge, People's Choice
 * 2016 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar
 * 2018 Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group's Allen Distinguished Investigator