Biography

Fergus Shanahan MD, DSc, is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine and Director of the APC Microbiome Institute at University College Cork (UCC). The APC investigates host-microbe interactions in health and disease, now has a membership of over 160 staff, scientists and students, and is funded by Science Foundation Ireland and by research alliances with companies within the food and pharmaceutical sectors. Dr. Shanahan attended medical school at University College Dublin. After internship and residency at the Mater hospital, he completed fellowships in clinical immunology at McMaster University, Canada, and in gastroenterology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). At UCLA he rose to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure before returning to Ireland in 1993. Dr. Shanahan has published over 450 scientific papers and has co-edited several books. He has also published several articles on the medical humanities, including an award winning essay entitled ‘Waiting’. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, Canada, and the United Kingdom as well as of the American College of Physicians. He is a former President of the Irish Society of Gastroenterology, was named to the “Irish Life Science 50” a list of the top 50 Irish and Irish Americans in the life science industry, and recently was awarded the Irish Society of Immunology medal and public lecture award. In 2013, Science Foundation Ireland named him as its Researcher of the Year. His interests include mucosal immunology, gut microbiota, inflammatory bowel disease, and most things that affect the human experience.

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