Dr. Emma Creagh is an Assistant Professor at the School of Biochemistry & Immunology, Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Creagh has a BA mod. in Biochemistry from Trinity College and a PhD in Biochemistry from University College Cork. Her PhD was carried out in Prof. Tom Cotter’s lab. where she investigated the ability of heat shock proteins to inhibit cell death in tumour cells.

Emma began her Post-Doctoral research with Prof. Seamus Martin’s research team at the Genetics Dept. in Trinity College. Her research there focussed on a group of enzymes, called caspases, examining the mechanisms that they use to cause cell death. Emma was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship (RCDF) to use her experience in caspase research to investigate the role of caspases during inflammation. She carried out her Wellcome RCDF at Trinity’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology, mentored by Prof. Luke O’Neill.

Emma established her independent research group in 2011, which is focussed on understanding the contribution of caspases to cell death and inflammatory processes during cancer, particularly colorectal, oesophageal and triple negative breast cancers. Emma has trained a dynamic research team and has developed clinical collaborations nationally (St. James’, St. Vincent’s and Beaumont Hospitals, Dublin) and in the EU (Cologne University Hospital, Dept. Gastroenterology at Technical University Munich), enabling investigation of their translational research questions.

Emma has recently been granted an EU patent for discoveries relating to the use of caspases as biomarkers for gastrointestinal cancers. She has 34 publications in high impact international journals and has raised €1.65M in research funding. She regularly reviews grants and manuscripts for leading cancer funders and publishers. Emma is also committed to communicating her research findings to the public, via public lectures, hosting transition year students and visiting local Primary Schools during Science week, annually. These outreach activities raise public awareness and increase public engagement on biomedical and cancer research being carried out in Ireland.