Assoc. Prof. Siobhán McClean
Principal Investigator and BactiVax Coordinator
Organisation/Institute: University College Dublin
Email: siobhan.mcclean@ucd.ie
Siobhán McClean is Associate Professor and Head of Biochemistry at the School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, University College Dublin.
Dr. McClean completed her BSc in Biochemistry in UCD and received her PhD from Imperial College London. After 2 years as a post-doc in UCD, she worked at Elan Pharmaceutical Technologies on several vaccine delivery projects.
She started her academic career as a PI and lecturer at Institute Technology Tallaght, before moving to UCD in 2016. Her research interests focus on understanding bacteria that cause lung infections in people with cystic fibrosis.
Her interest in lung infections led her to develop a platform technology to identify proteins that bacteria use to attach to human cells. These proteins have proved to be excellent vaccine candidates.
She is now applying the same approach to look for vaccine antigens against other antibiotic resistant bacteria. She also has a particular interest in understanding how bacteria adapt to the lung environment enabling chronic infections.
She is currently examining the switch that controls the transition from acute to chronic infection.