Catherine grew up in Dublin and after years in San Diego, Geneva and Boston, now lives in Dun Laoghaire. Catherine is mentor to many, sister to four, Mum to three, daughter to two and wife of one. On weekends she can be found walking with family, friends, and her family’s pandemic cockapoo. She loves to cook, a substitute for lab work, and her ambition is to learn to draw, to colour in, and eventually to paint.

Catherine is Professor of Molecular Medicine and Director of the UCD Diabetes Complications Research Centre. She leads an international, multidisciplinary group of investigators including faculty, postdoctoral fellows, clinicians, clinical fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates whose research focuses on innate immunity and chronic complications of diabetes. 

Catherine and her colleagues are investigating the resolution of inflammation. Inflammation is a critical component of how the body protects itself against infection and injury. It is really vital that the onset, duration and amplitude of the inflammatory response is tightly regulated. Many diseases reflect a failure of such regulation which leads to inflammation persisting.

The discovery that the body produces messenger molecules that turn off inflammation has led to efforts to mimic these molecules by developing new compounds that are being investigated as prototypes of a new class of drugs that can be used in inflammatory conditions including diabetic kidney disease, atherosclerosis, sepsis and arthritis. Catherine’s work has identified several mechanisms and mediators that drive the resolution of inflammation in the body and in diabetic complications.