Claire Lyons

Current position

Claire Lyons is an Associate Researcher in the Medical Protein Science Group where she is investigating the role of Apolipoprotein A-I in islet biology.

Current project and background

Claire completed her PhD in Molecular Nutrition in UCD, Ireland (2017) and has been part of LUDC since then as a postdoc and Associate Researcher in the Unit of Molecular Metabolism and now the Medical Protein Science Group. While Claire’s PhD research focused on the role on differential fatty acids in inflammation and insulin resistance, her recent research is focused on islet dysfunction in the context of Type 2 Diabetes. Firstly, she used melatonin receptor knock out mouse models to determine the role of the circadian rhythm on both insulin and glucagon secretion. Currently, Claire is trying to identify the receptor through which ApoA-I mediates its beneficial effect on insulin secretion in INS1e models. The ongoing project seeks to determine the mechanism of action employed by this lipoprotein on islet cell biology in cell culture and animal models.