Biography
Claire Healy is a Research Fellow who joined the lab of Dr Suzanne Cloonan in May 2020. Claire completed her undergraduate studies at Trinity College Dublin (Microbiology). She obtained her PhD (2014) from University College Dublin, Ireland where she worked in the lab of Prof Stephen Gordon. From 2014 to 2020 Claire carried out her postdoctoral training at Weill Cornell Medicine (NYC, USA) in the lab Prof Sabine Ehrt. Her research has focused on molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, an infectious disease which primarily affects the lungs. Her primary research focus in the Cloonan lab is to investigate host-pathogen interactions in opportunistic non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) lung infections in COPD.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Behl, Isha and Calado, Genecy and Vishwakarma, Anika and Traynor, Damien and Flint, Stephen and Galvin, Sheila and Healy, Claire M. and Malkin, Alison and Byrne, Hugh J. and Lyng, Fiona M., Identification of high-risk oral leukoplakia (OLK) using combined Raman spectroscopic analysis of brush biopsy and saliva samples: A proof of concept study, Spectrochimica Acta - Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 330, 2025
Galvin S, Honari B, Anishchuk S, Healy CM, Moran GP., Oral Leukoplakia Microbiome Predicts the Degree of Dysplasia and is Shaped by Smoking and Tooth Loss., Oral diseases, 2025
McElligott, L. and Ardilouze, A. and Moloney, J. and ElSheikhId, A. and Healy, C. and Leahy, H. and Babatunde, K. and Cahir, C. and Murphy, P. and Delanty, N. and McElvaney, N. and Byrne, S. and McGovern, E., Neurology Undergraduate Medical Education: A Scoping Review, European Journal of Neurology, 32, (3), 2025
Lam, Andrew C. L. and Hueniken, Katrina and Pienkowski, Martha and Lee, John J. W. and Dong, Mei and Diergaarde, Brenda and Olshan, Andrew F. and Brennan, Paul and Virani, Shama and Saunders, Deborah and Santi, Stacey A. and Conlon, Michael S. C. and Waterboer, Tim and Hayes, D. Neil and Pring, Miranda and MacFarlane, Gary J. and Lagiou, Pagona and Lagiou, Areti and Polesel, Jerry and Agudo, Antonio and Alemany, Laia and Ahrens, Wolfgang and Healy, Claire M. and Conway, David I. and Nygard, Mari and Canova, Cristina and Hornakova, Anna and Richiardi, Lorenzo and Znaor, Ariana and Hung, Rayjean J. and Xu, Wei and Liu, Geoffrey, Performance of 8 Smoking Metrics for Modeling Survival in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma, JAMA Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, 151, (4), 2025, p360 â" 370
Creaney, Grant and de Aquino Goulart, Mariél and McMahon, Alex and Paterson, Claire and McCaul, James and Perdomo, Sandra and Mendoza, Laura and Alemany, Laia and Arantes, Lidia Maria Rebolho and Urrego, Paula Andrea Rodriguez and Dudding, Tom and Pring, Mirana and Vilensky, Marta and Cuffini, Cecilia and de Blanc, Silvia Adriana Lopez and de Oliveira, José Carlos and Pervez, Shahid and Saintigny, Pierre and Cuello, Mauricio and Betka, Jaroslav and Pinto, Luis Felipe Ribeiro and Curado, Maria Paula and Zendehdel, Kazem and Richiardi, Lorenzo and Popovic, Maja and de Podesta, José Roberto and von Zeidler, Sandra Ventorin and Rocha, Ricardo Mai and Alwaheidi, Shaymaa and Brennan, Paul and Virani, Shama and Ross, Al and Conway, David I and Adam, R. and Agudo, A. and Ahrens, W. and Alibhai, S. and Angel-Pavon, M. and Anwar, N. and Arantes, P.E. and Arguello, L. and Avello, Y. and Avondet, L. and Baldión-Elorza, A.M. and Batista-Daniel, C. and Beraldi, B. and Berenstein, B. and Bernal, P. and Bernardino-Rodrigues, N. and Bilic-Zimmermann, K. and Bouvard, L. and Botta, M. and Brenes, J. and Brenner, N. and Brentisci, C. and Burtica, C. and Cabañas, M. and Canova, C. and Cantor, E. and Carretero, G. and Carvalho, A. and Carvalho, R. and Chiusa, L. and Chopard, P. and Choulli, M. and Chundriger, Q. and Clavero, O. and Coelho-Soares-Lima, S. and Costa, I. and de Carvalho, A.C. and de Oliveira, J.C. and Dias, T. and Duccini de Souza, E. and Durant, I.C. and Ebrahimi, E. and Escallón, A. and Fernandes, G.A. and Fervers, B. and Fiano, V. and Firme-Figueira, F. and Furbino-Villefort, R. and Gaborieau, V. and Gama, R. and Gangemi, M. and Garzino-Demo, P. and Giglio, R. and Guasch, A. and Graça Santâ Anna, J. and Grega, M. and Gregório-Có, A. and Hadji, M. and Hakim, J.A. and Hayes, N. and Healy, C.M. and Homero de Sá Santos, M. and Holcatova, I. and Hurley, K. and Insfran, M. and Iorio, G.C. and Iqbaluddin Siddiqui, M. and Johannsen, J. and KaÅ^a, M. and Klussmann, J.P. and Kowalski, L.P. and Lagiou, A. and Lagiou, P. and Legal, E. and Lenzi, J. and Luiz Dias, F. and González, Lyra and Machado-Zorzaneli, W. and Macfarlane, G.J. and Mai-Rocha, R. and Maños, M. and Marinho-de-Abreu, P. and Mckay, J. and Mena, C. and Mendonça, E.F. and Meza, L. and Michels, B. and Mineiro, M.S. and Moccia, C. and Mongelos, P. and Montealegre-Páez, A.L. and Morey-Cortes, F. and Muñoz, A. and Ness, A. and Neves, A. and Oliva, M. and Ortiz, H. and Ortiz, J. and Osorio, M. and Ospina, V. and Ostellino, O. and Palau, M. and Paytubi-Casabona, S. and Pecorari, G. and Pereira, D.M. and Pérol, O. and Pomata, A. and Polesel, J. and Popovic, M. and Poveda, A. and Prado, C. and Prager, K. and Ramieri, G. and Rashidian, H. and Rasul, S. and Rego, J. and Reis, R.M. and Renard, H. and Ribeiro-Pinto, L.F. and Ricardi, U. and Riva, G. and Rodriguez-Urrego, P. and Robinson, M. and Rodilla, F. and Rodriguez, I. and RodrÃguez, M. and Roux, P.E. and Saeed-Ali, T. and Santivañez, J.J. and Scapultampo-Neto, C. and Segovia, J. and Sena, A. and Sepideh, M. and Serrano, R. and Sharma, S.J. and Siefer, O. and Smart, S. and Sorroche, B.P. and Sosa, C. and Souza, J.D. and Stura, A. and Thomas, S. and Thoms, S. and Torres, O. and Tous, S. and Ucross, G. and Valenzuela, A. and Vasconce, Advanced Stage Head and Neck Cancer Diagnosis: HEADSpAcE Consortium Health Systems Benchmarking Survey, Head and Neck, 2025
Healy C., Ehrt S., Gouzy A., An exacerbated phosphate starvation response triggers Mycobacterium tuberculosis glycerol utilization at acidic pH, mBio, 16, (1), 2025
Maloney, Brian and Healy, Claire M., Oral syphilis - the great imitator: a series of six cases, British Dental Journal, 237, (7), 2024, p543 â" 549
Thakral A, Lee JJ, Hou T, Hueniken K, Dudding T, Gormley M, Virani S, Olshan A, Diergaarde B, Ness AR, Waterboer T, Smith-Byrne K, Brennan P, Hayes DN, Sanderson E, Brown MC, Huang S, Bratman SV, Spreafico A, De Almeida J, Davies JC, Bierut L, Macfarlane GJ, Lagiou P, Lagiou A, Polesel J, Agudo A, Alemany L, Ahrens W, Healy CM, Conway DI, Nygard M, Canova C, Holcatova I, Richiardi L, Znaor A, Goldstein DP, Hung RJ, Xu W, Liu G, Espin-Garcia O., Smoking and alcohol by HPV status in head and neck cancer: a Mendelian randomization study., Nature communications, 15, (1), 2024, p7835
Healy, Claire M, Galvin, Sheila, Biological therapies and management of oral mucosal disease, British Dental Journal, 236, (4), 2024, p317-321
Crowley, Claire, Selvaraj, Ajith, Hariharan, Arvind, Healy, Claire M., Moran, Gary P., Fusobacterium nucleatum subsp. polymorphum recovered from malignant and potentially malignant oral disease exhibit heterogeneity in adhesion phenotypes and adhesin gene copy number, shaped by inter-subspecies horizontal gene transfer and recombination-derived mosaicism, Microbial Genomics, 10, (3), 2024
Smith CDL, McMahon AD, Lyall DM, Goulart M, Inman GJ, Ross A, Gormley M, Dudding T, Macfarlane GJ, Robinson M, Richiardi L, Serraino D, Polesel J, Canova C, Ahrens W, Healy CM, Lagiou P, Holcatova I, Alemany L, Znoar A, Waterboer T, Brennan P, Virani S, Conway DI., Development and external validation of a head and neck cancer risk prediction model., Head & neck, 46, (9), 2024, p2261-2273
Alexandre Gouzy, Claire Healy, Dirk Schnappinger, Sabine Ehrt, Reliable detection of pyrazinamide antitubercular activity in vitro, 2022
Hongwei Su, Kan Lin, Divya Tiwari, Claire Healy, Carolina Trujillo, Yao Liu, Thomas R. Ioerger, Dirk Schnappinger, Sabine Ehrt, Genetic models of latent tuberculosis in mice reveal differential influence of adaptive immunity, Journal of Experimental Medicine, 218, (9), 2021
Healy, C. and Munoz-Wolf, N. and Strydom, J. and Faherty, L. and Williams, N.C. and Kenny, S. and Donnelly, S.C. and Cloonan, S.M., Nutritional immunity: the impact of metals on lung immune cells and the airway microbiome during chronic respiratory disease, Respiratory Research, 22, (1), 2021
Gouzy A., Healy C., Black K, Rhee, K. Y, Ehrt S., Growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis at acidic pH depends on lipid assimilation and is accompanied by reduced GAPDH activity, Growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis at acidic pH depends on lipid assimilation and is accompanied by reduced GAPDH activity, 118, (32), 2021
Healy, C., Gouzy, A., Ehrt, S., Peptidoglycan hydrolases RipA and Ami1 are critical for replication and persistence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the host, mBio, 11, (2), 2020
, Chemical genetic interaction profiling reveals determinants of intrinsic antibiotic resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy, 2017
Healy, Claire, The MarR family transcription factor Rv1404 coordinates adaptation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to acid stress via controlled expression of Rv1405c, a virulence-associated methyltransferase, Tuberculosis, 2016
, RNA sequencing provides exquisite insight into the manipulation of the alveolar macrophage by tubercle bacilli, Scientific reports, 2015
, Innate cytokine profiling of bovine alveolar macrophages reveals commonalities and divergence in the response to Mycobacterium bovis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, Tuberculosis, 2014
Sharkey, M.A., O'Gara, J.P., Gordon, S.V., Hackenberg, F., Healy, C., Paradisi, F., Patil, S., Schaible, B., Tacke, M., Investigations into the antibacterial activity of the silver-based antibiotic drug candidate SBC3, Antibiotics, 1, 2012, p25-28
Research Expertise
Recognition
Awards and Honours
Dean's Research Initiatives Award 2022
Memberships
Microbiology Society, Member
American Society of Microbiology, Member
European Respiratory Society, Member