Siobhan McMahon

Email Tel: +353 (0)91 492838 

Siobhan McMahon is a lecturer in the Discipline of Anatomy in the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI Galway) since 2006. She was awarded her Ph.D. in 2000 from University College Cork where she investigated the differentiation of radial glial in the developing rat spinal cord. She continued her research in University College Cork as a postdoctoral research fellow investigating the lineage potential of glial cells in the developing spinal cord. During this time she was awarded a short term fellowship from the European Molecular Biology Organisation to travel to a collaborators laboratory in Columbia University, New York for one month as a visiting researcher.  Siobhan began a Health Research Board funded postdoctoral fellowship at the Regenerative Medicine Institute (REMEDI), NUI Galway in 2005. Her work focused on the use of lentiviral vectors to treat spinal cord injury. Her research on spinal cord injury at REMEDI is ongoing and she is currently co-supervising two PhD students in REMEDI with Prof Tim O’Brien. In addition she is a funded investigator within the Network of excellence for Functional Biomaterials (NFB) in NUI Galway, where she co-supervises a PhD student with Prof Abhay Pandit. During the course of her career she has attended more than 30 national and international conferences where she presented both oral and poster presentations (for the latter she has won three first prize awards).

Research Interests:

• Spinal cord repair
• Gene therapy using lentiviral vector systems
• Stem cell biology
• Scaffolds for spinal cord tissue Engineering
• Nerve regeneration
• Glial scarring
• Neurotrophic factors

Education:

• 1994          BSc in Biology, NUI Maynooth
• 1999          PhD in Neuroanatomy, University College Cork.

Employment:

• Nov 2006 to date         Lecturer in Discipline of Anatomy
• Nov 2005-Oct 2006     Postdoctoral fellow, REMEDI, NUI Galway
• Sept 2001-Oct 2005   Postdoctoral fellow, University College Cork

Current Collaborations:

• REMEDI – NUI Galway
• NFB - NUI Galway
• NCBES – NUI Galway
• Glycobiology Research Group - NUI Galway
• Mayo Clinic, Rochester, US

Scientific Membership:

• Neuroscience Ireland
• Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 
• Irish Society for Gene and Cell Therapy
• European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy
• Society for Neuroscience

Publications:

1. Current tissue engineering and novel therapeutic approaches to axonal regeneration following spinal cord injury using polymer scaffolds.  Madigan NN, McMahon S, O'Brien T, Yaszemski MJ, Windebank AJ.  Respir Physiol Neurobiol. 2009 Nov 30;169(2):183-99. Epub 2009 Sep 6.  PMID: 19737633
2. Effect of cyclosporin A on functional recovery in the spinal cord following contusion injury.  McMahon SS, Albermann S, Rooney GE, Moran C, Hynes J, Garcia Y, Dockery P, O'Brien T, Windebank AJ, Barry FP.  J Anat. 2009 Sep;215(3):267-79. Epub 2009 Jun 24.  PMID: 19558472
3. Neurotrophic factor-expressing mesenchymal stem cells survive transplantation into the contused spinal cord without differentiating into neural cells.  Rooney GE, McMahon SS, Ritter T, Garcia Y, Moran C, Madigan NN, Flügel A, Dockery P, O'Brien T, Howard L, Windebank AJ, Barry FP.  Tissue Eng Part A. 2009 Oct;15(10):3049-59.  PMID: 19335061
4. Gene-modified mesenchymal stem cells express functionally active nerve growth factor on an engineered poly lactic glycolic acid (PLGA) substrate.  Rooney GE, Moran C, McMahon SS, Ritter T, Maenz M, Flügel A, Dockery P, O'Brien T, Howard L, Windebank AJ, Barry FP.  Tissue Eng Part A. 2008 May;14(5):681-90.  PMID: 18402551
5. Developmental potential of radial glia investigated by transplantation into the developing rat ventricular system in utero.  McMahon SS, McDermott KW.  Exp Neurol. 2007 Jan;203(1):128-36. Epub 2006 Sep 29.  PMID: 17010971
6. A comparison of cell transplantation and retroviral gene transfection as tools to study lineage and differentiation in the rat spinal cord.  McMahon SS, McDermott KW.  J Neurosci Methods. 2006 Apr 15;152(1-2):243-9. Epub 2005 Oct 24.  PMID: 16246428
7. Role of radial glia in cytogenesis, patterning and boundary formation in the developing spinal cord.  McDermott KW, Barry DS, McMahon SS.  J Anat. 2005 Sep;207(3):241-50. Review.  PMID: 16185248
8. Estimation of nuclear volume as an indicator of maturation of glial precursor cells in the developing rat spinal cord: a stereological approach.  McMahon SS, Dockery P, McDermott KW.  J Anat. 2003 Sep;203(3):339-44.  PMID:
9. Morphology and differentiation of radial glia in the developing rat spinal cord.  McMahon SS, McDermott KW.  J Comp Neurol. 2002 Dec 16;454(3):263-71.  PMID: 12442317
10. Proliferation and migration of glial precursor cells in the developing rat spinal cord.  McMahon SS, McDermott KW.  J Neurocytol. 2001 Sep-Oct;30(9-10):821-8.  PMID: 12165672

Current Research Students:

Currently I am co-supervising 3 PhD students.

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