Editor

Prof. Mahony graduated with a BSc in Food Science and Technology from Munster Technical University (formerly called Cork Institute of Technology) in 2003. She pursued a Ph.D. on the subject of prophage-encoded bacteriophage resistance mechanisms in the dairy bacterium Lactococcus lactis. After graduating with her Ph.D. in 2008, she continued to research phage-host interactions in her post-doctoral research. These studies were primarily focused on the phage-host interactions of the lactic acid bacteria that are employed in dairy fermentations while they also encompassed those food spoilage microorganisms such as Lactobacillus Brevis and pathogenic organisms such as Shigella . She has been involved in multidisciplinary teams involving structural biologists, glycobiologists, and biochemists to provide detailed mechanistic insights into these intricate relationships. Now a Professor in molecular food microbiology, Prof. Mahony leads a research team dedicated to understanding the mechanisms by which phages infect their hosts and how bacteria respond and evolve to adapt and survive.

Biology, Phages, Lactic acid bacteria, Functional genomics approach