Emma Teeling Explained

Emma Teeling
Birth Place:Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland
Nationality:Irish
Education:Holy Faith Secondary School, Clontarf
Alma Mater:University College Dublin (BSc), University of Edinburgh (MSc), Queen's University Belfast (with University of California at Riverside) (PhD)
Fields:Zoology, Genetics (Phylogenetics, Genomics)
Thesis Title:A molecular perspective on chiropteran systematics
Thesis Year:2001
Workplaces:University College Dublin (2005-), National Cancer Institute (2002-2005)
Known For:Studies of chiroptera (bats), including genome and longevity, and the possible application to human ageing and certain conditions
Awards:Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) President of Ireland Award (2006), European Research Council Starting Investigator (2013-2018), Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques
Spouse:Peter T. Gallagher
Children:2

Emma Caroline Teeling[1] is an Irish zoologist, geneticist and genomicist, who specialises in the phylogenetics and genomics of bats. Her work includes understanding of the bat genome and study of how insights from other mammals such as bats might contribute to better understanding and management of ageing and a number of conditions, including deafness and blindness, in humans. She is the co-founder of the Bat1K project to map the genomes of all species of bat. She is also concerned with understanding of the places of bats in the environment and how to conserve their ecosystem.

Teeling is a full professor at University College Dublin, where she has founded two scientific centres: the Laboratory of Molecular Evolution and Mammalian Phylogenetics (also known as the "BatLab"), and the Dublin part of the Centre for Irish Bat Research.[2] Teeling is widely cited in her areas of study and is an elected member of Ireland's national academy, the Royal Irish Academy.[3]

Early life

Emma Teeling was born to John and Deirdre Teeling. Her father is an academic, and serial entrepreneur in the mining, Irish whiskey and other sectors, while her mother is an academic in the area of education; they married in 1971. She has two younger brothers, Jack and Stephen, and she and her siblings grew up in Clontarf, where her father has his head office for multiple companies,[4] and with her mother working in a school in nearby Coolock,[5] another northern suburb of Dublin.[6] She played Dublin-level camogie for Fairview.[7] She attended Holy Faith Secondary School, Clontarf,[8] and was the author of one of a set of short articles about late 1980s Moscow for a Soviet Supplement in the Irish Independent, after a school trip to the USSR.[9]

Higher education

From 1991 to 1995, Teeling took a B.Sc. in Zoology at University College Dublin (UCD), which included study of deer in Dublin's Phoenix Park.[8] She further studied at the University of Edinburgh, for an M.Sc. in Animal Behaviour and Welfare, from 1995, including working with swift foxes[8] at the Cochrane Ecological Institute in Canada. She then saw an advertisement for PhD studies relating to bats,[8] and pursued this from 1997 at Queen's University, Belfast and the University of California at Riverside.[10] She filed her thesis on A molecular perspective on chiropteran systematics in December 2001, and received her PhD in molecular phylogenetics from Queen's.[1]

Career

Teeling worked as a postdoctoral research fellow from 2002 to 2004 at the US National Cancer Institute. In 2005, she returned to Ireland to take a role as lecturer in Evolution and Genetics in the School of Biology and Environmental Science at UCD, securing tenure in 2006. She founded the Laboratory of Molecular Evolution and Mammalian Phylogenetics (known as the "BatLab" even in official materials)[11] [12] at UCD in 2005, and the Centre for Irish Bat Research at UCD in 2008; she remains one of the four Principal Investigators of this cross-border project, and its director.[13] The Laboratory of Molecular Evolution and Mammalian Phylogenetics conducts a large amount of field work in Brittany, working with a conservation organisation, Bretagne Vivante.[14] Teeling is also concerned with understanding of bat populations and their broader ecosystems, and bat conservation.[2]

Teeling was promoted to associate professor (in Evolution and Genetics) in 2012,[2] and later to full professor. She is also Head of Zoology.[15] In addition to her research work, she teaches or coordinates a number of courses, and supervises PhD studies.[16] As of 2020, she is also Deputy Director of UCD's Earth Institute.[17]

Research and funding

Over the first 15 years since doctoral qualification, Teeling secured more than 4.4 million euro in research funding for her projects and laboratories.[2] She was one of three applicants selected for a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) President of Ireland Award in 2006,[18] providing committed funding of over 1.2 million euro over its duration from October 2006 to March 2012 for comparative genomic studies in mammals.[19] She also secured Science Foundation Ireland funding of over 200,000 euro for a study of the population dynamics and conservation status of a small bat, and a small grant for work around ecology and evolution with reference to bats.[19]

Teeling secured an award from the European Research Council, for a Starting Investigator work (2013-2018),[2] supported by further SFI commitments.[20] This resulted in the Ageless project, considering how bats weighing as little as 7g can live for over 40 years, possibly due to optimised telomere management.[21] Noting that the Myotis genus of bats don't appear to die from old age as such, Teeling commented "Studying wild bats in an ageing context may provide exciting new solutions to slow down the ageing process and ultimately extend human health-spans."[22]

Teeling co-founded the Bat1K project to sequence the genomes of all living bat species.[23] [24] A report from this project, looking at the genomes of six bat species and mentioning Teeling and a colleague, was featured on the front cover of Nature magazine in 2020;[25] this recognition was highlighted by the official University College Dublin Facebook page as "Congratulations to UCD's resident Batlady Prof Emma Teeling on making the cover of this month's @Nature with her newest genomic research."[26]

Recognition

Teeling was elected to the highest academic honour in Ireland, membership of the national academy, the Royal Irish Academy, in 2016.[3] In 2017, For her scientific work, she was awarded the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques; this award, known as "the purple", is the oldest civilian decoration in France, established by Napoleon. Her husband was also made a Chevalier at the time, for his work in astrophysics.

Teeling attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) conference in Davos, Switzerland in 2020 as a top level academic/think tank advisor.[27] She was invited to present her work on ageing at the Forum,[28] where she delivered a presentation entitled Bats and the Secret of Everlasting Youth in a closed session in January 2020.[29]

After Davos, in late February 2020, Prof Teeling was invited as one of the speakers at the week-long Genomics Winter School within the Future Biotech Winter Retreat in Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia,[30] and to the leading genetic and cytological research facility of the Russian Federation, where she presented, and performed a "Q&A" session, on bats and longevity.[31]

Publication

Teeling has written and co-written many articles, papers and chapters, some of which are widely cited. Extant are more than 100 documents, with a citation level, per Scopus, of 6424 applications across 4751 citing documents, and a h-index of 31 ("very good").[32] [2] Papers which Teeling has authored or to which she has contributed include:[2]

while chapters contributed include:[2]

Governance and voluntary roles

Teeling is a member of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and was a member of the society's 2012 Annual Meeting Committee, which managed the event in Dublin, Ireland[47] and later a member of the society's governing council.[48] She is also on the editorial board of one of the society's two journals, the Journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution.[49]

She is also a member of the editorial board of Oxford University Press's open-access journal Giga Science.[50]

Teeling was appointed to the board of the Irish Research Council.[51] She was elected as one of the professorial members of the Governing Authority of UCD in 2019, for a five-year term.[52]

Popular media

Teeling has presented a TEDx talk, on the genome of bats, which has been viewed, as of 16 June 2022, more than 565,000 times.[53] University College Dublin has also uploaded one of her lectures, 'Bats: secrets of extended lifespan', to YouTube.[54] She has been interviewed and featured on radio - on one occasion in episode 2 of a series, 'Bright Sparks', which also interviewed her astronomer husband, in episode 8, about his work - [55] [56] [57] and television. On one occasion programme-makers accompanied her team when it was locating bats in old churches in Brittany.[58] Following the release of the first six bat genomes by the Bat1K consortium, Teeling was interviewed by the BBC and commented on how bats' unique immune systems may help them defend against viruses, including COVID.[59]

Personal life

Teeling is married to astrophysicist Peter Gallagher, a senior professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin, at the latter of which he worked for many years. They both came from Clontarf in Dublin but only met in first year Science in UCD. They lived near Washington D.C. for part of their time in the US during advanced studies, before moving back to Ireland together when Teeling received a job offer from UCD.[60] They have two sons.[61] [62] Teeling invested in the first round of funding for her brothers' whiskey distillery company, the Teeling Whiskey Company, operating the Teeling Distillery, the first new distillery in Dublin for 125 years.[63] [64]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Catalogue record: A molecular perspective on chiropteran systematics . Queen's University Belfast - Library - Catalogie . 12 September 2020.
  2. Web site: Emma Teeling . School of Biology and Environmental Science, UCD . University College Dublin (UCD) . 12 September 2020.
  3. Web site: Member Directory - T . Royal Irish Academy . 13 September 2020 . Emma Teeling, Science 2016.
  4. News: Lynch . Donal . Ireland's top whiskey magnate is looking for diamonds in the rough . 13 September 2020 . Irish Independent . 24 May 2014 . ... met at a party ... married in 1971 ... three children ... Seafield Road, Clontarf ....
  5. Book: Mercy College Coolock Newsletter Summer 2011 . 2011 . Mercy College Coolock . Dublin, Ireland . 2–4 . "Mercy College... 32 years... started in 1979 as a newly qualified Guidance Counsellor.
  6. News: Daly . Linda . Fame and fortune: John Teeling . 13 September 2020 . The Times . 4 February 2012.
  7. News: (staff writer) . Primary Camogie champs! . Evening Herald . 26 May 1983 . (a), (b) and Emma Teeling turned in very good displays for Fairview....
  8. Web site: Career Stories: Emma Teeling, head of UCD Bat Lab . Zoology at RSSING . 21 September 2020 . 16 December 2013 . In secondary school, at the Holy Faith Convent in Clontarf, Dublin, she discovered she was good at science..
  9. News: Teeling . Emma . Emma Teeling . The Third Degree (within From Russia with Love...) . Irish Independent . Soviet Supplement . 15 November 1989 . Dublin, Ireland . 12–13.
  10. Web site: Emma Teeling: Lecturer, Scientist, Zoologist . Keynotes.org . 12 September 2020 . Dubbed as Ireland's Batwoman, Dr. Emma Teeling's speeches revolve around how different organisms can help improve science and medicine. ... Ph.D. in Molecular Phylogenetics at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland and at University of California Riverside, USA.
  11. Web site: Section 2. UCD Bat-Lab: w.q Introduction to Bat Lab . Science for Schools . University College Dublin (UCD) . 12 September 2020 . The UCD Bat lab-is a short name for the Lab of Molecular Evolution & Mammalian Phylogenetics. At any one time there are a number of research projects running simultaneously. ...
  12. Web site: BatLab Ageless Project - July 2015 . UCD - School of Biology and Environmental Science . 12 September 2020.
  13. Web site: The Centre for Irish Bat Research - A research partnership between University College Dublin and Queen's University Belfast… . The Centre for Irish Bat Research . 12 September 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120130222818/http://cibr.ie/ . 30 January 2012 . dead.
  14. Web site: Husband and wife scientists made Chevaliers by French government . Trinity College Dublin . 13 September 2020.
  15. Web site: Professor Emma Teeling . University College Dublin (UCD) . 12 September 2020 . Full Professor / School of Biology and Environmental Science.
  16. Web site: Professor Emma Teeling . University College Dublin (UCD) . 13 September 2020.
  17. Web site: Derval O'Rourke announced as ambassador for EPA's The Story of Your Stuff competition . University College Dublin (UCD) . 14 September 2020 . 25 February 2020.
  18. Web site: TCD researcher receives President of Ireland Young Researcher Awards 2007 . Trinity News and Events . Trinity College Dublin . 12 September 2020 . The other two PIYRA award winners are Dr Emma Teeling, UCD and Dr Oliver Blacque, UCD..
  19. Web site: Open data - research funding . Science Foundation Ireland . 12 September 2020 . Data to end 2016.
  20. Book: Annual Report 2013 . 2013 . Science Foundation Ireland . Dublin, Ireland . 89.
  21. Web site: Ageing healthily: European scientists unlock the molecular secret behind bat longevity . European Research Council . 22 March 2018 . 13 September 2020.
  22. Web site: Kwon . Diana . Study: Telomeres Don't Shorten with Age in Longest-Lived Bats . theScientist.com . 21 September 2020 . 7 February 2018.
  23. 10.1146/annurev-animal-022516-022811. Bat Biology, Genomes, and the Bat1K Project: To Generate Chromosome-Level Genomes for All Living Bat Species. 2018. Teeling. Emma C.. Vernes. Sonja C.. Dávalos. Liliana M.. Ray. David A.. Gilbert. M. Thomas P.. Myers. Eugene. Annual Review of Animal Biosciences. 6. 23–46. 29166127. free. 11858/00-001M-0000-002E-5F30-4. free.
  24. Web site: The Bat1K genome sequencing initiative. Inside Ecology. 9 May 2018. 20 September 2020. Prof. Teeling is the co-founder and Director of the Bat1K genome sequencing initiative..
  25. Secrets of the bat clade . Nature . 23 July 2020 . 583 . 7817 . 20 September 2020 . In this week’s issue, Emma Teeling, Sonja Vernes and their colleagues present reference-quality genomes for six species of bat sequenced by the Bat1K consortium..
  26. Web site: Congratulations to UCD's resident Batlady Prof Emma Teeling on making the cover of this month's @Nature with her newest genomic research . University College Dublin on Facebook . University College Dublin . 25 September 2020 . 28 July 2020 . Congratulations to UCD's resident Batlady Prof Emma Teeling on making the cover of this month's Nature with her newest genomic research . . . The breakthrough offers fresh clues into the animals 'exceptional immunity', which protects them against cancer and other deadly diseases including the coronavirus..
  27. Web site: Yanofsky . David . 2020-01-21 . The confidential list of everyone attending the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos . 2022-07-09 . Quartz . en.
  28. News: Brennan . Joe . Davos Diary: UCD prof goes batty, Ivanka hits town and Prince Charles takes the stage / Emma Teeling believes bats hold the key to slowing down the ageing process . 21 September 2020 . Irish Times . 22 January 2020 . Emma Teeling, a bat expert and newbie to ... the World Economic Forum (WEF) conference in Davos ... greatest hope to solving ... second-biggest issue, ... how to slow down the ageing process in humans..
  29. Web site: Emma Teeling, Professor, School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Ireland, speaking in the Bats and the Secret of Everlasting Youth session at the World Economic Forum . World Economic Forum Annual Meeting . World Economic Forum . 22 September 2020 . Davos-Klosters, Switzerland . 22 January 2020.
  30. Web site: Winter School "Future Biotech Winter Retreat 2020" . Future Biotech Programme . 18 October 2020 . ... current developments in genomics of the major branches of life: viruses, microorganisms, plants, and animals including humans. ... 22 to 27 of February 2020 in Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk ... Emma Teeling School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin.
  31. Web site: Schedule - Lecture by Emma Teeling, "The Secrets of the Bat Genome" . The Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch . 5 October 2020 . russian .
  32. Web site: Teeling, Emma C. . Scopus . 14 September 2020.
  33. Teeling . E. C. . A Molecular Phylogeny for Bats Illuminates Biogeography and the Fossil Record . Science . 28 January 2005 . 307 . 5709 . 580–584 . 10.1126/science.1105113. 15681385 . 2005Sci...307..580T . 25912333 .
  34. Huang . Zixia . Foley . Nicole M. . Jebb . David . Petit . Eric J. . Puechmaille . Sébastien J. . Teeling . Emma C. . Touzalin . Frédéric . Whelan . Conor V. . Longitudinal comparative transcriptomics reveals unique mechanisms underlying extended healthspan in bats . Nature Ecology & Evolution . July 2019 . 3 . 7 . 1110–1120 . 10.1038/s41559-019-0913-3. 31182815 . free . 2019NatEE...3.1110H .
  35. Jones . Gareth . Teeling . Emma C. . The evolution of echolocation in bats . Trends in Ecology & Evolution . March 2006 . 21 . 3 . 149–156 . 10.1016/j.tree.2006.01.001. 16701491 .
  36. Teeling . Emma C. . Hear, hear: the convergent evolution of echolocation in bats? . Trends in Ecology & Evolution . July 2009 . 24 . 7 . 351–354 . 10.1016/j.tree.2009.02.012. 19482373 .
  37. McMahon . Barry J. . Teeling . Emma C. . Höglund . Jacob . How and why should we implement genomics into conservation? . Evolutionary Applications . November 2014 . 7 . 9 . 999–1007 . 10.1111/eva.12193. 25553063 . 4231591 . free . 2014EvApp...7..999M .
  38. Foley . Nicole M. . Springer . Mark S. . Teeling . Emma C. . Mammal madness: is the mammal tree of life not yet resolved? . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . 19 July 2016 . 371 . 1699 . 10.1098/rstb.2015.0140. 27325836 . 4920340 . free .
  39. Springer . M. S. . Teeling . E. C. . Madsen . O. . Stanhope . M. J. . de Jong . W. W. . Integrated fossil and molecular data reconstruct bat echolocation . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 22 May 2001 . 98 . 11 . 6241–6246 . 10.1073/pnas.111551998. 11353869 . 33452 . 2001PNAS...98.6241S . free .
  40. Davies . K T J . Cotton . J A . Kirwan . J D . Teeling . E C . Rossiter . S J . Parallel signatures of sequence evolution among hearing genes in echolocating mammals: an emerging model of genetic convergence . Heredity . May 2012 . 108 . 5 . 480–489 . 10.1038/hdy.2011.119. 22167055 . 3330687 .
  41. Springer . Mark S. . Burk-Herrick . Angela . Meredith . Robert . Eizirik . Eduardo . Teeling . Emma . O'Brien . Stephen J. . Murphy . William J. . The Adequacy of Morphology for Reconstructing the Early History of Placental Mammals . Systematic Biology . 1 August 2007 . 56 . 4 . 673–684 . 10.1080/10635150701491149. 17661234 .
  42. Zhao . Huabin . Rossiter . Stephen J. . Teeling . Emma C. . Cotton . James A. . Li . Chanjuan . Zhang . Shuyi . The evolution of color vision in nocturnal mammals . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 2 June 2009 . 106 . 22 . 8980–8985. 10.1073/pnas.0813201106 . 19470491 . 2690009 . 2009PNAS..106.8980Z . free .
  43. Hayden . S. . Bekaert . M. . Crider . T. A. . Mariani . S. . Murphy . W. J. . Teeling . E. C. . Ecological adaptation determines functional mammalian olfactory subgenomes . Genome Research . 1 January 2010 . 20 . 1 . 1–9 . 10.1101/gr.099416.109. 19952139 . 2798820 . free .
  44. Teeling . E. C. . Madsen . O. . Van Den Bussche . R. A. . de Jong . W. W. . Stanhope . M. J. . Springer . M. S. . Microbat paraphyly and the convergent evolution of a key innovation in Old World rhinolophoid microbats . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . 5 February 2002 . 99 . 3 . 1431–1436 . 10.1073/pnas.022477199. 11805285 . 122208 . 2002PNAS...99.1431T . free .
  45. Book: Hedges . S. Blair . Kumar . Sudhir . The Timetree of Life . 2009 . Oxford University Press . New York, US . 9780191560156 . 499–503 . 1st.
  46. Book: Fenton . M. . Grinnell . A. . Popper . A . Fay . R. . Bat Bioacoustics . 1 January 2016 . Springer Science+Business Media . New York, US . 978-1-4939-3525-3 . 25–54 . Phylogeny, Genes, and Hearing: Implications for the Evolution of Echolocation in Bats . Teeling, EC (designated contact); Jones, G.; Rossiter, Stephen J..
  47. Long . Manyuan . Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution, Council and Business Meetings, 2012, Dublin, Ireland . Molecular Biology and Evolution . 1 January 2013 . 30 . 1 . 234–235 . 10.1093/molbev/mss244 . In attendance were President Charles Aquadro, Past-President Ken Wolfe, ... Treasurer Aoife McLysaght, and Councilors ... Organizers of the 2012 Annual Meeting .. and Emma Teeling;. free .
  48. Pollock . David D . Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution, Council and Business Meetings, 2017, Austin, TX . Molecular Biology and Evolution . 1 January 2018 . 35 . 1 . 259–261 . 10.1093/molbev/msx296 . In attendance were President Laura Landweber, ... Councilors Emma Teeling,. free . 5850299 .
  49. Web site: Molecular Biology and Evolution (Journal of) . Oxford Academic . Oxford University Press (for the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution) . 30 September 2020.
  50. Web site: Editorial Board . Giga Science . Oxford University Press . 30 September 2020.
  51. Book: Annual Report . 2017 . Irish Research Council . Dublin, Ireland . 64.
  52. Web site: Governing Authority . University College Dublin (UCD) . 12 September 2020.
  53. Web site: Teeling . Emma . Secret of the Bat Genome . TED.com . 31 October 2012 . 16 June 2022.
  54. Web site: Teeling . Emma . Bats: secrets of extended lifespan . youtube . University College Dublin . 13 September 2020.
  55. Web site: New RTÉ Radio series "Bright Sparks" starts this Sunday . Irish Tech News . 25 September 2020 . 19 May 2015.
  56. Web site: The Series . Bright Sparks Radio . . 30 September 2020.
  57. Web site: Mooney Goes Wild - Emma Teeling - Bats . RTE Radio One . RTE . 14 September 2020 . 4 November 2019.
  58. Web site: 10 Things to Know About - Episode 1 – Staying Young . RTE One (TV) . RTE . 14 November 2016 . 14 September 2020.
  59. News: Briggs . Helen . Coronavirus: Cracking the secrets of how bats survive viruses . 3 October 2020 . BBC News . BBC . 22 July 2020.
  60. Web site: Shaw . Helen . The family of things - Peter Gallagher . SoundCloud . RTE and others . 18 September 2020.
  61. Web site: Husband-and-wife scientists awarded Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques . University College Dublin . 13 September 2020 . 19 May 2017.
  62. News: O'Connell . Claire . Beautiful bat biology unlocks clues about healthy ageing . 12 September 2020 . Irish Times . 25 July 2019.
  63. News: 'To be a real Dublin whiskey we needed to use real Dublin water' . 12 September 2020 . Evening Herald . 7 June 2015 . ...a labour of love for Jack, his brother Stephen and, to a certain extent, their sister Emma - a UCD professor and world expert on the genome of bats (they call her batwoman)..
  64. Book: Colm . O'Gorman (Prof) . Martina . Brophy . Eric . Clinton . Teeling Whiskey Company: A Tradition of Family Entrepreneurship and Whiskey Distilling . August 2015 . 7 . In 2012, company shares totalling €1.3 million were sold to Teeling family members with share ownership split between the following people: Jack (43%), Stephen (37%), their parents, John and Deirdre (7% each), and their sister, Emma (6%). TWC is a self-funded entity aside from asset based loans for inventory....

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