Dr. Harriët Schellekens is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience and a group leader with the APC Microbiome Ireland. She has also been a Principal Investigator with Food for Health Ireland (FHI) for over 15 years.

Dr Schellekens’ research focuses on the microbiome–gut–brain axis in nutritional neuroscience, metabolic health, and psychiatry. Her group investigates how diet, nutrition, postbiotics, and the gut microbiome influence appetite regulation, stress-responsive eating, metabolism, and mental health across the lifespan. She has developed a mechanistic screening platform to mine gut microbiota and microbiota-derived bioactives across gut–brain axis targets, with the aim of identifying effective biotherapeutics and microbiota-targeted strategies for obesity, stress-related eating, and metabolic-mental health disorders.

She received a PhD in Pharmacy from the University College Cork, Ireland in 2012 and a MSc in Biology and Medical Biology (Hons) from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. She was awarded a Marie Curie Host Fellowship for Transfer of Knowledge (TOK) in 2006. Dr. Schellekens is in the top 0.1% of scholars writing about Ghrelin over the past 10 years, a level we label as "World Expert" (Expertscape's PubMed-based algorithms).

Dr. Schellekens is an Associate Editor for Nutritional Neuroscience (February 2021) and an Editorial Board Member of Neuropharmacology (August 2020).  

She has gained considerable expertise in the pharmaceutical industry in RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT, in assay design and lead optimization at Organon NV (Akzo Nobel), during a 5 year stint. In addition, she has worked at Eirx therapeutics where she has been contributing towards building a focused drug discovery capability. Dr. Harriet Schellekens returned to the academic settings in 2009 and also worked as a lecturer and module coordinator in the School of Pharmacy, University College Cork. 

Dr Schellekens is currently supervising 2 postdoctoral researchers, 2 research assistants, 5 PhD and 1 MSc student, and has successfully supervised 5 PhD students, 4 MSc students, >10 postdoctoral researchers and many visiting BSc student from the Netherlands and Spain. 

Dr Schellekens has an h-index of 36 (google scholar) and has published over 70 peer-reviewed publications with >8594 citations and 5 book chapters. Dr Schellekens has given scientific talks and seminars at >50 (inter)national conferences..

 

Dr. Schellekens investigates the impact of diet & nutrition and the gut microbiome on human health and physiology, in particular in the context of metabolic health and mental health throughout life. Her research interests have been focused on the neuronal circuitry and gut-brain axis signaling, underlying the complex relationship between stress, mood and food intake. She uses mechanistic and translational studies bridging basic and clinical aspects of neuroscience and nutrition to investigate the concept of the link between metabolic disease and stress-related disorders, and the potential amelioration of both via microbiome-targeted approaches. Research focus: MECHANISM of microbiota-gut-brain and immune-neuroendocrine signaling in regulation of appetite, food reward, feeding behavior, and metabolic response to stress. PHARMACOLOGY and crosstalk of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), neuropeptides and gut hormones across the gut-brain axis.TRANSLATIONAL impact of diet & nutrition and the gut microbiome in obesity, diabetes and stress.Dr. Schellekens has, through in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo approaches, significantly contributed to the understanding of signalling through the ghrelin receptor, a key receptor modulating appetite, food intake, glucose homeostasis, reward-signalling and stress. In particular, her work has focused on the pharmacology of centrally expressed G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), neuropeptides and gut hormones within the microbiota-brain-gut axis, regulating the homeostatic control of food intake. In addition, these appetite and satiety signals also modulate the hedonic aspects of food intake and impact on stress-induced food reward behavior, which play a major role in the development of eating disorders, including obesity, binge-eating and addiction. Harriet is experie

Module Teaching (lectures and practicals): Dr. Schellekens teaches and has taught a diverse range of topics (Neuroscience, Neuroanatomy, Pharmacy, Medicine) to various groups of students. Specific modules she has taught or coordinated are; Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience(AN4014), Human Nervous System (AN3012), Research Methodology in Neuroscience (AN3001), Developmental Neurobiology (AN4008), Foundations of Medicine, Neuroscience (FM2101), Neuropharmacology (PT4005), Advanced Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (PT3445), Introduction to Pharmacology (PT3001), Foundations of Medicine, Fundamentals of Therapy (FM3003), Fundamentals of Medicine IV , Neuroanatomy (GM2001), Neurobiology of disease (AN3013), and Master students in Clinical perscpectives of human disease (ML6002). Supervision of undergraduate research projects: Dr. Schellekens has supervised final year BSc Neuroscience laboratory research projects (AN4010), intercalated Medical degree research projects (AN4011), and library projects (AN3011) to BSc Neuroscience students. In addition, she has also supervised 4th year Pharmacy student projects. Moreover, each year she mentors B.Sc students for their final year project varying from 5 to 9 month durations from the Avans University, The Netherlands. Teaching Qualification: 2013: Anatomy Training Program, Anatomical Society, Oxford, UK (ongoing)2015: Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (scheduled) Current Postgraduates students:Dalia Kandil, Structured PhD studentRory O'Connor, Structured PhD studentKen Howick, Structured PhD studentAnna Cristina Connolly, Structured MSc studentSurabhi Dasan Theratile, Structured MSc student