“Non-haemostatic roles for coagulation proteins”

Professor James O’Donnell obtained a medical degree from Trinity College, Dublin. He completed training in internal medicine in Ireland and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. In 1997, he received a prestigious Medical Research Council Training Fellowship and subsequently completed a PhD in biochemistry in Imperial College London. His research was focussed on the von Willebrand factor, a glycoprotein and one of the main components of the blood coagulation system. His specialist training in Haematology was performed in the Hammersmith and Royal Free Hospitals in London, with Certificate Completion Specialist Training (CCST Haematology) awarded in 2002. In 2003, he obtained a British Heart Foundation Intermediate Fellowship and established an independent research group in Imperial College.

In 2005, he was appointed Consultant Haematologist in the National Coagulation Centre, St James’s Hospital Dublin. On returning to Dublin, he established a new Haemostasis Research Group within the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Trinity College Dublin (TCD). From a standing start, he has led this group to international success. In 2011, he was appointed as George Gabriel Stokes Professor of Haematology in TCD. He also served as Director of Research in the TCD School of Medicine and Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine. In 2015, Prof. O’Donnell was recruited to lead the newly established Irish Centre for Vascular Biology in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).

Altogether, he has published more than 220 peer-reviewed papers. These include papers in high impact journals including BLOOD, NEJM, Lancet and Nature Communications. Since 2018 he has been co-PI on an US National Institutes for Health (NIH) Program Project Grant Award worth $17 million.

Prof. O’Donnell serves on the Editorial Boards of Blood Advances and the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. He also previously served as Chair of the ISTH VWF Scientific Subcommittee and has given multiple plenary and State of the Art lectures around the world, including at the American Society for Hematology, the ISTH Congress, and the Gordon Conference in Hemostasis. In addition, he was on the Executive Organizing Committee for the 64th Congress of the ISTH meeting hosted in Dublin in July 2018.

On the basis of his outstanding contributions to the international field, Prof. O’Donnell has been elected as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (2023), awarded the Macfarlane Biggs medal for haemostasis by the British Society for Haematology (2025), and will receive a highly prestigious ‘Esteemed Career’ medal from the ISTH in June this year.

A light lunch will be served in the foyer following the presentation.