ProfSteven Kerrigan

Professor Steve Kerrigan is Deputy Head of the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences (Research) and Professor of Precision Therapeutics at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. He leads the Cardiovascular Infection Research Group within the Irish Centre for Vascular Biology and is Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Inthelia Therapeutics, an RCSI spin-out company developing host-directed precision therapeutics for infectious diseases.

Professor Kerrigan is an internationally recognised pharmacologist whose research has advanced and helped redefine the pharmacology of host–pathogen interactions by identifying host physiological barriers, including the vascular endothelium and epithelium, as tractable therapeutic targets for host-directed intervention. His work identified integrin αVβ3 as a key therapeutic target exploited by bacterial, viral and fungal pathogens, establishing a new paradigm for host-directed pharmacology that shifts the therapeutic focus from targeting pathogens alone to protecting the host. These discoveries have created new opportunities for precision therapeutics across infectious diseases.

Building on these discoveries, Professor Kerrigan pioneered the pharmacological repurposing of the integrin antagonist cilengitide as a novel host-directed therapeutic and the development of biomarker-guided precision medicine strategies. Through Inthelia Therapeutics, he is translating these discoveries into patented technologies, commercial innovation and clinical development.

Professor Kerrigan graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Pharmacology from King's College London, an MSc in Immunopharmacology from the University of Strathclyde and a PhD in Cardiovascular Infection from RCSI, before undertaking postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco. He was appointed Lecturer in Pharmacology in 2008, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2013, Associate Professor in 2017 and Full Professor in 2021.

His research integrates fundamental pharmacology, translational science and clinical therapeutics to develop innovative therapies that improve outcomes for patients with life-threatening infectious diseases.