Dr Mary O'Leary (They/She)

I’m an Associate Professor in Physiology in the Department of Public Health and Sport Sciences, and I co-lead the BioActivEx research group.

Research

My research examines how nutrition can support recovery, adaptation and resilience across the lifespan, from athletes managing high training loads to older adults and patients recovering from surgery. Much of our work focuses on bioactive compounds and (poly)phenol-rich foods, including tart cherry, blueberry, elderberry, shatavari and, more recently, micro-vegetables.

A central aim of my work is to understand not only whether nutritional interventions are effective, but how they work. We combine human intervention studies with skeletal muscle and adipose tissue biopsies, proteomics, primary human cell culture and ex vivo tissue models. This approach has provided new insight into the mechanisms underlying polyphenol supplementation. Our recent findings suggest that these compounds alter skeletal muscle protein pathways before exercise-induced damage occurs, which challenges the conventional view that they act mainly through short-term anti-inflammatory or antioxidant effects. I am also increasingly interested in diet- and microbiome-derived metabolites, and whether they help explain individual differences in response to training and nutrition.

Alongside performance nutrition, I have a translational programme in healthy ageing and clinical recovery. This includes a recently completed trial of blueberry supplementation in patients undergoing total knee replacement, and a collaboration with the PROTECT study on brain health in older adults. I have also recently begun contributing to physiology research in the defence sector.

Our research has been supported by Innovate UK, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the US Highbush Blueberry Council, The Torbay Medical Research Fund, Lallemand, PepsiCo, Pukka Herbs, DailyColors and Iprona.

I enjoy doing good science with great people. Since joining Exeter in 2018, I have supervised five postgraduate researchers and two postdoctoral researchers to completion. Former group members have gone on to roles at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, the British Nutrition Foundation and University College Cork, and supporting their development has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career.

Teaching

I lead undergraduate sports nutrition teaching in the department, including the modules ESS2509 Sports Nutrition and Metabolism, and until recently ESS3508 Nutrition for High Performance and its MSc counterpart. 

My teaching aims to help students apply scientific evidence to the needs of individual athletes, taking account of their goals, preferences and practical constraints. Final-year students gain experience providing nutrition support to high-performance athletes. Drawing on my medical training, I introduced a practical clinical-style assessment in our second-year teaching to develop students’ applied skills.

I am Programme Adviser to the Sport and Exercise Medical Sciences programme, delivered with colleagues in Clinical and Biomedical Sciences, and supervise undergraduate and MSc dissertation students each year. It is very rewarding to support students throughout their time at Exeter, and seeing them graduate is one of the best days of my year.

Background

I originally trained as a medical doctor at University College Cork. Relatively quickly, I decided that physiology research was my true calling. I then completed a Wellcome Trust-funded MRes/PhD programme at the University of Birmingham, which investigated the role of adipose- and skeletal muscle-derived cytokines in human myogenesis and muscle ageing. I was supervised by Dr Simon Jones, Dr Graham Wallace and Dr Kostas Tsintzas, and joined Exeter after completing my PhD in 2018. This combination of clinical training, mechanistic physiology and applied nutrition continues to shape my research and teaching.

I also serve as the University’s Designated Individual under its Human Tissue Authority licence.

Outside work, I am a keen (but not talented) cyclist, runner and lifter of heavy things.

Qualifications

• 2011: MB BCh BAO, University College Cork (First Class Honours)
• 2013: MSc Integrated Physiology, University of Nottingham (Distinction)
• 2014: MRes Biomedical Research, University of Birmingham
• 2018: PhD, Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, University of Birmingham
• 2022: Fellow of the Higher Education Academy