Dr Colm Cunningham is an Associate Professor in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology in Trinity College Dublin.

His main research interest is to unravel interactions between the immune system and the nervous system.

Colm graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a B.A. (Mod) in Biochemistry and later completed his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Professor Keith Tipton, also in TCD. He performed post-doctoral research in the CNS Inflammation Group of Prof. Hugh Perry (FMedSci) in the University of Southampton, where he first described microglial priming and vulnerability of the degenerating brain to secondary insults. In 2006 Dr. Cunningham returned to Trinity funded by a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship to develop the first animal models of delirium during dementia and this work on the interaction between prior neurodegenerative and superimposed secondary insults in delirium and long-term cognitive decline was further supported by the award of a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship in 2010. He has published extensively on microglia, on astrocytes and on the impact of systemic inflammation on brain function and integrity at the interface of dementia and delirium. His current research is supported by the US National Institute of Aging (NIH), SIMONS Foundation and Alzheimer’s Research UK. In 2021 he was awarded the Maeve Leonard Award for unique contribution to delirium research or care by The European Delirium Association.