Paul Cotter PhD

Prof Paul Cotter is Head of Food Biosciences and a Senior Principal Research Officer at Teagasc Food Research Centre at Teagasc, Moorpark, Fermoy, Ireland and a PI with the APC Microbiome Ireland and Vista Milk SFI Centre's. He also coordinates the EU H2020 project, MASTER, and is a PI with Food for Health Ireland (FHI). He is a molecular microbiologist, with researchers in his lab focusing particularly on antimicrobial peptides (bacteriocins) and the microbiology of the gut (and its role in health and disease, including in athletes) and of foods (fermented and other dairy foods) and food production/processing facilities.

Prof Cotter also manages the Teagasc/APC DNA sequencing facility and is an adjunct professor at University College Cork and an adjunct lecturer at Cork Institute of Technology. Prof Cotter’s Vision I laboratory was awarded the title of Irish Food Laboratory of the Year 2013, 2015, 2016, & 2018, and Agriculture Laboratory of the Year in 2019 and 2020. He has received awards from the Society for Applied Microbiology, ESCMID, and FEMS and is the joint Section Head (applied microbiology) of Faculty of 1000 (Biology).

Prof Cotter is also the author of >300 peer-reviewed publications resulting from research funded by the EU, Science Foundation Ireland, the Irish Health Research Board, Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology and was included in the Clarivate Highly Cited list for 2018, 2019 and 2020. He has also been a member of the editorial boards of M-Systems, Applied & Environmental Microbiology, PLoS One, BMC Microbiology, F1000 Reports, and Proteins & Antimicrobial Peptides. In addition, Paul is a co-founder and CTO of SeqBiome Ltd, which provides high-end microbiome analysis (sequencing & bioinformatics).