Jemma Louise Geoghegan (born ) is a Scottish-born evolutionary virologist, based at the University of Otago, New Zealand, who specialises in researching emerging infectious diseases and the use of metagenomics to trace the evolution of viruses. As a leader in several government-funded research projects, Geoghegan became the public face of genomic sequencing during New Zealand's response to COVID-19. Her research has contributed to the discussion about the likely cause of COVID-19 and the challenges around predicting pandemics. She was a recipient of the Young Tall Poppy Award in 2017, a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship in 2020, and the 2021 Prime Minister's Emerging Scientist Prize.
Early life and education
Geoghegan was born and raised in Cupar, Scotland. She was accepted into the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, but in 2004 took a year off school before starting her university studies to work as a volunteer teacher in Baddegama, Sri Lanka. At the age of 18, she returned to the University of Strathclyde and completed her Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Genetics, specialising in Forensic Biology in 2009. She received a scholarship to do a doctorate at the University of Otago and moved to New Zealand. She was offered the opportunity to do the PhD by Professor Hamish Spencer, who said he "chose Geoghegan for the post because of her 'interesting' background." On completion of her PhD in evolutionary biology in 2012, Geoghegan went to New York where she worked with a group at New York University that was focused on HIV. In 2013 she moved to Australia and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney from 2013 to 2017, before getting her own laboratory at Macquarie University.
Career
Geoghegan worked as a lecturer at Macquarie University from 2017 to 2020. In 2017 for her research as an evolutionary biologist, she received the Tall Young Poppy Award.
Since 2020 Geoghegan has been a senior lecturer in the University of Otago's microbiology and immunology department and an associate senior scientist at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR). In August 2023 she was promoted to the Webster Family Chair in Viral Pathogenesis at Otago.
Genome sequencing
Public profile
Geoghegan has been described as one of New Zealand's "standout communicators... one of the faces of this country's COVID-19 genome sequencing efforts." Writing in The Spinoff, the New Zealand-based scientist Siouxsie Wiles acknowledged Geoghegan as "one of the people behind New Zealand's incredible efforts to sequence all the strains of the virus we get here." Wiles also recommended that those interested in learning more about genome sequencing should check out research being developed by a team that included Geoghegan. The paper for this research was later published on 11 December 2020. The Guardian acknowledged Geoghegan as "one of the scientists leading work to analyse genomic sequences of the virus."
When Britain decided in July 2021 to lift all public health restrictions following lockdowns during COVID-19 despite only half of the population being vaccinated, Geoghegan shared the concerns of Siouxsie Wiles, Ashley Bloomfield and Julie Anne Genter that this was likely to lead to more dangerous virus variants circulating worldwide, undermining vaccination programmes. She said this was "[training] the virus to escape vaccine-induced immunity", and the country needed a higher threshold of vaccination to deal with the Delta variant.
In January 2022 as the Omicron variant began circulating New Zealand and it appeared that there would be a further mutation, BA.2, Geoghegan noted that "the new mutation is largely found through genome sequencing as only certain types of PCR (nasal swab) tests pick up the subtle differences between Delta and BA.2...[but that]...people who are fully vaccinated with boosters were "effectively protected" against the new variant. By June 2022 it was widely held that Omicron would likely become endemic in New Zealand. Considering the implications of this, one commentator wrote, "the only determinants of how many people will be sickened, disabled or killed by the virus are its evolutionary leaps and our actions to shape its environment." Geoghegan agreed that the host and the virus are in an "evolutionary arms race where they keep changing to try and beat each other", but noted it is difficult to predict how the virus could change as new variants attempt to evade immunity from vaccination or prior infection. She said factors such as "rapidly replicating and infecting cells inside a chronic, immunocompromised person...[or]...a recombination of different variants, perhaps in an animal host" could affect this.