John O'Shea

Dr. O’Shea serves as a Senior Investigator and Chief of the Molecular Immunology and Inflammation Branch and studies cytokine signaling transduction.

Dr. O’Shea graduated Phi Beta Kappa from St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, received his M.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and trained in Internal Medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. He came to the NIH as a fellow in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He served as a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, started his own research group in the National Cancer Institute in 1989, and then moved to the NIAMS in 1994 as Chief of the Lymphocyte Cell Biology Section of the Arthritis and Rheumatism Branch. He was appointed NIAMS Scientific Director in 2005.

Dr. O’Shea is the author of more than 350 publications and has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine. In May 2023, he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences at the conclusion of the Academy's 160th annual meeting.

He has received numerous awards including the:

• NIH Director's Award (four times)
• U.S. Public Health Service Physician Researcher of the Year Award
• Irish Immunology Public Lecture Award
• Arthritis Foundation's Howley Prize
• Drake Prize
• Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine
• Millstein Prize
• American Association of Immunologists’ AAI-Steinman Award for Human Immunology
• American Society for Clinical Investigation Harrington Prize, and
• NIH Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity Management’s “Make a Difference” Award.