Professor Eamonn Mallon

Eamonn Mallon was born in Dublin and attended Trinity College Dublin, completing a BA (Mod.) in Zoology before undertaking a PhD on ant colony self-organisation with Professor Nigel Franks at the University of Bath.

He subsequently moved to Switzerland to work with Professor Paul Schmid-Hempel at ETH Zurich, where he investigated how immunity shapes behaviour and health in bumblebees. This interest in the links between physiology, behaviour, and life history continued when he joined the University of Leicester.

Professor Mallon’s research now focuses on the biology of ageing, using insect models to understand how developmental and metabolic processes shape lifespan and healthspan. His group studies epigenetic ageing mechanisms, including DNA methylation and chromatin regulation, and has developed novel insect models and epigenetic clocks to test evolutionary and mechanistic theories of ageing. Through this work, his research integrates evolutionary biology with molecular gerontology to uncover how ageing trajectories are programmed and modified across the life course.

Ageing is shaped by molecular changes that accumulate across the life course. A major focus of Professor Mallon’s research is epigenetic ageing, the progressive alteration of DNA methylation and chromatin state that influences gene activity over time. These epigenetic changes respond to developmental conditions, metabolism, and environment, and are increasingly recognised as central to age-related disease and functional decline.

Professor Mallon’s group uses insects, particularly parasitoid wasps and pollinators, as tractable models to study how ageing trajectories are established and modified. These species combine sophisticated behaviour and life histories with experimentally accessible genomes and epigenetic systems. The lab has developed novel insect epigenetic clocks and experimental approaches to test evolutionary and mechanistic theories of ageing, including how early-life conditions, nutrition, and metabolic state shape lifespan and healthspan.

This work connects evolutionary biology, epigenetics, and gerontology, while also building insect models for translational research on ageing and age-related disease. In parallel, the group continues to investigate epigenetic processes in socially important insects such as pollinators.

Visit https://le.ac.uk/social-epigenetics-lab for more details.

Pozo, M., Hunt, B.J., Mallon, E.B. et al. (2021) The effect of DNA methylation on bumblebee colony development. BMC Genomics 22, 73

Marshall, H.  van Zweden, J.S., Van Geystelen, A., Benaets, K., Wäckers, F., Mallon, E.B. & Wenseleers, T. (2020) Genome-wide search for parent-of-origin allele specific expression in Bombus terrestris. Evolution Letters 4 (6), 479-490

Marshall, H., Jones, A.R.C., Lonsdale, Z.N., & Mallon, E.B. (2020) Bumblebee worker castes show differences in allele-specific DNA methylation and allele-specific expression. Genome Biology and Evolution 12 (8), 1471-1481

Jones, A.R.C. & Mallon, E.B. (2020) Evidence of capacitation in the parasitoid wasp, Nasonia vitripennis and its potential role in sex allocation Ecology and  Evolution 0:1-9

Hunt, B.J., Mallon, E.B. & Rosato E. (2019) In silico identification of a molecular circadian system with novel features in the crustacean model organism Parhyale hawaiensis. Frontiers in Physiology.10, p 1325

Marshall, H.,  Lonsdale, Z.N., & Mallon, E.B. (2019) Methylation and Gene Expression Differences Between Reproductive Castes of Bumblebee Workers. Evolution Letters. 3(5), pp 485-499.

Harrison, M.C., Mallon, E.B., Twell, D. & Hammond, R.L. (2019) Deleterious mutation accumulation in Arabidophis thaliana pollen genes: a role for a recent relaxation of selection. Genome Biology and Evolution Volume 11, Issue 7 Pages 1939-1951.

Bebane, P., Hunt, B.J. Pegoraro, M., Jones, A. M., Marshall, H., Rosato, E., & Mallon, E.B. (2019) The neonicotinoid, imidicloprid affects gene expression and methylation in the buff-tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris. Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 286 (1905)

Price, J., Harrison, M.C., Hammond, R.L., Adams, S., Gutierrez-Marcos J.F., & Mallon, E.B. (2018) Alternative splicing associated with phenotypic plasticity in the bumble bee Bombus terrestris Molecular Ecology 27 (4) pp 1036-1043

Lonsdale, Z.N., Lee, K.D., Kyriakidou, M., Amarasinghe, H.E., Nathanael, D., O'Connor, C.J. & Mallon, E.B. (2017) Allele specific expression and methylation in the bumblebee, Bombus terrestris . PeerJ 5:e3798

Ageing

Social insects

Social evolution

Epigenetics

Pesticides

Professor Mallon teaches the statistical components of the first year course in modules BS1040, BS1070 and MB1080, and convenes the second year module BS2004, Contemporary techniques in biological data analysis.

Insects

Evolution

Epigenetics

A recent radio interview.

• 1997-2001: PhD, University of Bath (Supervisor: Nigel Franks)
• 1992-1997: BA (Hons), Trinity College Dublin, Natural Sciences (Zoology)