Professor Bradley Turner
BSc (Hons), PhD (Melb)

Professor Bradley Turner is Head of the Motor Neuron Disease Group and Research Lead of the Protect and Repair Mission. His group has a broad research interest in neurodegenerative diseases affecting the voluntary motor system in the brain and spinal cord. His team focuses on motor neuron disease (MND)/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Kennedy’s disease (KD) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Main research themes within his group include: understanding the cellular and molecular basis of selective motor neuron degeneration, chemogenetic models of neurodegeneration, development and delivery of novel therapeutics, and devising precision medicine approaches for these conditions. His approach is to model these diseases using patient stem cell-derived and animal models to evaluate gene, immune and pharmacological candidate therapeutics. Brad directs the ‘ID MND Initiative’, the largest MND patient stem cell bank in Australia for disease modelling and drug screening. His research has contributed to 5 drugs in clinical trial for MND.

Brad obtained his PhD in biochemistry at the University of Melbourne in 2005, followed by 3 years postdoctoral research at the MRC Functional Genomics Unit, University of Oxford. He was recruited back to The Florey and established his independent research group in 2011. He has received numerous fellowships, including a NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship, Stafford Fox Foundation Fellowship and NHMRC Dementia Research Leadership Fellowship. His lab is currently funded by the NHMRC, Medical Research Future Fund, Stafford Fox Medical Research Foundation, FightMND and MND Research Australia. Brad has 100+ career publications in leading journals, including Nature Communications, PNAS USA, JAMA Neurology, Autophagy and Cell Death & Differentiation. He serves as an editor for a number of journals, including Sclerosis (Editor-in-Chief) and Frontiers Cell Neuroscience (Associate Editor).

Key collaborators:

• Professor Kevin Talbot, University of Oxford
• Professor Michael Spedding, Spedding Research Solutions, Paris
• Dr Severine Boillee, Brain and Spine Institute, Paris
• Dr Ali Jawaid, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Poland
• Professor Steve Vucic, University of Sydney
• Professor Matthew Kiernan, University of Sydney
• Professor Naomi Wray, University of Queensland
• Associate Professor Shyuan Ngo, Associate Professor Shyuan Ngo, University of Queensland
• Associate Professor Mary-Louise Rogers, Associate Professor Mary-Louise Rogers, Flinders University
• Professor Alice Pebay, University of Melbourne
• Professor Paul Gregorevic, University of Melbourne
• Professor Marco Herold, WEHI
• Dr Chris Bye, The Florey
• Dr Fazel Shabanpoor, The Florey
• Dr Samantha Barton, The Florey
• Dr Thanuja Dharmadasa, The Florey