Dr Arran K Turnbull (BSc(Hons), MBChB, MSc(Res), PhD)

Senior Lecturer, Principal Investigator and Group Leader

Biography

Background

Dr Arran Turnbull is a senior lecturer and principal investigator leading the Translational Oncology Research Team at the Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre. Arran's research work and the work of his team focuses primarily on estrogen receptor positive and HER2-positive breast cancer and includes understanding the development of drug resistance, through high-throughout proteomics and deep sequencing, predicting drug response and new target discovery. Arran's other research interests include DCIS, prostate cancer and radiotherapy resistance. Arran also leads on a number of national and international collaborations with other research groups, commerical collaborators and major pharma. Arran's research has been funded by Breast Cancer Now for the last 10 years and in 2018 he was honoured with the Breast Cancer Now Researcher of the Year award.

Arran's undergraduate honours degree was in molecular biology this was followed by a masters by research degree in immunology, genetics and pathway medicine. Arran went on to study medicine at the University of Glasgow and a PhD in oncology at the University of Edinburgh.  In 2012 Arran took up a post-doctoral research position in the Edinburgh Breast Cancer Now Research Team, leading the lab-based research and a number of local and international collaborations. In 2014, Arran went on to form his own research group, the Translational Oncology Research Group.

Arran's PhD focused on the successful development and validation of a translational predictive test for endocrine therapy response in breast cancer. This test has been successfully validated in several independent cohorts of patients with the initial results published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. This test is now moving towards a prospective clinical trial both in the UK and USA.

Arran is also the course organiser and lead for the Reproductive Cancer Biology Elective under the Reproductive Sciences Programme and the Reproductive Cancers module within the Cancer MSc course at the University of Edinburgh. In 2019 Arran was appointed as the research lead on the Sanming Project of Medicine, a 5-year teaching and research collaboration between the University of Hong Kong, University of Edinburgh and Shenzhen Hospital. Arran is also the chair of the organising committee and founder of the Edinburgh Breast Cancer Special Symposium, an international breast cancer conference which runs in Edinburgh every 2 years. In this role, Arran also coordinates a series of international clinical and research training days on a variety of breast cancer topics. Arran is also a Fund Ambassador and Steward for the Breast Cancer Institute, a local breast cancer charity.

 

Qualifications

BSc (Hons), MBChB, MSc(Res), PhD

Responsibilities & affiliations

External Appointments

  • Fund Ambassador and Steward for the Breast Cancer Institute
  • Chair of the Organising Committee for the Edinburgh Breast Cancer Special Symposium
  • University of Hong Kong – Honorary Research Fellow (2019-2022).

Professional Memberships

  • Member of the British Association of Cancer Research.
  • Member of the European Association of Cancer Research.
  • Member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
  • Member of the Royal Society of Biology.
  • Member of the British Medical Association.

Undergraduate teaching

Course Organiser and Lecturer for the Reproductive Cancer Biology Honours Elective Course (2016-current)

Postgraduate teaching

Course Organiser and Lecturer for the Reproductive Cancers Module for the MSc Cancers course (2023-current)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

  • Breast Cancer
  • Prostate Cancer
  • Bioinformatics

Current PhD students supervised

  • Charlene Kay - PhD focused on improving risk prediction in node-positive ER+ breast cancer.
  • Zuzanna Gedziorowska - PhD focused on biomarker discovery for response prediction to anti-androgens, chemotherapy and radiotherapy in prostate cancer.

Research summary

My group aims to investigate the mechanisms of resistance to endocrine therapy and other treatments in breast cancer and develop clinically-applicable approaches to identify patients who are at higher risk of disease progression or relapse. We also work on characteriseing the mechanisms underlying treatment resistance. Our research uses a high-throughput multiomics approach to analyse real tumour tissues.

 

Current research interests

Breast cancer, prostate cancer, endocrine therapy, chemotherapy, prediction of treatment response, mechanisms of treatment resistance, cancer and stratified medicine.

Knowledge exchange

RNA and DNA sequencing, bioinformatics, transcriptomics, mass spec, proteomics, spatial geomics, clinical, biomarkers selection and statistics.

Affiliated research centres

  • Hong Kong University
  • Breast Cancer Research Laboratories, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • UNC Lineberger, University of North Carolina

Project activity

Breast Cancer

  • Genomic Prediction of Response to Endocrine Therapy in ER+ Breast Cancer
  • Endocrine Therapy Resistance and Recurrence
  • Genomic and Response Directed Assay & In-Situ Mutation Detection
  • Optimising Treatments for Triple Negative Breast Cancer
  • Risk Prediction in Breast Cancer
  • Genomic Analysis of Nodal Metastases in Breast Cancer for Improved Stratification

DCIS

  • Biomarkers for risk stratification and endocrine therapy benefit in DCIS

Prostate Cancer

  • Biomarkers of Response to Radiotherapy, Anti-androgen Therapy and Chemotherapy in Prostate Cancer

Breast Tumour Imaging

  • Microwave Radiometry

Current project grants

Breast Cancer Now Project Grant (2022-2024)
Breast Cancer Institute Project Grant
The Urology Foundation Project Grant
Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Grant
Tenovus Scotland Research Grant
CSO
NHS Lothian Charity Project Grant
John Black Foundation Research Grant
National Institute of Health (NIH) Project Grant – shared with Georgetown University

Past project grants

Breast Cancer Now Project Grants (2009-2022)
Breast Cancer Institue Project Grants (2016-2023)
Breast Cancer Research Trust Project Grant
National Institute of Health (NIH) Project Grant – shared with Georgetown University
CSO Small Grant
Len Thomson Trust Small Grant

Conference details

  • San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference (2014-current)
  • UK International Breast Cancer Symposium (2018-current)
  • British Association of Cancer Research Conference (2024)

Invited speaker

  • Sanming Project of Medicine Genomics of Breast Cancer Conference (2021)
  • Sanming Project of Medicine Endocrine Therapy Management of Breast Cancer Conference (2021)
  • Sanming Project of Medicine Benign Breast Disease and DCIS Conference (2021)
  • Sanming Project of Medicine Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Conference (2021)

Organiser

  • Edinburgh Breast Cancer Special Symposium - founder and chair of the organising committee

In the press

  • Invited scientific speaker for the British Science Festival (2019).
  • Filmed Breast Cancer New Research Interview May 2019.
  • Article on Sanming Project Collaboration published in the NHS Lothian magazine (2019).
  • Breast Cancer Now Interview – “Sir Antony Driver Prize 2018 awarded to Dr Arran Turnbull” 4th February 2019.
  • Interview with Pink Ribbon – “Interview with Edinburgh Breast Unit – Surgery and Tests – Professor JM Dixon and Dr A Turnbull” December 2017.
  • Breast Cancer Now promotional video – “Breast Cancer Now in Scotland” October 2015.
  • The National newspaper – “Breakthrough in breast cancer hormone therapy after Edinburgh research” 2nd June 2015.
  • The Herald Scotland – “New test to quickly identify best breast cancer treatment” 1st June 2015.
  • Edinburgh Evening News – “Join Mike in his fight for breast cancer breakthrough” 29th August 2013.
  • Breakthrough Breast Cancer media – “Spotlight on… Dr Arran Turnbull” 3rd August 2013.
  • Scotsman on Sunday National newspaper article – “Hopes for a new breast cancer test” 9th June 2013.

Researchers

  • Dr Carlos Martinez-Perez
  • Charlene Kay

PhD Students

  • Charlene Kay
  • Zuzanna Gedziorowska

Research Support and Affiliates

  • Sue Hope
  • Natalie Wilson
  • Lorna Renshaw
  • Mihail Halachev

  • University of North Carolina 
  • Hormel Institute 
  • Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Hongkong University
  • Astra Zeneca
  • Lilly Oncology
  • Genomic Health
  • Philips
  • InnoSIGN
  • Digistain
  • APIS Technologies
  • Wobble Genomics
  • Macromics
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