Professor Stephen Turner
Professor Stephen Turner is a viral immunologist and currently the Head of the Department of Microbiology at Monash University. He is also the current President of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology.
Born in Sea Lake located in Northern Victoria, he lived in a number of small country towns before settling and completing his high schooling in Bendigo. Upon completion of Year 12, he became the first in his family to go to University when he moved to Melbourne to study a Bachelor of Science (with Honours) at Monash University, where he majored in Immunology and Microbiology. He then undertook a PhD supervised by Professor Frank Carbone located at the Department of Immunology and Pathology at Monash University. There he examined factors that allowed a particular type of immune cell, the killer T cell, to identify and remove virus infected cells from the body. He was awarded his Doctor of Philosophy in 1997.
He then worked with Professor Janet Ruby at The University of Melbourne (1997 to 2002) as a postdoctoral fellow. His work involved examining how poxviruses cause disease and identified novel molecules that are used by poxviruses to evade our immune system. He then moved to the United States to join the laboratory of Nobel Laureate, Professor Peter Doherty, at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. There he utilised recently developed genomic and single cell technologies to better understand the mechanisms that enable killer T cells to form immunological memory. He returned to The University of Melbourne in 2002, with Professor Peter Doherty to help set up his laboratory.
Professor Turner was able to establish his own research group after being awarded a NHMRC RD Wright Fellowship in 2005. From there he was fortunate to receive sustained fellowship support via awarding of a Pfizer Australia Senior Research Fellowship in 2007; an ARC Professorial Future Fellowship in 2012 and an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship in 2016. He was the Deputy Head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at The University of Melbourne (2014 to 2016) prior to his move to Monash University.
His current research interests utilize a combination of structural biology, genomics, systems biology, recombinant viral technology and cellular immunology to examine molecular factors that impact T cell responses to virus infection. He has published over 170 primary research papers, mentored over 50 research students to completion and is regularly sought after by the media for his expertise on viral immunity, vaccines and science policy.
Outside of work, he is married to a successful research scientist, has two children aged 13 and 11, both of whom have no interest in pursuing a science career, and enjoys walking their Border Collie, Pepper. Little known facts include he once played the flute; once played for Carlton as a junior footballer; is the only member of his family that likes country music and has a single digit golf handicap. His twitter handle is @sjturn where he tweets on a variety of topics including, science, golf and baking.