Rate My Professor Paul Tooney

Associate Professor Paul Tooney serves in the School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy within the College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He earned his Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Science (Honours), PhD in 1995, and Graduate Certificate in the Practice of Tertiary Teaching from the University of Newcastle. Following his PhD in cancer biology, he conducted postdoctoral research on cancer biology and the extracellular matrix at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1995 to 1998. Returning to Australia, he held positions as Research Assistant at the University of Newcastle in 1990, Research Officer and Senior Research Officer at the Neuroscience Institute of Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders from 1998 to 2004, Lecturer from 2004 to 2007, Senior Lecturer from 2008 to 2012, and has been Associate Professor since 2012. He received the Australian Postgraduate Research Award from the University of Newcastle in 1991. Currently, he leads the Experimental Therapeutics stream at the Mark Hughes Foundation Centre for Brain Cancer Research, established in 2022.

Paul Tooney's research career began in cancer biology, pivoted to schizophrenia neurobiology and genetics from 1998 to 2017, where he contributed to the establishment of the Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank, enabling over 100 research projects and publications. Since 2017, he has focused on brain cancers, particularly glioblastoma, exploring new and repurposed drugs to overcome resistance, blood-based biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment monitoring, and the brain tumor microenvironment. His multidisciplinary collaborations include neuroscientists, oncologists, neuropathologists, and chemists. Key publications include 'Patient-derived glioblastoma cells are capable of forming tube-like structures in vitro suggestive of vasculogenic mimicry' (Neuro-Oncology, 2024), 'ATR inhibitors increase the anti-proliferative effects of standard treatment on patient-derived glioblastoma cells' (Neuro-Oncology, 2024), 'Schizophrenia risk from complex variation of complement component 4' (Nature, 2016), and 'Increased white matter neuron density in a rat model of maternal immune activation - Implications for schizophrenia' (Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, 2016). He mentors postdoctoral scientists and higher degree research students, fostering the next generation of researchers.