Associate Professor Paul Tooney is a cell biologist with a strong interest in understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of disease to enable improved diagnosis and treatment strategies. Currently he focuses on high-grade brain tumours.

He is an Associate Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He completed his PhD in 1995 at the University of Newcastle, followed by postdoctoral training in cancer biology and extracellular matrix research at the University of Wisconsin, USA (1995–1998). He subsequently returned to Australia to focus on the neurobiology of schizophrenia, working as a Research Officer and Senior Research Officer at the Schizophrenia Research Institute (1998–2004), before taking up his academic appointment at the University of Newcastle.

From 1998 to 2017, Associate Professor Tooney’s research focused on the neurobiology and genetics of schizophrenia. He played a major role in establishing the Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank (ASRB), a national resource that collected clinical, cognitive, genetic, and brain imaging data from individuals with schizophrenia and matched controls across Australia. The ASRB has supported more than 100 research projects and resulted in over 100 peer‑reviewed publications.

Since 2017, Associate Professor Tooney has focused on brain tumours, particularly glioblastoma. His current research centres on identifying new and repurposed therapies to overcome treatment resistance, developing blood‑based biomarkers for diagnosis and monitoring disease progression, and investigating the role of PSMA in the brain tumour microenvironment.