Dann Turner

Senior Lecturer - Molecular Biology
University of the West of England
Bristol, UK

Current term (2023 - 2026): First

Biography

Dann is a Senior Lecturer in Genomics at the University of the West of England, Bristol. He received
his undergraduate degree from the University of Manchester, and his MSc in Medical Microbiology
from UWE, Bristol. Prior undertaking his PhD, he was the technical development manager at Alaska
Food Diagnostics, a UK Ministry of Defence spin-out company developing a bacteriophage-based
rapid diagnostic assay for the detection of foodborne pathogens between 2005 and 2009, where he
developed a passion for this fascinating group of viruses.
In 2020 he was appointed as Vice Chair for the Bacterial Viruses Subcommittee for the International
Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses and as Chair for the Caudoviricetes and Autographiviridae
Study Groups. Alongside Dr Evelien Adrianessens, he has been involved in the effort to reclassify
tailed bacteriophages according to a genome-based taxonomy that encompasses sequences derived
from metagenomic approaches. He is involved in the design and development of bioinformatics
tools for the classification and analysis of bacterial viruses using genomic data. He was the associate
editor for the MDPI journal Viruses from 2018 to 2022. In 2023 he was appointed to the advisory
board of the Innovate UK KTN Phage Innovation Network.
His research focus encompasses characterisation and bioinformatics analysis of virulent and
temperate bacteriophages that infect the WHO priority critical pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii
with specific focus on the molecular mechanisms underlying bacteriophage infection.

For more information:
https://people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/Dann2Turner
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dann-Turner
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0249-4513