Shannon J Turley

Shannon Jennifer Turley is an American biologist who was an Immunology Fellow at Genentech and is now at Amgen. She develops immunotherapies for inflammatory diseases and cancers. She was elected member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025. She spent a summer at the Shedd Aquarium, where she took part in a research cruise off the Florida Keys. She said that she fell in love with the idea of being a scientist. She was a doctoral student at Yale University, where she worked on dendritic cells with Ira Mellman.

Research and career Turley spent a year teaching at Bowdoin College, but despite enjoying teaching, missed basic research. She held a joint position with the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, where she studied how immune responses were initiated. She spent ten years at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute before joining Genentech, having decided to develop immunotherapy that improves patient outcomes. Turley has described a new pathway to create tissue-specific tolerance by the presentation of ectopic antigens on lymph node stromal cells.

At Genentech, Turley created a discovery program dedicated to the tumor microenvironment. She is particularly interested in the development of immunotherapies for patients with advanced cancers and inflammatory diseases.

Selected publications

Awards and honors Turley was awarded membership of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025.