Rate My Professor Nirmal Robinson

Dr Nirmal Robinson is a Senior Research Fellow: Cellular-Stress and Immune Response and Lab Head at the Centre for Cancer Biology within the College of Health at Adelaide University. His research investigates how cellular stress responses and metabolic pathways intersect with innate immunity to influence cancer progression and therapy resistance, with a particular focus on glioblastoma and myeloid malignancies. In glioblastoma, the work examines stress-adaptive mechanisms and metabolic plasticity that support tumour invasiveness and immune evasion. In myeloid malignancies, including those driven by clonal hematopoiesis, the laboratory studies how inflammatory pathways and nutrient-sensing mechanisms shape the function of innate immune cells such as macrophages.

Dr Robinson has held the position of Senior Research Fellow / Lab Head at the Centre for Cancer Biology since 2018 and was appointed Scientific Lead at the University of Adelaide in 2025. Previously, from 2011 to 2017, he served as Research Group Leader at the Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging Associated Diseases. He leads the Cellular Stress and Immune Response Laboratory and contributes to translational research aimed at identifying vulnerabilities in cancer cells for improved patient outcomes. Recent publications include studies on CD47 stabilization of ROBO2 in glioblastoma progression (2026) and IRE1α as a gatekeeper of chemotherapy-induced immunogenicity in triple-negative breast cancer (2025).