She was instrumental in establishing Birmingham as one of the initial 6 national accredited cancer clinical trials units. In 2003 she was awarded a USA National Cancer Institute fellowship which involved a 6 month sabbatical at Washington DC assessing smoking as a risk factor for pancreatic cancer. She is involved in National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) breast, colorectal, pancreatic, myeloma, melanoma, and head & neck cancer trials and is currently on the NCRI breast cancer clinical studies group. In January 2006 she was appointed as Professor of Clinical Trials and head of cancer trials at Warwick CTU and was instrumental in establishing cancer trials. Warwick CTU gained full UKCRN registration in 2008 and moved into their new building in 2009 having secured money from Advantage West Midlands Science City and the Wolfson Foundation. Her research interests include the evaluation of prognostic and predictive factors in cancer clinical trials, and designing clinical trials to impact on clinical practice. The establishment of the National Cancer Research Network and the continued funding from Cancer Research UK has resulted in the completion of many successful UK academic trials which have challenged and changed clinical practice. In 2008 Professor Dunn was awarded National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator status being one of the inaugural cohort of investigators contributing to applied patient centred research. She has been successful in attracting NIHR National Coordinating Centre for Health Technology Assessment (NCCHTA) grants totalling £6 million for cancer trials at Warwick. These achievements have resulted in Warwick CTU being one of the 15 NCRI badged CTUs demonstrating esteem for the Cancer trials carried out within Warwick CTU.