Professor Ken Smith

Ken Smith is Professor of Medicine and Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow and Director of Studies in Clinical Medicine at Pembroke College, Cambridge and is the Khoo Oon Teik Professor of Nephrology, National University of Singapore. Ken studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, and completed a BMedSc in the Nuffield Department of Surgery in Oxford. He trained in nephrology with an interest in autoimmune disease at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and then completed pathology training specialising in clinical immunology. His PhD (with David Tarlinton and Gus Nossal: Walter and Eliza Hall Institute) examined aspects of B cell immunology, work built upon in two years working with Douglas Fearon in Cambridge.

He now runs a laboratory in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research which has two main components. The first studies basic immunological mechanisms, and how defects in regulatory control of the immune system can lead to autoimmunity and alter defence against infection. The second component is a translational programme in autoimmune disease (particularly SLE and vasculitis) and has led to the discovery of a novel prognosis-predicting biomarker now entering clinical trials, and the identification of important genes involved in disease pathogenesis. In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and in 2007 was awarded the Lister Institute Research Prize.

Publications

Key publications:

Thomas DC, Clare S, Sowerby JM, Pardo M, Juss JK, Goulding DA, van der Weyden L, Storisteanu D, Prakash A, Espéli M, Flint S, Lee JC, Hoenderdos K, Kane L, Harcourt K, Mukhopadhyay S, Umrania Y, Antrobus R, Nathan JA, Adams DJ, Bateman A, Choudhary JS, Lyons PA, Condliffe AM, Chilvers ER, Dougan G and Smith KGC (2017). “Eros is a novel transmembrane protein that controls the phagocyte respiratory burst and is essential for innate immunity.” J Exp Med. 214(4):1111-1128. doi: 10.1084/jem.20161382

Lee JC, Biasci D, Roberts R, Gearry RB, Mansfield JC, Ahmad T, Prescott NJ, Satsangi J, Wilson DC, Jostins L, Anderson CA; UK IBD Genetics Consortium., Traherne JA, Lyons PA, Parkes M and Smith KGC (2017). “Genome-wide association study identifies distinct genetic contributions to prognosis and susceptibility in Crohn's disease.” Nat Genet. 49(2):262-268. doi: 10.1038/ng.3755

Peters JE, Lyons PA, Lee JC, Richard AC, Fortune MD, Newcombe PJ, Richardson S and Smith KGC (2016). “Insight into genotype-phenotype associations through eQTL mapping in multiple cell types in health and immune-mediated disease.” PLoS Genet.12(3):e1005908. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1005908

McKinney EF, Lee, JC, Jayne DRW, Lyons PA and Smith KGC (2015). T cell exhaustion, costimulation and clinical outcome in autoimmunity and infection. Nature 523(7562): 612-616. doi: 10.1038/nature14468.

Linterman, MA, Denton, AE, Divekar, DP, Zvetkova, I, Kane, L, Ferreira, C, Veldhoen, M, Clare, S, Dougan G, Espéli, M, and Smith, KGC(2014). CD28 expression is required after T cell priming for helper T cell responses and protective immunity to infection. ELIFE, 3. doi:10.7554/eLife.03180

LeeJC, EspéliM, AndersonCA, LintermanMA, PocockJM, WilliamsNJ, RobertsR, ViatteS, FuB, PeshuN, Tran TH, Nguyen HP, WesleyE, EdwardsC, AhmadT, MansfieldJC, GearryR, DunstanS, Williams TS, BartonA, VinuesaCG, UK IBD Genetics Consortium, ParkesM, LyonsPA, SmithKGC. Human SNP links differential outcomes in inflammatory and infectious disease to a FOXO3-regulated pathway. Cell 2013: 155(1):57-69.

Marion Espéli, Menna R. Clatworthy, Susanne Bökers, Kate E. Lawlor, Antony J. Cutler, Frank Köntgen, Paul A. Lyons, Kenneth G. C. Smith. Analysis of a wild mouse Fcgr2b promoter variant reveals a novel role for FcgRIIb in the control of the germinal center and autoimmunity. J Exp Med, 2012 Nov 19;209(12):2307-19.

Lyons PA*, Rayner TF*, Trivedi S*, Holle JU, Watts RA, Jayne DRW, Baslund B, Brenchley P, Bruchfeld A, Chaudhry AN, Cohen Tervaert JW, Deloukas P, Feighery C, Gross WL, Guillevin L,Gunnarsson I, Harper L, Hrušková Z, Little MA, Martorana D, Neumann T, Ohlsson S, Padmanabhan S, Pusey CD, Salama AD, Sanders J-S F, Savage CO, Segelmark M, Stegeman CA, Tesař V, Vaglio A, Wieczorek S, Wilde B, Zwerina J, Rees AJ, Clayton DG and Smith KGC. Genetically Distinct Subsets within ANCA-Associated Vasculitis New England Journal of Medicine, 2012 Jul 19;367(3):214-23.

Linterman MA, Pierson W, Lee SK, Kallies A, Kawamoto S, Rayner TF, Srivastava M, Divekar DP, Beaton L, Hogan JJ, Fagarasan S, Liston A, Smith KGC* & Vinuesa CG*. Foxp3+ follicular regulatory T cells control the germinal center response. Nature Medicine, 2011

Lee JC, Lyons PA, McKinney EF, Sowerby JM, Carr EJ, Bredin F, Rickman HM, Ratlamwala H, Hatton A, Rayner TF, Parkes M, Smith KGC. Gene expression profiling of CD8+ T cells predicts prognosis in patients with Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2011; 121:4170-9.

McKinney EF, Lyons PA, Carr EJ, Hollis JL, Jayne DRW, Willcocks LC, Koukoulaki M, Hatton A, MacAry PA, Brazma A, Chaudhry AN and Smith KGC. A CD8 memory T cell transcription signature predicts prognosis in autoimmune diseases. Nature Medicine, 2010; in press. Nat Med 16(5): 586-591, 581p following 591.

Head of Department

Professor of Medicine