Professor Kenneth Smith FMedSci

Ken Smith is Reader in Renal Medicine and Honorary Consultant at University of Cambridge He has made original contributions to understanding mechanisms of dysregulation of B cell control, and how these may translate into autoimmune disease in models of direct relevance to human disease. Ken Smith’s work has concentrated principally on the way in which altered regulation of B lymphocytes contributes to autoimmune disease: he has made original and widely respected contributions to this area in a series of elegant and high quality publications in major immunology journals. In particular, he has shown that promoter polymorphisms in the gene for a particular Fc receptor result in its reduced activity, and consequent immune hyperreactivity, in lupus-prone strains of mice. This work on the receptor polymorphisms has subsequently been extended by him to show how the variants may have consequences for the efficient handling of microbial infections by the host: all these findings indicate these observations are of considerable significance for the pathogenesis of autoimmune and infectious disease. A recent contribution is his observation that Interleukin-4 may exert its effects on B cells by downregulating inhibitory receptors. In addition to his laboratory research he practices as a nephrologist and has a particular interest in transplantation and vasculitis: in this context he has also established translational research studies to define new biomarkers for treatment response in vasculitis and lupus using microarray approaches, in collaboration with colleagues at the European Bioinformatics Institute.