School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences

Centre for Nephrology, Urology & Transplantation

The Centre for Nephrology, Urology and Transplantation within the School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences is the home for academic scholarship in basic and translational research, teaching, education and clinical innovation in diseases of the kidneys and urinary tract and the psychosocial support of patients with these diseases. It brings together research leaders, academics, clinicians and students from several disciplines who have established a productive track record and a collaborative environment with which to advance knowledge and understanding within the field.

By working together and in close collaboration with patients, we aim to advance fundamental knowledge in the field of Kidney and urological diseases, to develop new treatments and to improve the lives of those affected including from underserved communities and with protected characteristics.

Our research covers:

Acute and Chronic kidney disease from which 1.2 million people die every year and another 1.7 million die from acute kidney injury.
Transplantation , the ‘gold standard’ treatment for CKD, but still limited by three fundamental problems: the shortage of organs, the morbidity associated with immunosuppression, and the premature failure of transplanted organs.
Urological diseases, encompassing a wide spectrum of conditions, ranging from benign to highly malignant, which together present a high disease burden, with some like prostate disease accounting for >£100 million annual NHS spend.

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Watch highlights from last year's courses

Dorling Research Group

The Dorling Group studies transplant inflammation and repair.

Lombardi Group

Our interest is in immunoregulation and in particularly in the biology and clinical translation of regulatory T cells in preventing graft rejection and cure autoimmune diseases or any other inflammatory situation.

Michael Robson group

The Michael Robson group researches glomerulonephritis and haemodialysis.

Xu Lab

The Xu Lab studies renal science an integrative Chinese medicine.

Sacks Group

Examining how locally made components of the defence system influence the acceptance of foreign tissue or cell grafts

Sharpe Lab

The Sharpe Lab studies mechanisms of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease.

Wong Group

The Wong Group focuses on various aspects of transplant immunology, including lymphatics and lymphoid organs in transplantation as well as novel strategies to prevent graft rejection

Project Name	PI Name and contact	Status Awarded at RPB
RCS MASTERY Study Measuring the quality of surgical care and setting benchmarks for training using Intuitive Data Recorder technology	Prokar Dasgupta	Ongoing
PROTECT V PROphylaxis for paTiEnts at risk of COVID-19 infecTion (PROTECT-V)	Paramit Chowdhury	Ongoing
Mental wellbeIng aND quality of life in Prostate cancer (MIND-P)	Prokar Dasgupta Oliver Brunckhorst	Ongoing
The Kidney Beam Trial	Elham Asgari	Ongoing
RaDaR Development of clinical guidelines for specific rare diseases, audit treatment and outcome and further the development of future therapies.	David Game T O’Brien Deborah Ruddy Louise Izatt	Ongoing
Verici Dx Validation of genomic immune-phenotyping profiles in peripheral blood gene signatures to predict risk of kidney transplant rejection	Paramit Chowdhury Theo Kassimatis	Ongoing
Empowering patients to help contribute towards safer surgical care using a smartphone app	Petrut Gogalniceanu Stephanie Russ	Ongoing
ALXN1210–NEPH–202 This is a commercial study to test a new therapy that may improve outcomes in patients with lupus nephritis.	Michael Robson	Ongoing
Alexion (ALXN1210-TMA-315) A Phase 3, Randomized, Double blind, Placebo-Controlled Multi-Centre Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Ravulizumab in Adult Participants who have a Thrombotic Microangipathy associated with a trigger	Paramit Chowdhury	Ongoing
A Study of the Prevalence of Apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) Alleles Among Individuals With Proteinuric Kidney Disease Who Are of Recent African Ancestry or Geographic Origin (VX19-NEN-801)	Refik Gokmen	Ongoing
CIBIL study - Use of a software predicting allograft survival in the follow-up of Kidney Transplant Recipients: A Randomized-Controlled Trial	Caroline Dudreuilh Paramit Chowdhury	Ongoing
Urine Biomarkers for Detecting Prostate Cancer	Oussaama Elhage	Ongoing
MANCAN2 This study will evaluate how effective a self-help CBT programme is in reducing the impact of hot flushes and night sweats in men taking hormone therapy for prostate cancer. This will be delivered by a trained member of the existing prostate cancer nursing team.	Louisa Fleure Simon Crabb	Ongoing
Machine Learning Applied to Digitised Kidney Transplant Biopsies: a UK Multicentre Study	Candice Roufosse Callum Arthurs	Ongoing
PROSAIC-DS to produce real world data to support the integration and utilisation of PROSAIC-DS in the prostate cancer pathway in the NHS.	Danny Ruta Jonathan Makanjuola	Ongoing
CARSK Canadian-Australasian Randomised Trial of Screening Kidney Transplant Candidates For Coronary Artery Disease (CARSK study)	Nicola Kumar	Ongoing
Improvement of Robotic-assisted Radical Prostatectomy Outcomes via Automatedly Segmented 3D Printed and Virtual Prostate Models: a Feasibility Study	Alejandro Granados Prokar Dasgupta	Ongoing
Virtual 3D modeling for improved surgical planning	Ben Challacombe	Ongoing
Multi-MIBI A trial comparing the result of MIBI-kidney to pathology from surgery or biopsy, that patients have as part of their standard care.	Maxine Tran	Ongoing
Phase IV Development of an EORTC QoL Cancer Survivorship Questionnaire and Three Site Specific Modules	Louisa Fleure (GSTT) Mieke Van Hemelrijck (KCL)	Ongoing
Conbvatec Study of male catheters A Multi-centre Prospective Observational study of the User Experience of Catheterisation and Quality of Life in patients prescribed GentleCath™ Air for Men Intermittent Catheter with FeelClean™ Technology	Arun Sahai	Ongoing
Using Bioimpedance to assess hydration status in in renal transplant recipients and its impact on the endothelial glycocalyx	Dimitrios Moutzouris	Ongoing
Tracking treatment pathways in adult patients with hyperkalemia (TRACK). A prospective, non-interventional, longitudinal study of the treatment journey of adult patients with hyperkalemia	Paramit Chowdhury	Ongoing

Dr Kate Bramham

Consultant Nephrologist at King’s College Hospital and Senior Clinical Lecturer at King's College London.
Dr Chris Callaghan

Consultant Transplant Surgeon
Lucy Campbell

Research Manager
Dr Antonia Cronin

Research
Professor Prokar Dasgupta

Professor of Surgery
Professor Anthony Dorling

Professor of Transplant Inflammation and Repair
Dr Caroline Dudreuilh

MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow
Dr Christine Galustian

Group leader (non-clinical) Prostate Cancer Immunotherapy group
Dr Mark Howard

Research Associate
Professor Sir Robert Lechler

Emeritus Professor
Professor Giovanna Lombardi

Professor of Human Transplant Immunology
Dr Subhankar Mukhopadhyay

Senior Lecturer in Innate Immunity
Mrs Sammani Pavithra

Education Coordinator
Dr Polychronis Pavlidis

Clinical Lecturer in Gastroenterology
Dr Luke Roberts

Research Associate
Dr Michael Robson

Consultant nephrologist
Professor Steven Sacks

Director of the Protein Therapeutics Laboratory
Beatriz Santana-Suarez

Research Assistant
Dr Sapna Shah

Honorary Senior Lecturer
Dr Wilson Wong

Reader in Transplant Immunology
Dr Qihe Xu

Director of King's Centre for Integrative Chinese Medicine and Senior Lecturer in Renal Medicine
Professor Wuding Zhou

Principal Investigator