Innovative Patient Guided Research Into Mediators and Markers of Renal Disease

Scientific Director. Dr Mark Dockrell 

Mark gained a PhD in cardiovascular pharmacology from the University of Edinburgh before moving to King’s College London where he was a post-doctoral fellow in the renal research unit. He currently has an honorary contract with St Georges University of London, is co-chair of the Renal Scientists Working Party of the Renal Association. His long standing interest in intracellular signalling is currently focussed on renal pathology and paired with his expertise in fibrosis.

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Medical Director. Dr Mysore Phanish

Dr Phanish carried out his PhD at SWTIRR developing the field of tubular CCN research which has gained an international reputation and carries on at SWTIRR to this day. His clinical research includes diabetes, transplantation and biomarker development. Dr Phanish is an honorary senior lecturer at both St George’s University of London and King’s College London.

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Senior Research Scientist – Sarah Yates

Sarah completed her undergraduate degree at Portsmouth before coming to SWTIRR. Initially Sarah worked as an analytical scientist working on the London Life Population (LoLiPop) study mapping renal function in a multi-ethnic West London community. Sarah is currently K-cadherin project lead and student liaison officer. Sarah also acts as programme lead for Water Testing in collaboration with Helier Scientific Ltd.

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Research Scientist. Md Ekram Nabi

Dr Nabi carried out his undergraduate work in Bangladesh before gaining a PhD in Chemistry in Germany. Ekram specialises in assay development including fluorescence assays, absorbance assays plasmon resonance and HPLC. He has developed new assays for renal injury and presented his work at UK national renal conferences.

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PhD Student. Xinlu Pan

Xinlu studied at the University of Edinburgh before getting a Kidney Research UK PhD studentship studying the role of the Sodium Glucose Transporters in diabetic nephropathy. She was shortlisted for the Renal Association Young Scientist Prize in 2018 and has given oral presentations at National and European renal meetings. She also presented her work at the American Society for Nephrology annual meeting in San Diego in 2018.

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Research Fellow. Pritpal Virdee

Pritpal studied medicine at Birmingham University before undertaking is specialist training in Nephrology in the South London Deanery. Pritpal has an interest in the EDA splice variant of fibronectin and renal fibrogenesis. In collaboration with Ionis Pharmaceuticals he designed and carried out a pre-clinical trial of RNAse H independent ASO targeting fibronectin splicing in acute to chronic injury. He has presented his work both nationally and internationally.

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Research Fellow. Dr Seema Jain

Seema combined cellular and molecular biology with a patient study in order to investigate the regulation of the human proximal tubule protein K-Cadherin in renal transplant patients. She recruited over 60 transplant patients and after developing a collaboration with the pathology department of the University Medical Centre in Utrecht she performed a systematic study of renal K-cadherin expression and urinary K-cadherin excretion. She has given talks at the Renal Association annual meeting, the British Transplant Society and at the European Renal Study Group in Dublin.

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Clinical Research Fellow. Louise Ross

Louise graduated from Newcastle University with an MB BS. She cut her research teeth at St George’s working with Dr Debasish Banerjee. Her current project investigating dietary salt in transplant patients is very much in the same mould as that of her main supervisors Drs Pauline Swift and Beccy Suckling. Yet her works stands alone and her added interest in urinary biomarkers fits well with the work at SWTIRR.

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Research Fellow. Giulio Podda

Giulio became the seventh Kidney Fund Clinical Research Fellow in 2019. He completed his medical training in Turin, Italy before moving to the UK after gaining a broad training in renal clinical work and carrying out clinical research he made the leap into basic science bench research. He has developed in vitro models of acute kidney injury with a view to investigating early determinants of inflammatory or fibrotic outcomes. After only two months at SWTIRR, Giulio submitted an abstract to the ASN Kidney Week meeting in Washington DC in 2019.

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Clinical Research Fellow. Nathan Lord  

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Administrator. Sarwat Ahmad

Sarwat is key to keeping the doors of SWTIRR open for business. She is administrator, bookkeeper and friendly face to the outside world. All this done part-time, while she fills the rest of her week as fundraiser for the Kidney Fund.