Dr Frederick Tam

Dr. Tam received his medical degree from University of Cambridge. He joined the former Royal Postgraduate Medical School and obtained his PhD in studying the role of cytokines in glomerulonephritis. His research training was supported by a Medical Research Council Training Fellowship and a National Kidney Research Fund (now Kidney Research UK) Senior Fellowship. He has been investigating the importance of cytokines in pathogenesis of glomerulonephritis. His research group has developed experimental therapies of glomerulonephritis using soluble cytokine receptor, receptor antagonist and monoclonal antibodies, recombinant regulatory cytokines and signal transduction inhibitors. He has also applied the experience from cytokine analysis and proteomics to development of non-invasive biomarkers for glomerulonephritis, for diabetic nephropathy and for complications in peritoneal dialysis patients (in collaboration with Professor Edwina Brown). The expertise of his research group has been applied in the preclinical and early clinical development of anti-inflammatory therapies, in collaboration the industry.

Together with Professor Robert Unwin (Royal Free Hospital, University College London), he has established the Purinergic Receptor Research Consortium in order to investigate the novel function of purinergic receptors in regulating inflammasome and cytokine secretions in renal diseases.