Professor Ken Smith is the seventh director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI), Professor and Head, Department of Medical Biology, Faculty of MDHS, University of Melbourne and the current Galli Chair.
Ken was until recently the Head of the Department of Medicine at Cambridge, and directed the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease. He trained in nephrology and clinical immunology in Melbourne, and completed his PhD at the WEHI.
He was a Wellcome Trust Investigator and ran a MRC Programme, was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2006, to the American Association of Physicians in 2020, and was awarded the Lister Institute Research Prize in 2007.
Ken Smith’s research studied immunological mechanisms underlying immune-mediated disease and immunodeficiency in humans. His lab ran a translational program in autoimmune disease that has led to the discovery of a prognosis-predicting biomarker entering the clinic, and to the identification of new pathways driving disease outcomes in autoimmunity and infection.
They lead the INTREPID primary immune deficiency study. By integrating genetics with human and animal studies, the laboratory seeks to reveal fundamental immunological mechanisms relevant to disease, and to translate them for the benefit of patients.