Professor Thomas Coffman is Dean of Duke-NUS Medical School and Founding Professor in its Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders Signature Research Programme (SRP). He is also the James R. Clapp Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center where he spent almost 18 years as Chief of the Division of Nephrology and served as Senior Vice-Chair in the Department of Medicine.
Dr Coffman graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and obtained his MD from the Ohio State University School of Medicine. He moved to Duke for medicine residency and nephrology fellowship, joining the faculty in 1985 to pursue his career as a clinician and researcher. Along with his leadership of the Division of Nephrology, Dr. Coffman was the founding director of the Duke Cardiovascular Research Center and the Duke O’Brien Center for Kidney Research. He joined Duke-NUS in 2010 as Director of the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders SRP. Dr Coffman was appointed Dean at Duke-NUS on 1 July 2015. He is also a member of the SingHealth Board of Directors.
An international leader in the field of nephrology, Dr Coffman is a Past-President of the American Society of Nephrology. He is also a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, and served on the Nephrology Subspecialty Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr Coffman has served on a number of editorial boards including Physiological Reviews and Cell Metabolism, and currently serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. He is a Fellow of the Councils for High Blood Pressure Research and the Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease of the American Heart Association (AHA), and serves on the Leadership Committee for the AHA Council for High Blood Pressure Research. Dr Coffman also served as Chair of the Steering Committee for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Animal Models of Diabetes Complications Consortium. His laboratory work has been supported by grants from the NIH and the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Dr Coffman’s research interests include the renin-angiotensin and prostanoid systems, and diabetic nephropathy.
Dr Coffman was conferred the 2014 Excellence Award for Hypertension Research from the AHA Council on Hypertension recognising researchers who have made a major impact in the field of hypertension and whose research has contributed to the improved treatment and greater understanding of high blood pressure. He also received the 2014 Distinguished Faculty Award from the Duke Medical Alumni Association.
Research Interest:
Diabetic nephropathy, the role of the kidney in hypertension, prostanoids as mediators of hypertension and kidney injury.
Selected Publications:
Crowley SD, Gurley SB, Oliverio MI, Pazmino AK, Griffiths R, Flannery PJ, Spurney RF, Kim H-S, Smithies O, Le TH, Coffman TM. Distinct roles for the kidney and systemic tissues in blood pressure regulation by the renin-angiotensin system. J Clin Invest 2005; 115:1092-9.
Francois H, Athirakul K, Howell D, Dash R, Mao L, Kim HS, Rockman HA, FitzGerald GA, Koller BH, Coffman TM. Prostacyclin protects against elevated blood pressure and cardiac fibrosis. Cell Metabolism 2005; 2:201-207.
Gurley SB, Allred A, Le TH, Griffiths R, Mao L, Donoghue M, Breitbart RE, Acton SL, Rockman HA, Coffman TM. Altered blood pressure responses with normal cardiac function in ACE2-null mice. J Clin Invest 2006; 116:2218-25.
Crowley SD, Gurley SB, Herrera MJ, Ruiz P, Griffiths R, Kumar AP, Kim H-S, Smithies O, Le TH, Coffman TM. Angiotensin II causes hypertension and cardiac hypertrophy via its receptors in the kidney. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2006; 103:17985-90.
Crowley SD, Vasievich MP, Ruiz P, Gould SK, Parsons KK, Pazmino AK, Facemire C, Chen BJ, Kim HS, Tran TT, Pisetsky DS, Barisoni L, Prieto-Carrasquero MC, Jeansson M, Foster MH, Coffman TM. Glomerular type 1 (AT1) angiotensin receptors augment kidney injury and inflammation in autoimmune nephritis. J Clin Invest 2009; 119: 943-53.
Facemire CS, Griffiths R, Audoly LP, Koller BH, Coffman TM. The impact of microsomal prostaglandin E synthase 1 (mPGES1) on blood pressure is determined by genetic background. Hypertension 2010; 55(2):531-8.
Gurley SB, Mach CL, Stegbauer J, Yang J, Snow KS, Hu A, Meyer TW, Coffman TM. Influence of Genetic Background on Albuminuria and Kidney Injury in Ins2+/C96Y (Akita) Mice. Am J Physiol Renal 2010; 298(3):F788-95.
Ortiz-Melo D, Coffman TM. A trip to inner space: Insights into salt balance from the cosmonauts. Cell Metabolism 2013, In press.
1. Sparks MA, Stegbauer J, Chen D, Gomez JA, Griffiths RC, Azad H, Herrera M, Gurley SB, Coffman TM. Vascular AT1A receptors control blood pressure by regulating renal blood flow and urinary sodium excretion. J Am Soc Nephrol 2015; 26: 2953–2962.
2. Stegbauer J, Chen D, Herrera M, Sparks MA, Yang T, Königshausen E, Gurley SB, Coffman TM. Resistance to Hypertension Mediated by Intercalated Cells of the Collecting Duct. JCI Insight 2017; 2(7):e92720. PMCID: PMC5374064
3. Azushima K, Gurley SB, Coffman TM. Modelling diabetic nephropathy in mice. Nature Rev Nephrol 2018 Jan; 14:48-56.
4. Gurley SB, Ghosh S, Johnson SA, Azushima K, Sakban RB, George SE, Maeda M, Meyer TW, Coffman TM. Inflammation and Immunity Pathways Regulate Genetic Susceptibility to Diabetic Nephropathy. Diabetes 2018; (10):2096-2106.
5. Forrester SJ, Booz GW, Sigmund CD, Coffman TM, Kawai T, Rizzo V, Scalia R, Eguchi S. Angiotensin II Signal Transduction: An Update on Mechanisms of Physiology and Pathophysiology. Physiol Rev 2018; 98:1627-1738.
6. Lerman LO, Kurtz TW, Touyz RM, Ellison DH, MD, Chade AR, Crowley SD, Mattson DL, Mullins JJ, Osborn J, Eirin A, Reckelhoff JF, Iadecola C, Coffman TM. Animal Models of Hypertension: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. Hypertension. 2019 Jun;73(6):e87-e120.
7. Sparks MA, Dilmen E, Ralph DL, Rianto F, Hoang T, Hollis A, Diaz EJ, Adhikari R, Chew G, Petretto EG, Gurley SB, McDonough AA, Coffman TM. Vascular Control of Kidney Epithelial Transporters. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol 2021; 320(6):F1080-F1092.
8. Sparks MA, Rianto F, Diaz E, Hoang T, Bouknight L, Stegbauer J, Vivekanandan-Giri A, Ruiz P, Pennathur S, Abraham DM, Gurley SB, Crowley SD, Coffman TM. Direct Actions of Type 1 Angiotensin Receptors in Cardiomyocytes Do Not Contribute to Cardiac Hypertrophy. Hypertension 2021;77(2):393-404.
9. Sheng X, Guan Y, Ma Z, Wu J, Liu H, Qiu C, Vitale S, Miao Z, Seasock MJ, Palmer M, Shin MK, Duffin KL, Pullen SS, Edwards TL, Hellwege JN, Hung AM, Li M, Voight BF, Coffman TM, Brown CD, Susztak K. Mapping the genetic architecture of human traits to cell types in the kidney identifies mechanisms of disease and potential treatments. Nat Genet 2021; 53(9):1322-1333.
10. Widjaja AA, Shekeran SG, Adami E, Ting JGW, Tan J, Viswanathan S, Lim SY, Tan P H, Norbert Hubner, Coffman TM, Cook SA. A neutralizing IL11 antibody improves renal function and increases lifespan in a mouse model of Alport syndrome. J Am Soc Nephrol 2022; In press.