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.
Professor 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, Professor 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. Professor 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, Professor 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. Professor 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. Professor 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. Professor Coffman’s research interests include the renin-angiotensin and prostanoid systems, and diabetic nephropathy.
Professor Coffman was conferred the 2014 Excellence Award for Hypertension Research from the AHA Council on Hypertension recognizing 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 as well as the 2022 Alumni Achievement Award from The Ohio State University, College of Medicine.
Currently, Professor Coffman sits on the boards of various institutions locally and internationally including Singapore Health Services (SingHealth), Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI), Singapore National Medical Research Council (NMRC) and King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre in Saudi Arabia. He is also serving as the Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee at the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) Singapore.
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.