About Professor David Harris
David's passion for research is driven by the goal of defining novel therapies to slow and even reverse progressive chronic kidney disease.
Professor David Harris is a research leader in the field of progressive chronic kidney disease, internationally recognized especially for his contributions to understanding the role of tubulointerstitial injury in progressive disease.
David Harris is Associate Dean of the Western Clinical School, University of Sydney and Nephrologist in Sydney West Area Health Service. For the past 2 decades his clinical research has focussed on dialysis in progressive kidney disease and his laboratory research on tubulointerstitial injury in models of chronic renal disease. During that time he has made important contributions to knowledge in this area, including in regards to tubular hypermetabolism and oxidant damage, proteinuric tubular injury and more recently the pathogenic role of interstitial inflammatory cells and the therapeutic effect of regulatory cells and DNA vaccination. He has published more than 160 articles, and about half of these have been specifically related to the role of the tubulointerstitium in progression of chronic kidney disease. Almost half of his more than 80 invited national and international presentations have focussed specifically on his research into tubulointerstitial injury. He has supervised a number of successful PhD and MSc candidates in this area and in conjunction with other senior members of his laboratory is currently supervising another 6 PhD students. In 1998 he was awarded the TJ Neale prize of the Australian New Zealand Society of Nephrology for “Outstanding contributions to nephrological science” based on his contributions to the understanding of tubulointerstitial injury in chronic renal disease. He was Chairman of the Scientific Programme Committee of the International Congress of Nephrology held in Sydney in 1997, and the World Congress of Nephrology held in Singapore in 2005. He is Chair of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee of Kidney Health Australia and a Director of Kidney Health Australia. He is Past-President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Nephrology and on the editorial board of Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation. He is Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Australasian Clinical Trials Network and Executive Councillor of the International and Asian-Pacific Societies of Nephrology. He has been invited to deliver the Ross Bailey lecture on chronic kidney disease at the 2008 Asian Pacific Congress of Nephrology.