Oxford Academic Kidney Network
The Oxford Academic Kidney Network (OAK) launched in April 2025, bringing together clinicians and researchers from departments and disciplines across Oxford. OAK aims to strengthen renal research collaborations towards patient benefit. The aim is to recognise the breadth of local expertise and resources, and to promote opportunities for working together.
Please email oak.network@ndm.ox.ac.uk to find out more, or to join the network.
Our Vision
The OAK Network vision is to bring together Oxford researchers, clinical staff and patients to advance kidney disease research for patient benefit.
Network Members
The OAK Network encompasses researchers and clinicians from across the University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Network Events
The network recently launched the OAK Network with its first symposium, supported by Kidney Research UK (KRUK).
Latest news from across the network
Recent publications
A new paper co-authored by network member Dr Matthew Bottomley has just been published in Transplantation Direct, about the management of immunosuppression in kidney transplant recipients with skin cancer. Dr Bottomley says: "There are currently no guidelines and limited data on this subject despite skin cancer being the most common cancer in transplant recipients, so we undertook an intercontinental consensus survey, developing the world's first guidelines".
Read the full paper here.
Latest awards
- Associate Professor Katherine Bull has just been awarded a Kidney Research UK (KRUK) grant to investigate why Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) recurs after transplant and how we can stop it. Read about Professor Bull's research
“We are looking at a rare disease with a devastating impact on patients. There is no cure for FSGS, and it can recur after transplantation. By looking more closely at the kidney and its patterns of injury, we hope to better understand the factors that lead to the disorder.” Katherine Bull.
- Dr Peter Wing has been awarded a Sabita Dindayal Award PhD studentship to investigate how the BK virus behaves in hypoxic conditions, with the aim of finidng new treatements for patgients who have received a kidney transplant. A new approach to treat BK virus in kidney transplant patients - Kidney Research UK
- OrganOX and oxford university spinout founded by Professor Constantin Coussios OBE FREng FMedSci and liver transplant surgeon Professor Peter Friend FMedSci FRCS has been awarded the MacRobert Award for Engineering 2025. It’s life saving technology maintains livers and kidneys in a functional state outside of the body for longer than standard techniques, increasing the success of transplants. Read the news story on the award.