Ken Smith is Professor of Medicine and Head of Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He trained in nephrology and clinical immunology with an interest in autoimmune disease at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His PhD at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute examined aspects of B cell immunology. Along with his laboratory work, Professor Smith is clinically active in nephrology and transplantation at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He established the Cambridge Immunology Strategic Research Network, directs the FoCIS Cambridge International Centre of Excellence, and led a recent successful bid for funding to establish the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease, to open in 2018. He is a Wellcome Trust Investigator and an NIHR Senior Clinical Investigator, was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2006, and was awarded the Lister Institute Research Prize in 2007 and the Distinguished Investigator Award of the Lupus Research Institute in 2013.