Leon Fine, MD Vice Dean of Research and Research Graduate Education Chair, Biomedical Sciences
Email: leon.fine@cshs.org Phone: (310) 423-6457 Fax: (310) 423-0225

Academic Appointments

Professor, Biomedical Sciences

Professor, Medicine

Awards and Activities

Director (non-excutive), National Insitute of Clinical Excellence	2002
Founding Fellow, Academy of Medical Sciences, UK	1999
President, Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland	1993
Editor-in-Chief: Nephron Journals	Current
Editor-in-Chief: Experimental Nehrology	1993 - 2002
American Society for Clinical Investigation	1982
Association of American Physicians	1998
Academy of Medical Sciences, UK	1999

Research Focus

Principal research interest is in the biology of chronic renal disease. Has made important contributions to the understanding of adaptations of ion transport in the diseased nephron, renal hypertrophy, and the cell biology of fibrogenesis and scarring of the kidney. Interest has focussed upon chronic hypoxia as driving force for organ fibrosis and possibility of diseased organ regeneration via restoration of microvasculature.

Contributions to the history of medicine and renal diseases

Research Contributions

Defined intrinsic transport adaptations in tubular function in the chronically-diseased kidney.
Defined molecular events in renal tubular cell hypertrophy
Proposed and demonstrated that chronic hypoxia is a mechanism of progression in chronic renal diseases (chronic hypoxia hypothesis)
Proposed unifying vasculogenic hypothesis for solid organ regeneration

Current investigations include:

Analysis of hypoxia-mediated organ fibrosis and theoretical approach to regenerating a chronically diseased kidney by restoring its microvasculature

Selected Publications

1. Long DA, Norman JT, Fine LG: Restoring the renal microvasculature to treat chronic kidney disease. Nat Rev Nephrol, 8(4): 244-50, 2012
2. Norman JT, Fine LG: Intrarenal oxygenation in chronic renal failure. Clin. Exp. Pharmacol. Physiol., 33(10): 989-96, 2006
3. Fine LG, Orphanides C, Norman JT: Progressive renal disease: the chronic hypoxia hypothesis. Kidney Int. Suppl., 65: S74-8, 1998
4. Kitamura M, Taylor S, Unwin R, Burton S, Shimizu F, Fine LG: Gene transfer into the rat renal glomerulus via a mesangial cell vector: site-specific delivery, in situ amplification, and sustained expression of an exogenous gene in vivo. J. Clin. Invest., 94(2): 497-505, 1994