Dr. Thomas Coffman is Dean of Duke-NUS Medical School and 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. In 2014, he was conferred the 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 in the same year.

 

 

Dr. 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, Dr. 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. Dr 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, Dr. 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. Dr. 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. Dr. 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. Dr. Coffman’s research interests include the renin-angiotensin and prostanoid systems, and diabetic nephropathy.