Dr David Baird

Research interest

Kidney disease affects 1 in 8 people in Scotland and is projected to become the fifth leading cause of premature death worldwide by 2040. My research focuses on the use of novel biomarkers to better understand kidney injury and ageing. I am particularly interested in translational research — progressing from biomarker discovery to clinical tools for early diagnosis and risk stratification, and identifying patients who may benefit from innovative, precision-based therapies.

I am currently leading a project that will use state-of-the-art spatial transcriptomic and proteomic technologies on samples from kidney organ donors. The aim is to decode the activity of senescent and injured cells in the kidney and to develop non-invasive urinary biomarkers that reflect levels of senescence. I will then assess whether these biomarkers can predict recipient outcomes following kidney transplantation and, in native kidneys, whether they can predict acute kidney injury and the subsequent development of chronic kidney disease in patients undergoing cardiac surgery.

Key projects

Principal Investigator for Edinburgh for the multicentre Kidney-research UK funded NURTuRE-Acute Kidney Injury: Cardiac Surgery study.

Group members

Zenuida Mortuza, Research Assistant

Selected recent publications

Baird DP*, Reck M*, Campbell R, Docherty MH, Janas P, Mason T, Mortuza Z, Vermeren M, Nam A, Yang W, Schurman N, Williams C, Traynor JP, Mark PB, Mylonas KJ, Hughes J, Denby L, Conway BR, Ferenbach DA. Urinary clusterin is a biomarker of renal epithelial senescence and predicts human kidney disease progression. KI Reports. In press. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ekir.2025.04.035

Baird DP, Ferenbach DA. Toward Noninvasive Biomarkers of Renal Senescence. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2025 Feb 13. https://doi.org/10.1681/asn.0000000659

Reck M*, Baird DP*, Veizades S, Sutherland C, Bell RMB, Hur H, Cairns C, Janas P, Campbell R, Nam A, Yang W, Schurman N, Williams C, O’Sullivan E, Beniazza M, Corsinotti A, Bellamy C, Hughes J, Laird A, Denby L, Chandra T, Ferenbach DA, Conway BR. Multiomic analysis of human kidney disease identifies a tractable inflammatory and pro-fibrotic tubular cell phenotype. Nat Commun. Accepted. (*contributed equally).

Kiourtis C, Terradas-Terradas M, Gee LM, May S, Georgakopoulou A, Collins AL, O’Sullivan ED, Baird DP, Hassan M, Shaw R, Tan EH, Müller M, Engelmann C,  Andreola F, Hsieh Y, Reed LH, Borthwick LA, Nixon C, Clark W, Hanson PS, Sumpton D, Mackay G, Suzuki T, Najumudeen AK, Inman GJ, Campbell A, Barry ST, Quaglia A,  Morris CM, LeBeau FEN, Sansom OJ, Kirschner K, Jalan R, Oakley F, Bird TG. Hepatocellular senescence induces multi-organ senescence and dysfunction via TGFβ. Nat Cell Biol. 2024 Nov. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-024-01543-3

O’Sullivan ED, Mylonas KJ, Xin C, Baird DP, Carvalho C, Docherty M, Campbell R, Matchett KP, Waddell SH, Walker A, Gallagher KM, Leung S, Laird A, Wilflingseder J, Willi M, Reck M, Finnie S, Pisco A, Gordon-Keylock S, Medvinsky A, Boulter L, Henderson NC, Conway BR, Denby L, Hughes J, Bonventre JV, Ferenbach DA. Indian Hedgehog release from TNF activated renal epithelia drives local and remote organ fibrosis. Sci Transl Med.  2023 May 31;15(698):eabn0736. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.abn0736

O’Sullivan ED, Mylonas KJ, Bell R, Carvalho C, Baird DP, Cairns C, Gallagher KM, Campbell R, Docherty M, Laird A, Henderson N, Chandra T, Kirschner K, Conway BR, Dihazi GH, Zeisberg M, Hughes J, Denby L, Dihazi H, Ferenbach D. Single-cell analysis of senescent epithelia reveals targetable mechanisms promoting fibrosis. JCI Insight. 2022 Nov 22;7(22):e154124. https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.154124

Baird DP, Ferenbach DA, Bonventre JV. Chapter on “Stress-induced senescence of tubular cells” in Regenerative Nephrology 2^nd Edition. Academic Press. 2021 June 12. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-823318-4.00037-8

Mylonas KJ, O’Sullivan ED, Humphries D, Baird DP, Docherty MH, Neely S, Krimpenfort PJ, Melk A, Schmitt R, Ferreira- Gonzalez S, Forbes SJ, Hughes J and Ferenbach DA. Cellular senescence inhibits renal regeneration after injury with senolytic treatment promoting repair. Sci Transl Med. 2021 May 19;13(594):eabb0203. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.abb0203

Baird DP, Williams J, Petrie M, Smith J. Transplant Renal Artery Stenosis. Kidney International Reports. 2020 October; 5(12): 2399-402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ekir.2020.09.041

Baird DP, De Souza N, Logan R, Walker H, Guthrie B, Bell S. Impact of Electronic Alerts for Acute Kidney Injury on patient outcomes: interrupted time-series analysis of population cohort data. Clin Kidney J. 2020 October; sfaa151. https://doi.org/10.1093/ckj/sfaa151

Collaborators

Internal

Prof David Ferenbach

Dr Bryan Conway

Dr Katie Mylonas

Dr Laura Denby

Prof Jeremy Hughes

Mr Andrew Sutherland

Mr Avinash Sewpaul

Prof Tom Bird

Prof Neil Carragher

External

Prof Maarten Taal (University of Nottingham)

Prof Philip Kalra (University of Manchester)

Dr Mark Harber (Royal Free Hospital)

Dr Rhys Evans (Royal Free Hospital)

Funders

Chief Scientist Office (CSO)

Medical Research Council (MRC)

Kidney research UK (KRUK)