Dr. Akihiro Nakamura is an Assistant Professor and Clinician Scientist at Queen's University, specializing in arthritis research, particularly osteoarthritis (OA) and spondyloarthritis (SpA). After completing his rheumatology training, he joined the Schroeder Arthritis Research Institute in Toronto and engaged in OA and SpA research. He also completed a PhD graduate program and a SpA clinical fellowship at the University of Toronto. His significant achievements include the co-discovery of the immunological functions of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) and hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) in SpA. Dr. Nakamura and his team successfully filed these discoveries in multiple international and US patents. He has numerous publications as the first and last author, including in Science Translational Medicine, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, and Cellular and Molecular Immunology (Nature).
He is the founder of the Spondyloarthritis program at Queen’s University, named QURESPA (Queen’s Research Program for SpA). He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Spondyloarthritis Research and Treatment Network (SPARTAN), one of the largest SpA organizations in the world. His interests include translational research to find novel therapeutic targets in inflammatory arthritis. His laboratory specifically focuses on elucidating mechanisms of inflammation and new bone formation in axial spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis using cutting-edge techniques in immunology, molecular biology, and cell biology.