Menna Ruth Clatworthy is a Welsh physician and academic in the fields of nephrology and immunology. Clatworthy is Professor of Translational Medicine at the University of Cambridge and the Director of the Cambridge Institute for Immunology and Infectious Disease. She is Fellow and Director of Studies in Clinical Medicine at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, and holds an Associate Faculty position in the Cellular Genomics programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. As a Consultant Nephrologist, she provides care to patients undergoing kidney transplants. She was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2020, and was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2022.
Early life and education Clatworthy was born and grew up in South Wales and went to St Albans Comprehensive Primary School in Pontypool. Clatworthy completed an undergraduate degree in medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff, and moved to the University of Cambridge to undertake general medical and nephrology training, becoming a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 2001. She completed a PhD in immunology at Cambridge and Pembroke College, supported by a Wellcome Clinical PhD Fellowship under the supervision of Professor Ken Smith, studying IgG antibody receptors. For this work, she received the UK Kidney Association Raine Award and the Academy of Medical Sciences / Medical Research Society Young Investigator Award. She subsequently undertook postdoctoral studies funded by a Wellcome Intermediate Fellowship, based at Cambridge and the National Institutes of Health in Ron Germain's lab.
Research and career Clatworthy looks to understand the types of immune cells that live within human organs, and how their local environment impacts their function. She studies human tissue immunity in lymphoid and non-lymphoid organs. She makes use of single cell genome sequencing and advanced imaging to uncover how environmental cues shape immune responses in health and disease. Clatworthy established the Cambridge Tissue Immunity Laboratory. As part of this, she is responsible for the kidney cell atlas and the bladder cell atlas.
Clatworthy has studied the role of the immune system in neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease and depression. To do this, she made use of a mouse model. She noticed that plasma cells within the dura (the outer part of the meninges) were aligned along the border of the dural venous sinuses. On further investigation, Clatworthy realised that these antibodies were producing Immunoglobulin A, antibodies which are typically found in the gut. She investigated the origins of these bacteria, and showed that they originated in the intestine. She argued that these antibodies flow to the dural venous sinuses to protect the brain from microbes.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Clatworthy investigated the immune responses of people who suffered severe and asymptomatic COVID-19.
Recognition In 2006, Clatworthy was awarded the Raine Award from the UK Kidney Association for her contribution to immune inhibition in the kidney. In 2012, Clatworthy was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP). In 2017, Clatworthy received the Pilkington Prize for outstanding contribution to medical education at the University of Cambridge. In 2019, she was chosen by the UK Kidney Association to deliver the Chandos Lecture that recognises outstanding contributions to kidney reseatch. In 2019, Claworthy was awarded the European Federation of Immunological Societies - Immunology Letters Lecture Award for her research in clinical immunology. In 2020, Clatworthy was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW) and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), and in 2022 was elected to European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO).
Selected publications
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