Appointments and affiliations
Chief Scientific Officer/Vice President, Research
University of Ottawa Heart Institute
Scientist
University of Ottawa Heart Institute
Director
Vascular Inflammation and Metabolism Laboratory
University of Ottawa Heart Institute
Professor
Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology
Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa
University Research Chair in Vascular and Metabolic Inflammation
Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa
Katey Rayner, PhD, is the chief scientific officer and vice president of research at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. She holds a University Research Chair and is the director of the Vascular Inflammation and Metabolism Laboratory. She is a full professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Ottawa. She leads the Ottawa region strategic research innovation cluster on vascular inflammation and metabolism. From 2022 to 2024, Dr. Rayner was assistant dean of research in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa.
Background
Dr. Rayner obtained her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto, and her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Ottawa. Dr. Rayner’s doctoral work focused on the role of hormones, heat shock proteins and macrophage foam cells in the development of atherosclerosis. Dr. Rayner pursued a postdoctoral fellowship first at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, then at New York University School of Medicine, where she discovered a role for microRNAs – specifically microRNA-33 – in the regulation of high-density lipoprotein and its atheroprotective effects.
Dr. Rayner is an executive board member of the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences, where she also serves on the advocacy and executive steering committees. She holds positions on the executive committee of the Canadian Society for Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (CSATVB). Dr. Rayner is a Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA) where she is an active member. She is the incoming chair of the ATVB Council, is a member of the scientific sessions program committee and was the immediate past chair at the 2024 Vascular Discovery spring meeting.
Dr. Rayner is a member of the peer-review committees for Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is an editorial board member of the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (ATVB) and Circulation Research. Dr. Rayner reviews for many peer-reviewed journals, including Science, Nature, Circulation, and The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Dr. Rayner is a member of the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars. Her research is funded by CIHR, Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada and the European ERA-CVD Consortium. Since 2020, Dr. Rayner has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the Mid-Career Excellence Award from the CIHR Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health and CSATVB (2023) and the Joseph Vita Award of the AHA (2021). The University of Ottawa has bestowed Dr. Rayner with the Jean Himms-Hagen Research Award and the Researcher of the Year Award for basic science.
Research and clinical interests
Dr. Rayner’s research program focuses on how inflammation is dysregulated in both atherosclerotic vascular disease and other metabolic diseases. Her research also investigates the intersection of inflammation, energy metabolism and RNA biology, and how RNA-based therapeutics may be used to treat these cardiometabolic diseases.
Publications
See current publications list at PubMed.
Selected publications:
- Rasheed A, Dennison T, Robichaud S, Wyatt HJ, Nguyen MA, Geoffrion M, Marouf Y, Baxi A, Lee R, Kazan H, van Solingen C, Ouimet M, Rayner KJ. Hyperlipidemia-induced Hematopoiesis is Repressed by MLKL in Endothelial Cells of the Splenic Niche. Nature Cardiovascular Research
2024, 3, 594–611. - Rayner KJ. Drugging the foam cell: identifying P2Y6 antagonists that limit atherosclerosis.
- European Heart Journal. 2024 (*invited editorial)
- Susser LI, Nguyen MA, Geoffrion M, Emerton C, Ouimet M, Khacho M, Rayner KJ. Mitochondrial Fragmentation Promotes Inflammation Resolution Responses in Macrophages via Histone Lactylation. Molecular and Cellular Biology. 2023; 43(10):531-546.
- Stotts C, Corrales-Medina VF, Rayner KJ. Pneumonia-Induced Inflammation, Resolution and Cardiovascular Disease: Causes, Consequences and Clinical Opportunities. Circulation Research. 2023;132(6):751-774
- Jung RG, Duchez AC, Simard T, Dhaliwal S, Gillmore T, Di Santo P, Labinaz A, Ramirez FD, Rasheed A, Robichaud S, Ouimet M, Short S, Clifford C, Xiao F, Lordkipanidzé M, Burger D, Gadde S, Rayner KJ, Hibbert B. Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1-Positive Platelet-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Predicts MACE and the Proinflammatory SMC Phenotype. JACC Basic Transl Sci. 2022 Sep 21;7(10):985-997.
- Puylaert P, Zurek M, Rayner KJ, De Meyer GRY, Martinet W. Regulated Necrosis in Atherosclerosis. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2022 Nov;42(11):1283-1306.
- MA Nguyen, HD Hoang, A Rasheed, AC Duchez, H Wyatt, ML Cottee, T Graber, L Susser, M Geoffrion, H Kazan, L Maegdefessel, EE Mulvihill, T Alain, KJ Rayner. (2022) miR-223 Exerts Translational Control of Cholesterol Efflux and Inflammatory Pathways in Atherosclerosis. Circulation Research 2022 Jun 24;131(1):42-58.
- Susser LI, Rayner KJ. Through the layers: how macrophages drive atherosclerosis across the vessel wall. J Clin Invest. 2022 May 2;132(9):e157011.
- Robichaud S*, Rasheed A*, Pietrangelo A, Doyoung Kim A, Boucher DM, Emerton C, Vijithakumar V, Gharibeh L, Fairman G, Mak E, Nguyen MA, Geoffrion M, Wirka R, Rayner KJ, Ouimet M. Autophagy Is Differentially Regulated in Leukocyte and Nonleukocyte Foam Cells During Atherosclerosis
Circulation Research. 2022 Mar 18;130(6):831-847. - Rayner KJ, Rasheed A. The scent of atherosclerosis. Science. 2022 Jan 14;375(6577):145-146.