Rhian Touyz

Rhian Touyz is a South African medical researcher. She is the Director of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences (ICAMS), University of Glasgow, and the President of the International Society of Hypertension.

She is the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine and Director of the ICAMS BHF Award of Excellence.

She was previously the Canada Research Chair in Hypertension and Professor of Medicine at the Kidney Research Centre, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI)/University of Ottawa, Canada.

Her research at the University of Glasgow primarily focuses on hypertension (high blood pressure).^[1]

Early life and career

Touyz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa^[2] in 1959. She was educated in the arts and did her high school training at the Johannesburg High School for Art, Ballet and Music and received her BSc(Hons) (1980), MBBCh (1984), MSc (1986) and PhD (1992) from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship (1992-1996) at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

She was previously Scientist and Associate Professor at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, and the Canada Research Chair in Hypertension and Professor of Medicine at the Kidney Research Centre, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI)/University of Ottawa, she has trained over 40 graduate and post - graduate students. She was involved in the writing of the annual Canadian hypertension guidelines and served as the co-chair of the Recommendations Task Force of the Canadian Hypertension Education Program (CHEP).

Current work

Touyz moved to the University of Glasgow from Canada in November 2011^[3] to set up a new research programme at the British Heart Foundation Glasgow Cardiovascular Research Centre. As well as research, she has an active role in patient care, looking after people at the outpatient hypertension clinic at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow. She also has a leadership role at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, where she is the Director.^[4]

Touyz’ main focus of research relates to molecular, cellular and vascular mechanisms of hypertension. She has written the book Reactive Oxygen Species and the Cardiovascular System,^[5] which describes how various oxygen species can affect the way that the cardiovascular system operates. She is a clinician-scientist and her areas of research include clinical and experimental hypertension and small vessel disease, signal transduction, oxidative stress, ion transport, vascular biology, adipose tissue biology and diabetes. She has a particular interest in translational and clinical research.^[6]

She is the Editor-In-Chief of Clinical Science and Deputy Editor of Hypertension^[7]. She is the Associate Editor of Pharmacological Reviews.^[8]

Awards

• 2005 Dahl Lecture Award by the American Heart Association
• 2006 Grace A Goldsmith Award, American Society of Nutrition
• 2009 Vincenzo Panagia Distinguished Lecture Award, Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences Award,
• 2010 Distinguished Service award from Hypertension Canada
• 2012 Robert M. Berne Distinguished Lecturer of the American Physiological Society.
• 2013 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh^[9]
• 2014 RD Wright Lecture Award of the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia
• 2015 Harriet Dustan Award for research excellence, Council on Hypertension, American Heart Association.
• 2016 American Society of Hypertension’s 2016 Irvine Page Award for your outstanding work in the field of hypertension
• 2017 Joan Mott Lecture Award, The Physiology Society UK.^[10]

References