Rhian Touyz


Rhian Merry Touyz Koppel  is a Canadian medical researcher. She is currently serving as the Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada, since 2021. A clinician scientist, her research primarily focuses on hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Early life and education

Touyz earned her BSc, MBBCh, MSc and PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM).

Career

Touyz was Staff Scientist and Professor at the IRCM, in Montreal, Canada until 2005.
From 2005 to 2011, Touyz joined the Kidney Research Centre of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, University of Ottawa, where she held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Hypertension.
In 2011, Touyz moved to the University of Glasgow where she served as Director of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, British Heart Foundation Chair and Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Glasgow. A clinician scientist, she was also Director of the BHF Centre of Research Excellence in Vascular Science and Medicine and a consultant in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
In 2021, Touyz was appointed as the Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada. Concurrently, she became an assistant professor in the departments of Medicine and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and the Dr. Phil Gold Chair in Medicine at McGill University.
Touyz' research focuses on molecular and vascular biology of hypertension and target organ damage, particularly: 1) vascular signaling and redox biology; 2) adipose biology and cardiometabolic disease; 3) cardiovascular toxicity of anti-cancer drugs, 4) pathophysiology and management of human hypertension.
Touyz has held important roles in many organizations including the European Society of Cardiology, the Canadian Hypertension Society, the AHA High Blood Pressure Research Council, the International Society of Hypertension and the European Council for Cardiovascular Research.
Touyz serves as the editor-in-chief of Hypertension. She is an Associate Editor of ''Pharmacological Reviews''

Awards and honours