Professor Kerry-Anne Rye

Biography

Kerry-Anne Rye obtained her PhD from Flinders University of South Australia in 1986 and gained her postdoctoral training at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a Research Professor, Head of the Cardiometabolic Disease Research Group and Deputy Head of the School of Biomedical Sciences, University of New South Wales. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Lipid Research and a Senior Guest Editor of The Journal of the American Heart Association  Professor Rye is a Past Chair of the American Heart Association ATVB Council and Immediate Past-Chair of the American Heart Association ATVB Council Nominations Committee.

Research Program

Professor Rye co-leads the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease group with Associate Professor Shane Thomas. The overarching goal of Professor Rye's research program is to improve understanding of the causes of heart disease (atherosclerosis) and diabetes and to develop novel strategies for  treating both diseases. Professor Rye studies signal transduction pathways in multiple cell types (macrophages and endothelial cells for heart disease and pancreatic beta cells and skeletal muscle cells for diabetes) and works with novel animal models and state-of-the-art imaging techniques to identify new therapeutic targets for atherosclerosis and diabetes. She was the first to report that the atheroprotective high density lipoproteins (HDLs) in human plasma inhibit inflammation in coronary arteries, and that HDLs also have anti-diabetic properties.

Current Postdoctoral Fellows

Elias Glaros

Blake Cochran

Jaqueline Ku

Carmen Zhang

Nana Pham

Current PhD Students

Thomas King

Samson Ogumodede

Iqra Haleem

Current Honours Students

William Wang

Research Opportunities

There are opportunities for Honours, MSc and PhD students in the Rye/Thomas Group research program. Contact Kerry-Anne Rye (k.rye@unsw.edu.au) for details of specific projects.