Julian Rayner

Julian Rayner
Julian Rayner in 2018
Born
Julian Charles Rayner
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (PhD) Lincoln University (New Zealand) (BSc(Hons))
Scientific career
Institutions
ThesisSorting of membrane proteins in the yeast secretory pathway (1997)
Websitewww.cimr.cam.ac.uk/staff/professor-julian-rayner-fmedsci

Julian Charles Rayner is a New Zealand-British malaria researcher and academic. He is Professor of Cell Biology and the Director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR), part of the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine. He was previously a member of academic faculty at the Wellcome Sanger Institute[1] and Director of Wellcome Connecting Science.[2]

Julian Rayner became Director of CIMR in 2019.[3]

Education

Rayner was born in New Zealand,[4][5] and completed his undergraduate studies at Lincoln University,[6] before undertaking his PhD at the University of Cambridge.[7] His doctoral research investigated the sorting of membrane proteins in the yeast secretory pathway while based at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge.[7]

Career and research

Rayner began working on malaria parasites during a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.[8] Rayner's first faculty position was at the University of Alabama Birmingham, where he was an assistant professor between 2002 and 2008.[9]

Rayner joined the Sanger Institute as a Group Leader in 2008[8], and became a Senior Group Leader in 2013.[10] In 2014 he was appointed as the Director of Connecting Science for the Wellcome Genome Campus,[11] a role he held until 2024.[12]

In 2019, he joined the University of Cambridge, as the director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research.[3] He was also elected to the Chair of Cell Biology in the School of Clinical Medicine.[13]

Rayner's research interests focus on how Plasmodium parasites recognise, invade and manipulate human red blood cells with the goal of identifying and prioritising new drug and vaccine targets. Working with collaborators such as Beatrice Hahn, he has demonstrated that Plasmodium falciparum is likely to have originated in gorillas, rather than chimpanzees or ancient humans.[14] Together with colleagues at the Sanger Institute, Rayner identified a key ligand which is essential for erythrocyte invasion by P. falciparum and therefore has significant anti-malarial potential.[15] He co-led collaborative teams that carried out the first large-scale genetic screens in Plasmodium parasites,[16][17][18] and—with colleagues at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Institute in Kenya—established that the rare blood group Dantu protects individuals from malaria by increasing the tension of red blood cells, reducing the ability of P. falciparum parasites to invade them.[19][20][21]

Public engagement

In March 2011, Rayner took part in the Argon Zone of the science engagement activity I'm a Scientist, Get me out of here!, where he won £500 to put towards a science communication project.[22] Rayner used the prize money to create compact disc versions of the interactive game Malaria Challenge[23] and distributed copies freely to schools in the UK.[24]

Honours and awards

In 2015, he was awarded CA Wright Memorial medal by the British Society for Parasitology.[25]

In 2022, Rayner was elected as a Fellow of EMBO, the European Molecular Biology Organization.[26]

In 2023, Rayner was elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in the UK.[27]

References

  1. ^ "Faculty". www.sanger.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2026.
  2. ^ "Rayner, Julian". www.sanger.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2026.
  3. ^ a b "A New Director for the CIMR".
  4. ^ "Julian Rayner: stopping malaria". RNZ. 3 December 2011. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  5. ^ "ASTMH - Julian Rayner, PhD". www.astmh.org. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  6. ^ Rayner, Julian (1992). Southwestern blotting to establish the composition of UGPB, a putative transcription factor that binds to the rabbit uteroglobin promotor (Bachelors thesis). Research@Lincoln, Lincoln University. hdl:10182/3748.
  7. ^ a b Rayner, Julian Charles (1997). Sorting of membrane proteins in the yeast secretory pathway. jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 154434100. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.627276.
  8. ^ a b Rayner, Professor Julian (5 December 2018). "Professor Julian Rayner". www.infectiousdisease.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2026.
  9. ^ "Julian Rayner, PhD". American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 11 September 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2025.
  10. ^ "Dr Julian Rayner - Senior Group Leader".
  11. ^ "Genome Campus appoints Director of Scientific Conferences and Engagement".
  12. ^ "Dr Ireena Dutta appointed Interim Director of Wellcome Connecting Science". www.wellcomeconnectingscience.org. Retrieved 13 March 2026.
  13. ^ "Malaria expert appointed Director of Cambridge Institute of Medical Research". 24 April 2019.
  14. ^ Liu, W; Li, Y; Learn, G. H.; Rudicell, R. S.; Robertson, J. D.; Keele, B. F.; Ndjango, J. B.; Sanz, C. M.; Morgan, D. B.; Locatelli, S; Gonder, M. K.; Kranzusch, P. J.; Walsh, P. D.; Delaporte, E; Mpoudi-Ngole, E; Georgiev, A. V.; Muller, M. N.; Shaw, G. M.; Peeters, M; Sharp, P. M.; Rayner, J. C.; Hahn, B. H. (2010). "Origin of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum in gorillas". Nature. 467 (7314): 420–5. Bibcode:2010Natur.467..420L. doi:10.1038/nature09442. PMC 2997044. PMID 20864995.
  15. ^ Crosnier, C; Bustamante, L. Y.; Bartholdson, S. J.; Bei, A. K.; Theron, M; Uchikawa, M; Mboup, S; Ndir, O; Kwiatkowski, D. P.; Duraisingh, M. T.; Rayner, J. C.; Wright, G. J. (2011). "Basigin is a receptor essential for erythrocyte invasion by Plasmodium falciparum". Nature. 480 (7378): 534–7. Bibcode:2011Natur.480..534C. doi:10.1038/nature10606. PMC 3245779. PMID 22080952.
  16. ^ Bushell, Ellen; Gomes, Ana Rita; Sanderson, Theo; Anar, Burcu; Girling, Gareth; Herd, Colin; Metcalf, Tom; Modrzynska, Katarzyna; Schwach, Frank; Martin, Rowena E.; Mather, Michael W.; McFadden, Geoffrey I.; Parts, Leopold; Rutledge, Gavin G.; Vaidya, Akhil B. (13 July 2017). "Functional Profiling of a Plasmodium Genome Reveals an Abundance of Essential Genes". Cell. 170 (2): 260–272.e8. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2017.06.030. ISSN 1097-4172. PMC 5509546. PMID 28708996.
  17. ^ Zhang, Min; Wang, Chengqi; Otto, Thomas D.; Oberstaller, Jenna; Liao, Xiangyun; Adapa, Swamy R.; Udenze, Kenneth; Bronner, Iraad F.; Casandra, Deborah; Mayho, Matthew; Brown, Jacqueline; Li, Suzanne; Swanson, Justin; Rayner, Julian C.; Jiang, Rays H. Y. (4 May 2018). "Uncovering the essential genes of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum by saturation mutagenesis". Science (New York, N.Y.). 360 (6388) eaap7847. doi:10.1126/science.aap7847. ISSN 1095-9203. PMC 6360947. PMID 29724925.
  18. ^ Oberstaller, Jenna; Xu, Shulin; Naskar, Deboki; Zhang, Min; Wang, Chengqi; Gibbons, Justin; Pires, Camilla Valente; Mayho, Matthew; Otto, Thomas D.; Rayner, Julian C.; Adams, John H. (7 February 2025). "Supersaturation mutagenesis reveals adaptive rewiring of essential genes among malaria parasites". Science (New York, N.Y.). 387 (6734) eadq7347. doi:10.1126/science.adq7347. ISSN 1095-9203. PMC 12131478. PMID 39913589.
  19. ^ Kariuki, Silvia N.; Marin-Menendez, Alejandro; Introini, Viola; Ravenhill, Benjamin J.; Lin, Yen-Chun; Macharia, Alex; Makale, Johnstone; Tendwa, Metrine; Nyamu, Wilfred; Kotar, Jurij; Carrasquilla, Manuela; Rowe, J. Alexandra; Rockett, Kirk; Kwiatkowski, Dominic; Weekes, Michael P. "Red blood cell tension protects against severe malaria in the Dantu blood group". Nature. 585 (7826): 579–583. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2726-6. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 7116803. PMID 32939086.
  20. ^ Kariuki, Silvia N; Macharia, Alexander W; Makale, Johnstone; Nyamu, Wilfred; Hoffman, Stephen L; Kapulu, Melissa C; Bejon, Philip; Rayner, Julian C; Williams, Thomas N; On behalf of for the CHMI-SIKA Study Team (13 June 2023). "The Dantu blood group prevents parasite growth in vivo: Evidence from a controlled human malaria infection study". eLife. 12. doi:10.7554/eLife.83874. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 10264070. PMID 37310872.
  21. ^ "How Dantu blood group protects against malaria – and how all humans could benefit". www.sanger.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 March 2026.
  22. ^ "Argon Zone – I'm a Scientist, Get me out of here". Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  23. ^ "Malaria Challenge".
  24. ^ "I'm a Scientist, Get me out of here". Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  25. ^ "CA Wright Memorial Medal". Archived from the original on 10 June 2012. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
  26. ^ "EMBO elects 67 new members and associate members". 6 July 2022.
  27. ^ "Outstanding biomedical and health researchers elected to Academy of Medical Sciences Fellowship".


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