Robert Raffai's Biography

Robert Raffai, Professor, University of California-San Francisco

Dr. Raffai earned a PhD degree in Biochemistry within the Lipoprotein Research Group at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute in 1998. He subsequently trained extensively in lipoprotein metabolism and atherosclerosis cardiovascular research as a postdoctoral fellow within the J. David Gladstone Institutes with Dr. Karl H. Weisgraber PhD. He subsequently established a research program focused on exploring the biology of atherosclerosis within the Department of Surgery at UCSF and the VA Medical Center in San Francisco. He is currently Professor of Surgery and Director of the Atherosclerosis Research Laboratory. Dr. Raffai's research program focusses on elucidating the interplay between metabolism and inflammation in atherosclerosis cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Through studies of mouse models developed in his laboratory, Dr. Raffai's team uncovered new pathways through which a protein called ApoE participates in suppressing the progression and enhancing the regression of atherosclerosis. Their discovery linked ApoE metabolism to microRNA-control of immune cell activation and protection from atherosclerosis in mice with hyperlipidemia. A more recent topic in the lab includes to explore how diabetic hyperglycemia alters the biogenesis and regulated release of microRNA in exosomes derived from myeloid cells, and how these exRNA can serve to enhance systemic and vascular inflammation and atherosclerosis. Our goal is to uncover mechanisms to prevent microRNA dysregulation in myeloid cells of diabetic individuals and develop exosomes capable of delivering therapeutic exRNA as novel treatments for diabetic atherosclerosis. To this end, as member of the NIH Extracellular RNA communication Consortium, Dr. Raffai’s team has been developing novel approaches to detect, isolate and engineer exosomes and other biological carriers of exRNA for their use as biomarkers and therapeutics for human disease.