Dr. Rachel Kratofil

Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Rachel Kratofil is a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow in the Naik lab. Dr. Kratofil’s research has centered around uncovering fundamental mechanisms of inflammation and innate immune function. She received a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Victoria, Canada, and became fascinated with the microscopic world and how tissues respond to infection and injury. She earned her PhD in Immunology at the University of Calgary, Canada, where she discovered a vascular repair-mediated paradigm for how immune cells curb infections via the same mechanisms that control hunger and satiety [PMID: 35948634].

Rachel joined the Naik lab in 2022 and for her postdoctoral research, she is studying microbial sensing by epithelial stem cells during tissue injury. Rachel has been recognized for her research with numerous international honors and awards including the Canadian Governor General’s Gold Medal for her doctoral dissertation, the Science & SciLifeLab Essay Prize in Cellular and Molecular Biology, the Life Science Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined), the David Proud Research Excellence Award, the J.B. Hyne Research Innovation Award, as well as several invited speaker and oral presentation awards at international conferences. She was also nominated to co-chair the Gordon Research Seminar on Tissue Repair and Regeneration in 2025.

Rachel is passionate about training the next generation of scientists and sparking their curiosity and joy of discovery in science. She has previously been a mentor in the New York Academy for Sciences 1000 Girls, 1000 Futures program, and participated in the Clear Directions Mentoring program in 2023, a DEI focused program brings exceptional high school students from the Bronx to New York laboratories to give them early exposure to research and medicine.

Rachel is fascinated by the dynamics of tissue remodeling and repair. As such her long-term goal is to develop a research program in repair and regeneration to understand how environmental triggers (microbes, etc.) alter these fundamental processes, and how they go awry in tumorigenesis.

Selected Publications:

Kratofil RM. Working up an appetite to promote repair. 2023. Science 382(6672):780

Kratofil RM and Naik S. Fast & scarless: Prx1+ fibroblasts turbocharge healing. 2023. J Exp Med 220 (3): e20222139.

Kratofil RM, Shim HB, Shim R, Lee WY, Labit E, Sinha S, Keenan CM, Surewaard BGJ, Noh JY, Sun Y, Sharkey K, Mack M, Biernaskie J, Deniset JF, and Kubes P. A monocyte-leptin-angiogenesis pathway critical for repair post-infection. Nature 609(2022).