Team

Rachel received her BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Victoria and her PhD in Immunology from the University of Calgary, where she was the recipient of the Canadian Governor General’s Gold Medal and the 2023 Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists for her graduate work on immune regulation of hunger hormones, leptin and ghrelin, during tissue repair. 

In 2022, Rachel joined the Naik lab as a postdoctoral fellow where she currently studies how commensal and pathogenic microbes affect epithelial stem cells in the context of wound healing and cancer. Rachel’s research is supported by the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation. 

Selected Publications:
Kratofil RM. Working up an appetite to promote repair. Science 382,780-780 (2023).

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

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).