Brian Rayner is Head of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the Groote Schuur Hospital and University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, and established the Kidney and Hypertension Research Unit in 2016. He is a past President of the Southern African Hypertension Society, and is an executive member of the African Regional Advisory Group of the International Society of Hypertension. He graduated in M.B.Ch.B. from University of Cape Town in 1978, obtained Fellowship of the College of Medicine (SA) in 1986, and has a Master of Medicine and PhD from the University of Cape Town. His doctoral thesis studied salt sensitivity and salt sensitive hypertension in indigenous South African people. He received the World Hypertension League Award for Notable Achievement in Hypertension in 2014 in his work related to his doctorate.
The Division of Nephrology and Hypertension and the Kidney and Hypertension Research Unit is an active training and research centre training Nephrologists from Sub-Saharan Africa, and has active Masters and Doctoral programmes. In 2016 the International Society of Nephrology endorsed the Division as a Regional Training Centre of excellence.
Brian Rayner’s active research interests are therapy of hypertension, mutations in the ENaC, genetic determinants of salt sensitivity, HIVAN, vascular calcification and chronic kidney disease, primary aldosteronism, assessing adherence in hypertensive patients, ethics of rationing dialysis therapy, AKI and genetics of severe hypertension in blacks. He has a major interest in hypertension guidelines, and together with Profs Seedat and Veriava wrote the 2014 South African Hypertension Practice Guideline. He has 112 publications in peer reviewed journals, is on the editorial board of the CVS Journal of Africa, Austen Hypertension and Nephron Clinical Practice, and acts as a reviewer for many peer reviewed international journals, has made over 100 presentations at local and international congresses (many of which were invited plenary sessions) and has written 6 chapters in books. He was an investigator in the Altitude, Coral and Signify studies.