School of Medicine


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  • Anna Finley Caulfield, MD

    Anna Finley Caulfield, MD

    Clinical Professor, Adult Neurology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Finley joined the Stanford Stroke Center in 2004 from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. She cares for acute stroke patients and other neurologically critical ill patients in the intensive care unit. Currently, her research interests include hypothermia after cardiac arrest and comparing health care provider's predications of future neurological function in neurologically critical ill patients to their 6-month outcome.

  • David Fiorentino, MD, PhD

    David Fiorentino, MD, PhD

    Professor of Dermatology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsFrom a clinical standpoint, I am particularly focused in the care of patients with myositis or systemic sclerosis. We offer clinical trials, including novel, cutting-edge cellular-based (e.g. chimeric antigen receptor, or, CAR T) therapies for these diseases. We are particularly interested in understanding the role of auto antigens in providing windows into disease pathogenesis, as well as their potential direct role of autoantibodies in causing disease.

  • Andrew Fire

    Andrew Fire

    George D. Smith Professor of Molecular and Genetic Medicine and Professor of Pathology and of Genetics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWhile chromosomal inheritance provides cells with one means for keeping and transmitting genetic information, numerous other mechanisms have (and remain to be) discovered. We study novel cellular mechanisms that enforce genetic constancy and permit genetic change. Underlying our studies are questions of the diversity of inheritance mechanisms, how cells distinguish such mechanisms as "wanted" versus "unwanted", and of the consequences and applications of such mechanisms in health and disease.

  • Daniel James Firl

    Daniel James Firl

    Clinical Instructor, Surgery - Abdominal Transplantation

    BioDaniel Firl is an abdominal transplant surgery fellow at Stanford Medicine and a surgeon-scientist working at the intersection of hepatobiliary cancer surgery and transplantation. His work centers on patient selection in primary liver cancer — determining which patients are best served by resection and which by transplantation — and on the risk-assessment tools that make that decision more precise.

    He is a co-developer of HALT-HCC, a risk model for liver transplantation in hepatocellular carcinoma, and first author of its international validation across more than 4,000 patients. His aim is to make selection between resection and transplantation progressively more sophisticated — sharpening prediction of waitlist and post-transplant outcomes, informing donor selection, and enabling the safe use of grafts that might otherwise be declined — with a particular interest in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and gallbladder cancer, where the role of transplantation is still being defined. He sees the next step as the integration of tumor genomics, bringing the molecular features of each cancer into the models that guide surgical decisions.

    Earlier, during postdoctoral training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, he studied the immunology and physiology of kidney xenotransplantation, including the design and long-term function of organs from genetically engineered porcine donors — part of the broader effort to expand the supply of transplantable organs.

    Dr. Firl completed general surgery residency at Duke University, where he served as chief resident, and earned his MD with Special Qualifications in Biomedical Research through the research-intensive program at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. He holds a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Boston College.

    He is the author of over 30 peer-reviewed articles, with work in Nature, Cell, The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Hepatology, and The Lancet Digital Health. He serves as an ad hoc reviewer for journals including The BMJ, Kidney International, the American Journal of Transplantation, JCO Precision Oncology, and Transplantation.

    He has received fellowships and grant funding from prestigious organizations during competitive funding opportunities including from: the NIH-NIAID, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the American Society of Transplantation.

  • Michael Fischbach

    Michael Fischbach

    Liu (Liao) Family Professor

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe microbiome carries out extraordinary feats of biology: it produces hundreds of molecules, many of which impact host physiology; modulates immune function potently and specifically; self-organizes biogeographically; and exhibits profound stability in the face of perturbations. Our lab studies the mechanisms of microbiome-host interactions. Our approach is based on two technologies we recently developed: a complex (119-member) defined gut community that serves as an analytically manageable but biologically relevant system for experimentation, and new genetic systems for common species from the microbiome. Using these systems, we investigate mechanisms at the community level and the strain level.

    1) Community-level mechanisms. A typical gut microbiome consists of 200-250 bacterial species that span >6 orders of magnitude in relative abundance. As a system, these bacteria carry out extraordinary feats of metabolite consumption and production, elicit a variety of specific immune cell populations, self-organize geographically and metabolically, and exhibit profound resilience against a wide range of perturbations. Yet remarkably little is known about how the community functions as a system. We are exploring this by asking two broad questions: How do groups of organisms work together to influence immune function? What are the mechanisms that govern metabolism and ecology at the 100+ strain scale? Our goal is to learn rules that will enable us to design communities that solve specific therapeutic problems.

    2) Strain-level mechanisms. Even though gut and skin colonists live in communities, individual strains can have an extraordinary impact on host biology. We focus on two broad (and partially overlapping) categories:

    Immune modulation: Can we redirect colonist-specific T cells against an antigen of interest by expressing it on the surface of a bacterium? How do skin colonists induce high levels of Staphylococcus-specific antibodies in mice and humans?

    Abundant microbiome-derived molecules: By constructing single-strain/single-gene knockouts in a complex defined community, we will ask: What are the effects of bacterially produced molecules on host metabolism and immunology? Can the molecular output of low-abundance organisms impact host physiology?

    3) Cell and gene therapy. We have begun two new efforts in mammalian cell and gene therapies. First, we are developing methods that enable cell-type specific delivery of genome editing payloads in vivo. We are especially interested in delivery vehicles that are customizable and easy to manufacture. Second, we have begun a comprehensive genome mining effort with an emphasis on understudied or entirely novel enzyme systems with utility in mammalian genome editing.

  • Michael Fischbein

    Michael Fischbein

    Thelma and Henry Doelger Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMolecular and genetic mechanisms of aortic aneurysm/dissection development. Molecular mechanisms of aneurysm formation in Marfan Syndrome. Clinical research interests include thoracic aortic diseases (aneurysms, dissections).

  • Adina S. Fischer, MD, PhD

    Adina S. Fischer, MD, PhD


    BioDr. Fischer’s research focuses on characterizing risk and resilience factors in depression. She has been awarded an NIH Career Development Award (K23) and Klingenstein Foundation Fellowship in Adolescent Depression to build her program of clinical and translational research at Stanford. Dr. Fischer's program of clinical care focused on the delivery and teaching of evidence-based clinical interventions that enhance resilience, with a focus on addressing the unique stressors encountered in academia and academic medicine that may contribute to risk and resilience in mood and anxiety disorders.

    Dr. Fischer’s translational program of research focuses on:
    (1) Improving our understanding of protective biomarkers of resilience to depression
    (2) Characterizing the effects of cannabis on neurobiological function and depressive symptoms
    (3) Developing neurobiologically-guided interventions for depressive disorders, particularly those that co-occur with cannabis and other substance use

    Dr. Fischer earned her BSc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, where she conducted research in the Early Childhood Cognition Laboratory. She then completed the MD/PhD Program at Dartmouth, where she obtained her PhD in in Neuroscience. Dr. Fischer’s doctoral research focused on characterizing the acute effects of cannabis in patients with schizophrenia and co-occurring cannabis use disorder. She then completed the Stanford Psychiatry Residency Training Program as a member of the Research Track, and an NIH funded T-32 postdoctoral research fellowship within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

  • Avital Sabrina Fischer

    Avital Sabrina Fischer

    Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

    BioAvital Fischer’s work focuses on the relationship between stress and wellbeing. She has expertise in women’s mental health, physician wellbeing, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other stress-related disorders. Her current research focuses on the impact of war-related stress on partners of reservists in Israel. The Invisible Warriors Study is a longitudinal prospective study following nearly 400 women to examine predictors of wellbeing under chronic stress in Israel. She is particularly interested in interventions that focus on the partner as the primary attachment figure of the reservist and their potential to improve PTSD outcomes for both members of the dyad. She has experience working with patients with PTSD related to a range of traumatic experiences, with particular expertise in war- and terror-related trauma through her clinical work with this population at Sheba Medical Center in Israel.

    Avital is also an advocate for physician wellbeing and for supporting successful and fulfilling careers in medicine while reducing burnout. She is particularly interested in how to sustain self-compassion and interpersonal relationships during medical training, promote a culture of wellness at the institutional level, and address the specific challenges faced by women in medicine. She has worked with Stanford residents, fellows, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars through her clinical work and her experience as a Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) facilitator.

  • Stephen Fischer

    Stephen Fischer

    Associate Professor of Anesthesia at the Stanford University Medical Center, Emeritus

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsPreoperative evaluation of the medically complex, patient; cost-effectiveness of preop diagnostic testing; patient, outcome studies in relation to preoperative preparation; computer, database of patient perioperative data; development of the, Anesthesia Preoperative Clinic as a model of quality, efficient, and, cost-effective care.