School of Medicine
Showing 181-190 of 396 Results
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David Fiorentino, MD, PhD
Professor of Dermatology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am interested in all types of immune-mediated skin disease, with a focus on psoriasis and rheumatic skin disease. I co-direct a multi-disciplinary clinic dedicated to the care of patients with rheumatic skin diseases, such as lupus erythematosus, vasculitis, dermatyositis and scleroderma. I conduct multiple clinical trials and I participate in translational research with tissues obtained from a prospective cohort of patients with scleroderma, lupus, and dermatomyositis.
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Andrew Fire
George D. Smith Professor of Molecular and Genetic Medicine and Professor of Pathology and of Genetics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study natural cellular mechanisms for adapting to genetic change. These include systems activated during normal development and those for detecting and responding to foreign or unwanted genetic activity. Underlying these studies are questions of how a cells can distinguish information as "self" versus "nonself" or "wanted" versus "unwanted".
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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
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).
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Adina S. Fischer, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (General Psychiatry and Psychology)
On Leave from 10/10/2022 To 10/09/2024BioDr. 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.
