School of Medicine


Showing 11-20 of 37 Results

  • Emily Ferguson, PhD

    Emily Ferguson, PhD

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Psychiatry

    BioEmily Ferguson, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral academic researcher and clinician within Stanford University’s Autism and Developmental Disorders Research Program (https://med.stanford.edu/autism.html) within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She earned her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of California Santa Barbara and completed her clinical internship at the University of California Los Angeles. Dr. Ferguson's research focuses on advancing understanding of mechanisms of challenging behaviors in autistic youth and adults to inform treatment development. Her work takes a comprehensive perspective, integrating methods from implementation science to improve the accessibility and quality of clinical care for underserved autistic populations, especially those with higher support needs (or "profound autism"). She is also interested in developing methods to improve self-regulation in individuals with profound autism to effectively manage self-injurious behaviors and aggression. Dr. Ferguson is currently supporting research in the Preschool Autism Lab (https://med.stanford.edu/autismcenter/pre-school-autism-lab-program.html), and exploring profiles of challenging behaviors with the Program for Psychometrics and Measurement-Based Care (https://med.stanford.edu/sppmc.html) in a diverse range of autistic and non-autistic youth to inform treatment approaches.

  • Anne Fernald

    Anne Fernald

    Josephine Knotts Knowles Professor of Human Biology, Emerita

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWorking with English- and Spanish-learning children from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, our research examines the importance of early language experience in supporting language development. We are deeply involved in community-based research in San Jose, designing an innovative parent-engagement program for low-resource Latino families with young children. We are also conducting field studies of beliefs about child development and caregiver-child interaction in rural villages in Senegal. A central goal of this translational research is to help parents understand their vital role in facilitating children’s language and cognitive growth.

  • Katherine Ferrara

    Katherine Ferrara

    Professor of Radiology (Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford)

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy focus is image-guided drug and gene delivery and I am engaged in the design of imaging devices, molecularly-targeted imaging probes and engineered delivery vehicles, drawing upon my education in biology and imaging physics and more than 20 years of experience with the synthesis and labeling of therapeutic particles. My laboratory has unique resources for and substantial experience in synthetic chemistry and ultrasound, CT, MR and PET imaging.

  • Lorenzo Ferrari

    Lorenzo Ferrari

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiothoracic Surgery

    BioLorenzo Ferrari, PhD, is a biomedical engineer interested in cardiovascular flows, specifically in realizing top benches for in vitro evaluation of cardiac devices. His current postdoctoral research in cardiothoracic surgery focuses on simulating and testing transcatheter valves implanted in the right ventricular outflow tract, working with Doff McElhinney, Daniel Ennis, and Alison Marsden. He obtained his PhD summa cum laude in Biomedical Engineering from University of Bern where he investigated the influence of heart valve design and size under different hemodynamic conditions using particle velocimetry techniques. During his PhD, he performed a secondment at University of Twente, in the Physics of Fluids - Max Planck Center for Complex Fluid, collaborating with Michel Versluis and Guillaume Lajoinie, assessing the stability of flow fields past valve prostheses.

  • Dorien Feyaerts

    Dorien Feyaerts

    Instructor, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsBiomedical scientist and immunologist with a strong background in fetal-maternal immunology that aims to conduct impactful translational research in women’s health to improve the health of mothers and their children.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Adina S. Fischer, MD, PhD

    Adina S. Fischer, MD, PhD

    Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (General Psychiatry and Psychology)

    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.

  • Paul Graham Fisher, MD

    Paul Graham Fisher, MD

    Beirne Family Professor of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology, Professor of Pediatrics and, by courtesy, of Neurosurgery and of Epidemiology and Population Health

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsClinical neuro-oncology: My research explores the epidemiology, natural history, and disease patterns of brain tumors and other cancers in childhood, as well as prospective clinical trials for treating these neoplasms. Research interests also include neurologic effects of cancer and its therapies.