School of Medicine
Showing 11-20 of 54 Results
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Eugene Butcher
Klaus Bensch Professor of Pathology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur interests include:
1) The physiology and function of lymphocyte homing in local and systemic immunity;
2) Biochemical and genetic studies of molecules that direct leukocyte recruitment;
3) Chemotactic mechanisms and receptors in vascular and immune biology;
4) Vascular control of normal and pathologic inflammation and immunity;
5) Systems biology of immune cell trafficking and programming in tumor immunity. -
Yueh-hsiu Chien
Professor of Microbiology & Immunology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsContribution of T cells to immunocompetence and autoimmunity; how the immune system clears infection, avoids autoimmunity and how infection impacts on the development of immune responses.
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Kyle Gabriel Daniels
Assistant Professor of Genetics
BioKyle obtained his BS in Biochemistry from the University of Maryland College Park in 2010, conducting undergraduate research with Dr. Dorothy Beckett, PhD. He obtained his PhD in Biochemistry with a certificate in Structural Biology and Biophysics. His dissertation is titled "Kinetics of Coupled Binding and Conformational Change in Proteins and RNA" and was completed in the laboratory of Dr. Terrence G. Oas, PhD. Kyle performed postdoctoral training with Dr. Wendell A. Lim, PhD at UCSF studying how CAR T cell phenotype is encoded by modular signaling motifs within chimeric antigen receptors.
Kyle's lab is interested in harnessing the principles of modularity to engineer receptors and gene circuits to control cell functions.
The lab will use synthetic biology, medium- and high-throughput screens, and machine learning to: (1) Engineer immune cells to achieve robust and durable responses against various cancer targets, (2) Coordinate behavior of multiple engineered cell types in cancer, autoimmune disease, and payload delivery, (3) Control survival, proliferation, and differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and immune cells, and (4) Explore principles of modularity related to engineering receptors and gene circuits in mammalian cells. -
Kara Davis
Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Hematology/Oncology)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsChildhood cancers can be considered aberrations of normal tissue development. We are interested in understanding childhood cancers through the lens of normal development. Further, individual tumors are composed of heterogeneous cell populations, not all cells being equal in their ability to respond to treatment or to repopulate a tumor. Thus, we take single cell approach to determine populations of clinical relevance.
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Mark M. Davis
Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMolecular mechanisms of lymphocyte recognition and differentiation; Systems immunology and human immunology; vaccination and infection.
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Edgar Engleman
Professor of Pathology and of Medicine (Immunology and Rheumatology)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDendritic cells, macrophages, NK cells and T cells; functional proteins and genes; immunotherapeutic approaches to cancer, autoimmune disease, neurodegenerative disease and metabolic disease.
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C. Garrison Fathman
Professor of Medicine (Immunology and Rheumatology), Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy lab of molecular and cellular immunology is interested in research in the general field of T cell activation and autoimmunity. We have identified and characterized a gene (GRAIL) that seems to control regulatory T cell (Treg) responsiveness by inhibiting the Treg IL-2 receptor desensitization. We have characterized a gene (Deaf1) that plays a major role in peripheral tolerance in T1D. Using PBC gene expression, we have provisionally identified a signature of risk and progression in T1D.
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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 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.
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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.
