Sarafan ChEM-H
Showing 51-100 of 196 Results
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Alice C. Fan
Associate Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and, by courtesy, of Urology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Fan is a physician scientist who studies how turning off oncogenes (cancer genes) can cause tumor regression in preclinical and clinical translational studies. Based on her findings, she has initiated clinical trials studying how targeted therapies affect cancer signals in kidney cancer and low grade lymphoma. In the laboratory, she uses new nanotechnology strategies for tumor diagnosis and treatment to define biomarkers for personalized therapy.
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Rongxin Fang
Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and, by courtesy, of Genetics
BioRongxin Fang received his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology from the University of California, San Diego, under the mentorship of Bing Ren (2015–2019). During his doctoral training, he developed high-throughput genomic technologies and computational tools to map the structure and activity of the mammalian genome at large scale and single-cell resolution. He then applied these approaches to investigate how cis-regulatory elements - such as enhancers - control gene expression and drive the diverse transcriptional programs underlying cellular diversity in the mammalian brain. As an HHMI–Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University (2019–2024), he worked with Xiaowei Zhuang. Rongxin developed and applied genome-scale, volumetric 3D transcriptome imaging methods to map the molecular and cellular architecture of the mammalian brain across evolution and aging. He also contributed to the collaboration with Adam Cohen and Catherine Dulac to integrate transcriptome imaging with functional neuronal imaging, identifying neuronal populations in the animal brain that underlie specific brain functions.
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Dean W. Felsher
Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and of Pathology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy laboratory studies the molecular basis of cancer with a focus on understanding when cancer can be reversed through targeted oncogene inactivation.
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Daniel Fernandez
Director of Crystallography
BioSome say that proteins are spaghetti-like and wiggly. I use X-rays, crystals, and crystallography to "see" the atoms that make up things like spaghetti.
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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. -
Marc Fleischmann
Project & Knowledge Management, Sarafan ChEM-H
Current Role at StanfordSolutions Wizard
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Polly Fordyce
Associate Professor of Bioengineering and of Genetics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Fordyce Lab is focused on developing new instrumentation and assays for making quantitative, systems-scale biophysical measurements of molecular interactions. Current research in the lab is focused on three main platforms: (1) arrays of valved reaction chambers for high-throughput protein expression and characterization, (2) spectrally encoded beads for multiplexed bioassays, and (3) sortable droplets and microwells for single-cell assays.
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Judith Frydman
Donald Kennedy Chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Genetics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe long term goal of our research is to understand how proteins fold in living cells. My lab uses a multidisciplinary approach to address fundamental questions about molecular chaperones, protein folding and degradation. In addition to basic mechanistic principles, we aim to define how impairment of cellular folding and quality control are linked to disease, including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases and examine whether reengineering chaperone networks can provide therapeutic strategies.
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Xiaojing Gao
Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsHow do we design biological systems as “smart medicine” that sense patients’ states, process the information, and respond accordingly? To realize this vision, we will tackle fundamental challenges across different levels of complexity, such as (1) protein components that minimize their crosstalk with human cells and immunogenicity, (2) biomolecular circuits that function robustly in different cells and are easy to deliver, (3) multicellular consortia that communicate through scalable channels, and (4) therapeutic modules that interface with physiological inputs/outputs. Our engineering targets include biomolecules, molecular circuits, viruses, and cells, and our approach combines quantitative experimental analysis with computational simulation. The molecular tools we build will be applied to diverse fields such as neurobiology and cancer therapy.
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Jeffrey S. Glenn, M.D., Ph.D.
Joseph D. Grant Professor and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Glenn's primary interest is in molecular virology, with a strong emphasis on translating this knowledge into novel antiviral therapies. Other interests include exploitation of hepatic stem cells, engineered human liver tissues, liver cancer, and new biodefense antiviral strategies.
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Anna L Gloyn
Professor of Pediatrics (Endocrinology) and of Genetics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAnna's current research projects are focused on the translation of genetic association signals for type 2 diabetes and glycaemic traits into cellular and molecular mechanisms for beta-cell dysfunction and diabetes. Her group uses a variety of complementary approaches, including human genetics, functional genomics, physiology and islet-biology to dissect out the molecular mechanisms driving disease pathogenesis.
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Lauren Goins
Assistant Professor of Developmental Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Goins lab aims to understand how cells make decisions. Our research focuses on how young, immature blood stem cells, with the potential to become many different cell types, choose between these cell fates.
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Stuart Goodman, MD, PhD
The Robert L. and Mary Ellenburg Professor of Surgery and Professor, by courtesy, of Bioengineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAs an academic orthopaedic surgeon, my interests center on adult reconstructive surgery, arthritis surgery, joint replacement, biomaterials, biocompatibility, tissue engineering, mesenchymal stem cells. Collaborative clinical, applied and basic research studies are ongoing.
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Or Gozani
Dr. Morris Herzstein Professor
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study the molecular mechanisms by which chromatin-signaling networks effect nuclear and epigenetic programs, and how dysregulation of these pathways leads to disease. Our work centers on the biology of lysine methylation, a principal chromatin-regulatory mechanism that directs epigenetic processes. We study how lysine methylation events are generated, sensed, and transduced, and how these chemical marks integrate with other nuclear signaling systems to govern diverse cellular functions.
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Nathanael S. Gray
Krishnan-Shah Family Professor
BioNathanael Gray is the Krishnan-Shah Family Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology at Stanford, Co-Director of Cancer Drug Discovery Co-Leader of the Cancer Therapeutics Research Program, Member of Chem-H, and Program Leader for Small Molecule Drug Discovery for the Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA). His research utilizes the tools of synthetic chemistry, protein biochemistry, and cancer biology to discover and validate new strategies for the inhibition of anti-cancer targets. Dr. Gray’s research has had broad impact in the areas of kinase inhibitor design and in circumventing drug resistance.
Dr. Gray received his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1999 after receiving his BS degree with the highest honor award from the same institution in 1995. After completing his PhD, Dr. Gray was recruited to the newly established Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) in San Diego, California. During his six year stay at GNF, Dr. Gray became the director of biological chemistry where he supervised a group of over fifty researchers integrating chemical, biological and pharmacological approaches towards the development of new experimental drugs. Some of the notable accomplishments of Dr. Gray’s team at GNF include: discovery of the first allosteric inhibitors of wild-type and mutant forms of BCR-ABL which resulted in clinical development of ABL001; discovery of the first selective inhibitors of the Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK), an achievement that led to the development of now FDA-approved drugs such as ceritinib (LDK378) for the treatment of EML4-ALK expressing non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); and discovery that sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor-1 (S1P1) is the pharmacologically relevant target of the immunosuppressant drug Fingomilod (FTY720) followed by the development of Siponimod (BAF312), which is currently used for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.
In 2006, Dr. Gray returned to academia as a faculty member at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston. There, he has established a discovery chemistry group that focuses on developing first-in-class inhibitors for newly emerging biological targets, including resistant alleles of existing targets, as well as inhibitors of well-validated targets, such as Her3 and RAS, that have previously been considered recalcitrant to small molecule drug development. Dr. Gray’s team developed covalent inhibitors of the T790M mutant of EGFR inspired the development of Osimertinib (AZD9291), now FDA approved for treatment of patients with relapsed lung cancer due to resistance to first generation EGFR inhibitors. Dr. Gray has also developed structure-based, generalized approaches for designing drugs to overcome one of the most common mechanisms of resistance observed against most kinase inhibitor drugs, mutation of the so-called "gatekeeper" residue, which has been observed in resistance to drugs targeting BCR-ABL, c-KIT and PDGFR.
In 2021, Dr. Gray joined Stanford University where he has joined the Stanford Cancer Institute, Chem-H and the Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA) to spur the development of prototype drugs.
These contributions have been recognized through numerous awards including the National Science Foundation’s Career award in 2007, the Damon Runyon Foundation Innovator award in 2008, the American Association for Cancer Research for Team Science in 2010 and for Outstanding Achievement in 2011 and the American Chemical Society award for Biological Chemistry in 2011, and the Nancy Lurie Marks endowed professorship in 2015 and the Paul Marks Prize in 2019, and the Hope Funds for Cancer Research in 2023. -
Lynette Renae Haberman
Program Manager, Student Programs and Training, Sarafan ChEM-H
Current Role at StanfordProgram Manager, Student Programs and Training
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Sarah Heilshorn
Rickey/Nielsen Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor, by courtesy, of Bioengineering and of Chemical Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProtein engineering
Tissue engineering
Regenerative medicine
Biomaterials -
Luis Hernandez-Nunez
Assistant Professor of Biology
BioLuis Hernandez-Nunez is a tenure-track professor of biology, a Warren Alpert Distinguished Scholar, a Branco Weiss faculty fellow, and a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award faculty fellow at Stanford University, where he leads the Hernandez-Nunez Lab. Luis’ research focuses on the circuit mechanisms underlying heart-brain interactions and on organismal circuits that implement multiorgan coordination and feedback control. Luis did his postdoctoral training with Florian Engert supported by an LSRF fellowship. Luis obtained his Ph.D. in Systems, Synthetic, and Quantitative Biology from Harvard in 2020. He conducted his doctoral research in Aravinthan Samuel’s lab, where he identified molecules, cells, and circuits that mediate thermal homeostasis in larval Drosophila. Before graduate school, Luis was an undergraduate and then a postbac researcher at Thierry Emonet’s lab at Yale University. Before moving to the U.S., Luis studied mechatronics engineering at the National University of Engineering in Peru.
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Daniel Herschlag
Professor of Biochemistry and, by courtesy, of Chemical Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur research is aimed at understanding the chemical and physical behavior underlying biological macromolecules and systems, as these behaviors define the capabilities and limitations of biology. Toward this end we study folding and catalysis by RNA, as well as catalysis by protein enzymes.
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Brian Hie
Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering
BioI am an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, the Dieter Schwarz Foundation Stanford Data Science Faculty Fellow, and an Innovation Investigator at Arc Institute. I supervise the Laboratory of Evolutionary Design, where we conduct research at the intersection of biology and machine learning.
I was previously a Stanford Science Fellow in the Stanford University School of Medicine and a Visiting Researcher at Meta AI. I completed my Ph.D. at MIT CSAIL and was an undergraduate at Stanford University. -
Michael R. Howitt
Assistant Professor of Pathology and of Microbiology and Immunology
On Leave from 02/16/2026 To 07/17/2026Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur lab is broadly interested in how intestinal microbes shape our immune system to promote both health and disease. Recently we discovered that a type of intestinal epithelial cell, called tuft cells, act as sentinels stationed along the lining of the gut. Tuft cells respond to microbes, including parasites, to initiate type 2 immunity, remodel the epithelium, and alter gut physiology. Surprisingly, these changes to the intestine rely on the same chemosensory pathway found in oral taste cells. Currently, we aim to 1) elucidate the role of specific tuft cell receptors in microbial detection. 2) To understand how protozoa and bacteria within the microbiota impact host immunity. 3) Discover how tuft cells modulate surrounding cells and tissue.
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KC Huang
LeRa Professor and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
On Leave from 01/01/2026 To 03/31/2026Current Research and Scholarly InterestsHow do cells determine their shape and grow?
How do molecules inside cells get to the right place at the right time?
Our group tries to answer these questions using a systems biology approach, in which we integrate interacting networks of protein and lipids with the physical forces determined by the spatial geometry of the cell. We use theoretical and computational techniques to make predictions that we can verify experimentally using synthetic, chemical, or genetic perturbations. -
Adrian Hugenmatter
Director of Protein Engineering
BioDr. Adrian Hugenmatter joined ChEM-H as Director of Protein Engineering in 2021. In his role, Dr. Hugenmatter heads the Protein Engineering Laboratory at the Nucleus and is responsible for the development of therapeutic proteins at the Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA). Dr. Hugenmatter obtained his PhD in the laboratory of Prof. Donald Hilvert at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), where he gained initial experience in the fields of enzymology, antibody engineering and directed evolution. Fascinated by protein engineering, he moved to the laboratory of Prof. Dan Tawfik at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), where he studied molecular evolution and its application in protein design. Dr. Hugenmatter then worked for more than a decade as a researcher and team leader at Roche. During this time, he was involved in the development and optimization of several antibody lead candidates for therapeutic applications in neuroscience and oncology.
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Paul S Humphries
Alliance Director, Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA)
Current Role at StanfordAlliance Director, Stanford Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA)
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Peter K. Jackson
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology (Baxter Labs) and of Pathology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsCell cycle and cyclin control of DNA replication .
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Christine Jacobs-Wagner
Dennis Cunningham Professor, Professor of Biology and of Microbiology and Immunology
BioChristine Jacobs-Wagner is a Dennis Cunningham Professor in the Department of Biology and the ChEM-H Institute at Stanford University. She is interested in understanding the fundamental mechanisms and principles by which cells, and, in particular, bacterial cells, are able to multiple. She received her PhD in Biochemistry in 1996 from the University of Liège, Belgium where she unraveled a molecular mechanism by which some bacterial pathogens sense and respond to antibiotics attack to achieve resistance. For this work, she received multiple awards including the 1997 GE & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists. During her postdoctoral work at Stanford Medical School, she demonstrated that bacteria can localize regulatory proteins to specific intracellular regions to control signal transduction and the cell cycle, uncovering a new, unsuspected level of bacterial regulation.
She started her own lab at Yale University in 2001. Over the years, her group made major contributions in the emerging field of bacterial cell biology and provided key molecular insights into the temporal and spatial mechanisms involved in cell morphogenesis, cell polarization, chromosome segregation and cell cycle control. For her distinguished work, she received the Pew Scholars award from the Pew Charitable Trust, the Woman in Cell Biology Junior award from the American Society of Cell Biology and the Eli Lilly award from the American Society of Microbiology. She held the Maxine F. Singer and William H. Fleming professor chairs at Yale. She was elected to the Connecticut academy of Science, the American Academy of Microbiology and the National Academy of Sciences. She has been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2008.
Her lab moved to Stanford in 2019. Current research examines the general principles and spatiotemporal mechanisms by which bacterial cells replicate, using Caulobacter crescentus and Escherichia coli as models. Recently, the Jacobs-Wagner lab expanded their interests to the Lyme disease agent Borrelia burgdorferi, revealing unsuspected ways by which this pathogen grows and causes disease -
Amy Jacobson
Director of Microbiome Therapies, Microbiome Therapies Initiative (MITI)
Current Role at StanfordSenior Scientific Program Manager, Sarafan ChEM-H and Stanford Innovative Medicines Accelerator
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Daniel Jarosz
Senior Associate Dean, Basic Science, Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and of Developmental Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy laboratory studies conformational switches in evolution, disease, and development. We focus on how molecular chaperones, proteins that help other biomolecules to fold, affect the phenotypic output of genetic variation. To do so we combine classical biochemistry and genetics with systems-level approaches. Ultimately we seek to understand how homeostatic mechanisms influence the acquisition of biological novelty and identify means of manipulating them for therapeutic and biosynthetic benefit.
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Michael Christopher Jewett
Professor of Bioengineering and, by courtesy, of Chemical Engineering
BioMichael Jewett is a Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University. He received his B.S. from UCLA and PhD from Stanford University, both in Chemical Engineering. He completed postdoctoral studies at the Center for Microbial Biotechnology in Denmark and the Harvard Medical School. Jewett was also a guest professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). His research group focuses on advancing synthetic biology research to support planet and societal health, with applications in medicine, manufacturing, sustainability, and education.
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Chaitan Khosla
Wells H. Rauser and Harold M. Petiprin Professor and Professor of Chemistry and, by courtesy, of Biochemistry
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsResearch in this laboratory focuses on problems where deep insights into enzymology and metabolism can be harnessed to improve human health.
For the past two decades, we have studied and engineered enzymatic assembly lines called polyketide synthases that catalyze the biosynthesis of structurally complex and medicinally fascinating antibiotics in bacteria. An example of such an assembly line is found in the erythromycin biosynthetic pathway. Our current focus is on understanding the structure and mechanism of this polyketide synthase. At the same time, we are developing methods to decode the vast and growing number of orphan polyketide assembly lines in the sequence databases.
For more than a decade, we have also investigated the pathogenesis of celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine, with the goal of discovering therapies and related management tools for this widespread but overlooked disease. Ongoing efforts focus on understanding the pivotal role of transglutaminase 2 in triggering the inflammatory response to dietary gluten in the celiac intestine. -
Peter S. Kim
Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor of Biochemistry
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur research focuses on developing new strategies for vaccine creation. We also aim to generate vaccines targeting infectious agents that have eluded efforts to date. We integrate experimental approaches with protein language models to guide artificial evolution and enable efficient antibody and protein engineering. Our interdisciplinary approach aims to address critical global health challenges.
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Bruce Koch, Ph.D.
Director of High-Throughput Screening
Current Role at StanfordDirector, ChEM-H/CSB High Throughput Screening Group
Staff Lead, IMA HTS Module
Adviser to the SPARK Program -
Pallavi Kompella
Lead Research Scientist, Animal Pharmacology, Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA)
BioPh.D. Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas
(American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education Doctoral Fellow)
Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar, Biomedical Research Institute of Malaga, Spain -
Siddharth Krishnan
Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, and by courtesy, of Bioengineering and of Materials Science and Engineering
BioSiddharth is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and a Terman Faculty Fellow at Stanford University. Prior to this, he was a K99-funded Research Scientist in the groups of Prof. Daniel Anderson and Prof. Robert Langer at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and at Boston Children's Hospital. He received BS and MS degrees from Washington University in St. Louis, and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from Prof. John Rogers' group. His work has focused on the development of bioelectronic devices for sensing and therapeutics. He has published over 20 scientific papers, is an inventor several granted and pending patents and is co-founded of Rhaeos Inc., a company focused on translating his graduate work on wireless wearable diagnostic tools for neurological surgery. His work has been recognized through several awards, including a postdoctoral fellowship from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the 2019 Illinois Innovation Prize, a graduate student medal from the Materials Research Society and being named on MIT Technology Review’s Global Innovators Under 35 list.
