Sudipta is a postdoctoral scholar and Hillblom Fellow in Matthias Hebrok’s lab at the Diabetes Center. Sudipta received his graduate training at NCBS-TIFR, India where he studied the mechanism of insulin secretion in Drosophila. Here at UCSF, his research focuses on using stem cells for understanding beta cell biology. He uses multiple approaches like generating functional beta cells from hESCs, CRISPR tools to modulate gene regulation, encapsulation devices along with high throughput sequencing to understand and finetune performance of in vitro generated beta cells with a long term goal for cellular therapy. He is excited to host Nidhi as a CCSF intern who will be working on developing beta cells with synthetic gene circuits to counter hypoxia. This will improve our understanding on controlling hypoxic damage to beta cells as well as fine tuning our approaches during transplantation.

Camillia is a fourth year graduate student in the Biomedical Sciences program and works in Kole Roybal’s lab. The Roybal lab uses engineering to develop the next generation of immune therapeutics. Her projects focus on utilizing high throughput libraries to enhance the natural capabilities of immune cells in the context of cancer and autoimmunity. More specifically, Camillia’s intern Jelena Vukovic has been working on a project to reengineer primary human Tregs through the use of newly developed receptors to become drug delivery systems that are able to locally and stably suppress autoreactive immune responses. This project will improve our understanding of the important components of immune suppression within autoreactivity and will create translatable therapeutics for future applications within the clinic.

Jamie is a third year postdoctoral scholar in Jim Wells’ lab in the Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department. Jamie received his graduate training at UNC-Chapel Hill where he studied the biochemistry of blood coagulation. Here at UCSF Jamie uses proteomics and protein engineering to study T cell biology, particularly with respect to how T cells interact with the tumor microenvironment. The overarching goal of his work is to identify ways of enhancing T cell function in and around tumors. Along with Susanna Elledge, he is co-mentoring Miko Mallari on a project that aims to use bioconjugation techniques to design new formats of bispecific T cell engagers to target T cells to tumors.

En Cai is a postdoctoral researcher in Matthew Krummel's lab in the Department of Pathology at UCSF. Her research interest is to use advanced imaging techniques to understand the cellular and molecular mechanism of T cell signaling. Her current project focuses on understanding how T cells detect antigens through topological and molecular search. En's CCSF intern, Jeffrey Rong, worked on a project investigating how T cells distribute their receptors over membrane protrusions during antigen recognition.

Jiapei is a fourth-year Biomedical Sciences graduate student in Dr. Eric Huang’s laboratory. The Huang Lab studies glia-neuron and glia-glia interactions in the developing and aging brains. Jiapei is studying how the brain’s resident immune cells, microglia, can regulate the development of neurons and blood vessels in the prenatal brain. To this end, the lab has generated several mouse models, including the maternal immune activation (MIA) model, to study how an activated immune system can lead to abnormal brain development. Jiapei’s CCSF intern, Shaila Hedge, has been analyzing microglial and neuronal phenotypes in MIA mouse embryos. This project will help uncover further details on the role of microglia in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Patrick Dolan, PhD, is an NIH-NIAID K99 Transition-to-Independence Fellow in Raul Andino’s Laboratory at UCSF. His research focuses on the evolution of viral pathogens including enteroviruses (like poliovirus and Coxsackievirus) and flaviviruses (like dengue and Zika). He uses computational and experimental techniques to understand the biological and physical forces that shape the evolution of these viruses. Patrick is excited to host Zamira Nasonkin as a CCSF intern. Zamira is developing a pipeline to generate and screen libraries of mutant proteins to better characterize the effects of mutation on viral proteins and facilitate future drug and vaccine development.

Susanna is a 5th year graduate student in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology graduate program and works in Jim Wells’ lab. Her project focuses on expanding antibody therapeutic and diagnostics possibilities through bioconjugation methods. In particular, she has worked on site-specific conjugation methods utilizing the amino acid methionine as a reactive handle on proteins. Susanna and Jamie are co-mentoring Miko Mallari on a project using methionine and cysteine based bioconjugation methods to make finely tuned bispecific antibodies that activate T-cells to attack cancer cells.

Ben Guthrie (he/him) is a postdoctoral scholar with Peter Turnbaugh at UCSF who is interested in the interaction between ligands and proteins and how that interaction modulates physiological response in the context of the human microbiome. He is now studying the ways in which the microbiome affects the pharmacology of drugs on the biochemical level to unravel the varied patient outcomes that are observed. A passionate mentor and teacher, he has taught lab and lecture courses at the university level as well as designed curricula to reach populations of students who are underrepresented in the life sciences. Aliyah Peterson, Ben’s CCSF intern, is helping to biochemically characterize a diverse set of chemotherapeutic-degrading enzymes from different bacteria associated with the human microbiome.

Nicholas Hanne is a postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Ralph Marcucio's Laboratory. The Marcucio Laboratory has elucidated how biochemical signaling centers regulate healthy facial development. Nicholas will extend this line of research by determining physical contributions to facial morphogenesis. He is utilizing techniques to generate spatial maps of mechanical properties across the developing face at the molecular, cellular, and tissue level. Alteration of the biomechanical environment during development may contribute to craniofacial dysmorphologies such as cleft lip and palate. CCSF intern Charlie Allen is helping Nicholas with manual analysis and developing code that will automate this analysis.

Nerissa is a neuroscience graduate student in Dr. Devanand Manoli’s laboratory. The Manoli lab uses prairie voles, which form monogamous pair-bonds, as a model organism to investigate the neural basis of social behaviors. Nerissa studies the role of neural responses to vocal communication between prairie voles in the process of forming a pair-bond. CCSF intern Denis Galo has been working with Nerissa to identify brain regions that selectively respond to vocal stimuli using molecular markers of neural activity. This project involves validating techniques and materials in voles, learning histological methods, and quantification of marker-expressing cells in brain tissue.

Nikos is an Assistant Professional Researcher and a Principal Investigator at the UCSF Brain and Spinal Injury Center of the Department of Neurological Surgery. He got his Integrated Master's degree on Biological Applications and Technology in Greece and his PhD on molecular neurobiology from the International Max Planck Research School in Dresden, Germany. His research interests are the identification of molecular signatures after neurotrauma (traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries) both in the central nervous system and the periphery. These molecular signatures are being used as biomarkers but also as targets for therapeutic interventions. Nikos' CCSF Intern, Kenneth Fond, will work on a prospective clinical study called TRACK-SCI (Transforming Research And Clinical Knowledge for Spinal Cord Injury), on which Nikos is a Co-Investigator, and try to identify acute care clinical variables as well as blood gene expression profiles that predict whether a spinal cord injury patient will develop chronic neuropathic pain 6- and 12-months post injury.

Yanxin is an associate specialist in David Agard’s lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF. He received his PhD in physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research interest is to mechanistically understand how molecular chaperones mediate protein folding and maturation. To answer this question, he utilized an integrative approach that combines biochemistry, structural biology, and computational modeling. Previously he has served as a mentor for three CCSF interns, including Nicolas Delaeter who won the internship poster award in Fall 2019 (read their story here). Yanxin is hosting Annie Chu as an intern this semester to investigate how SARS-CoV-2 hijacks the human molecular chaperone system during virus infection.

Cecilia is a postdoctoral scholar and microbiome scientist in the Turnbaugh lab at UCSF. She uses a combination of experimental and computational tools to study the metabolism and ecology of human gut microbes, with a current focus on the species Eggerthella lenta, which has distinctive metabolic capabilities and is linked to human disease. CCSF intern Lu Guo is working with Cecilia to analyze the population structure of E. lenta genomes assembled from a global collection of microbiome datasets.

Manuel is a postdoctoral researcher in the Ou lab, part of the Ophthalmology department at UCSF. His research interests are the determinants of neurodegenerative diseases and potential therapeutic interventions. He completed his MD and PhD training in Buenos Aires University. There, he studied neurodegenerative diseases of the outer retina with a focus on therapeutic strategies. At UCSF, Manuel is trying to understand how synaptic disassembly occurs and how different types of neurons are affected in glaucoma in animal models and humans. His studies comprise biochemical, functional and morphological techniques. Manuel’s CCSF intern, Manuel Cardona, will work on the effects of a therapeutic agent on neuronal death in an animal model of glaucoma.

Li is a postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Arnold Kriegstein’s lab at UCSF. He is interested in understanding the complex and dynamic process of human brain development. Currently, he is studying the genetic and epigenetic regulatory mechanisms of neural differentiation and synapse development in the human cerebral cortex using single-cell genomic and proteomic approaches. Li’s intern, Brandon Ho, worked on investigating the role of an ASD-associated chromatin regulator in prenatal human neural progenitor proliferation and differentiation using primary tissue culture systems.

Wanpeng is a postdoctoral scholar in Tom Kornberg’s lab at UCSF. He is interested in filopodia mediated cell-cell signaling that guides organ development. Using the Drosophila trachea as a genetic system, Wanpeng combines genomics, proteomics and imaging techniques to investigate the cell surface proteins that guide trachea development. Wanpeng will work together with his CCSF intern, Yingshan Bi to generate CRISPR knock-in fluorescent or degron tags for trachea surface proteins to further elucidate how cells communicate through filopodia and develop new trachea.