REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - Key Persons
Denoising of hyperpolarized 13 C MR images of the human brain using patch-based higher-order singular value decomposition.
Job Titles:
- Department of Orthopaedic
- HIVE Director
- Professor in Res
I am a mechanical engineer and bioengineer. My laboratory studies interactions between microbes, musculoskeletal tissues and materials. We are currently studying the effects of the gut microbiome on the musculoskeletal system and the success of orthopaedic surgery. Additionally we are studying mechanobiology of bacteria and advancing the new field of Engineered Living Materials.
Dole NS, Mazur CM, Acevedo C, Lopez JP, Monteiro DA, Fowler TW, Gludovatz B, Walsh F, Regan JN, Messina S, Evans DS, Lang TF, Zhang B, Ritchie RO, Mohammad KS, Alliston T
Dr. Edward Chang is Professor of Neurological Surgery and co-Director of the Center for Neural Engineering at UC Berkeley and San Francisco. Dr. Chang's clinical expertise is surgical therapies for intractable epilepsy, trigeminal neuralgia, pain, hemifacial spasm, and adult brain tumors. He specializes in advanced neurophysiologic brain mapping methods, including awake speech and motor mapping, to safely perform neurosurgical procedures in eloquent areas of the brain. Dr. Chang was awarded the 2015 Blavatnik National Laureate in Life Sciences and is a Bowes Biomedical Investigator in 2018.
Dr. Jeffrey Lotz, Ph.D., holds the David S. Bradford, MD, Endowed Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery and vice chair for research. He has earned several awards for spine research, and serves as a deputy editor for the journal, Spine. Dr. Lotz is the founding director of the UCSF Core Center for Musculoskeletal Biology in Medicine and the NSF Center for Disruptive Musculoskeletal Innovations, and corresponding PI for the newly established Center for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Tissue and Organ Regeneration (C-DOCTOR). He has expertise in spine biomechanics, intervertebral disc biology, and tissue engineering.
Dr. Lotz's laboratory work focuses on identifying mechanisms of disc degeneration, developing novel diagnostics and therapies for low back pain, and the biomechanics of spinal instrumentation. He earned a doctorate degree in Medical Engineering from the Harvard/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering Design from Stanford University, and Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley.
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor
- Assistant
Dr. Jeremy Gordon earned a PhD in Medical Physics from the University of Wisconsin. He was a postdoctoral scholar at UCSF (2013-2016), followed by a role as senior development engineer (2016-2020) in the UCSF Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging.
Dr. Gordon's research uses advanced imaging techniques to provide physiologic and metabolic information with MRI, with a focus on the development o novel and rapid acquisition strategies and reconstruction methods for spectroscopic imaging on preclinical and clinical systems. These methods are applied to prostate cancer research, other cancers and metabolic diseases.
Dr. Gordon is an author of over 55 peer-reviewed publications and is a distinguished reviewer for the journal Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.
Dr. Seth Shipman's research focuses on cellular systems in the midst of change. His lab seeks to better understand how the order of transcriptional events during development can drive changes in cell fate, and to better intervene in diseases characterized by change, like progressive neurodegeneration and cancer. His lab takes a molecular engineering approach, leveraging the versatility of DNA as a programmable biological polymer to gather data without destroying cells, and deliver therapeutics that can modify their effect based on cell context.
Dr. Shipman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences at UCSF and an Assistant Investigator in the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology. He received his undergraduate degree in Neuroscience from Wesleyan University, his PhD in Neuroscience from UCSF, and completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School with George Church and Jeffrey Macklis. His postdoctoral work was in the top 30 most discussed articles of the year as ranked by Altmetric and was named as one of the top 25 stories of the year by Discover Magazine. He was a Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation, received a Bridge to Independence Award from the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, and was recently named a DARPA Riser and one of 10 early- to mid-career scientists to watch by Science News (the SN10).
Dr. Shuvo Roy is a UCSF bioengineer working on the world's first implantable bio-artificial kidney. His focus is on medical device development to address unmet clinical needs by leveraging his background in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) along with advances in biomaterials, electronics, and nanotechnology to advance health worldwide. He is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences and the Director of the Biodesign Laboratory, along with an adjunct appointment in the Department of Surgery. In addition, Dr. Roy serves as the Technical Director of The Kidney Project and is a founding member of the FDA-supported UCSF-Stanford Pediatric Device Consortium.
Dr. Sunita Ho is a bioengineer who focuses on studies related to biomineralization, biomechanics, and biomaterials. She is a Professor in the Department of Urology, School of Medicine, and in the Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences (PRDS), School of Dentistry. Dr. Ho focuses on site-specific interventions to mitigate the beginnings of pathologic formations of biomaterials in humans. She investigates the regenerative aspects of soft and hard tissue attachments within craniofacial and musculoskeletal joints. Using biomechanics and mechanobiological approaches, Dr. Ho maps the special and temporal aspects of "mechano-responsiveness."
Dr. Tamara Alliston is a Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and is co-Director of the Skeletal Biology Core of the Center of Musculoskeletal Biology and Medicine. Her research focuses on the mechanobiologic pathways controlling stem cell and skeletal cell differentiation in bone and cartilage, seeking to understand how these pathways maintain the mechanical integrity of the healthy skeleton, and how this is disrupted in skeletal diseases like arthritis and osteoporosis. In particular, she studies the mechanobiology of TGFß in the skeleton. She combines molecular, cellular, physiologic, bioengineering, and materials science approaches to advance therapies that can prevent skeletal disease and improve the speed and success of skeletal tissue regeneration. She completed her undergraduate degree in Biology at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and earned her doctoral degree in Cell Biology from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
Job Titles:
- Professor and Director of Brain Interface Technology
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor in Res
Job Titles:
- Torres AM, Ominsky MS, Hernandez CJ
The Kutys Lab spans disciplinary boundaries between cell biology and engineering to investigate tissue morphogenic processes associated with human development, regeneration and disease. Ultimately, we are interested in uncovering fundamental molecular and mechanical mechanisms that conspire across time and length scales to organize and shape human tissues. To do so, we develop microfluidic, biomimetic human tissue models that recapitulate 3D in vivo architectures, microenvironments, cellular heterogeneity, and morphogenic behaviors that can be examined mechanistically by biochemical and cell biological approaches. Combined with advanced microscopy, cellular and molecular engineering, and 'omic' technologies, our multidisciplinary approach allows us to model, control, and dissect complex multicellular behaviors at a level previously only accessible in vivo. Our lab broadly investigates how biochemical and mechanical signals at cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix adhesions are coordinated across biological scales (molecules to cells to tissues) to maintain normal tissue structure or drive pathology.
Mekhail Anwar, M.D., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco, with expertise in electrical engineering focusing on integrated circuits and micro-fabricated sensors for cancer imaging with a clinical practice in Radiation Oncology specializing in the multimodality treatment of malignancies using focal, targeted radiation therapy.
Dr. Anwar has over 13 years of experiences developing micro-fabricated devices for biomedical applications. Educated at UC Berkeley in Physics, where he was awarded the University Medal as the top graduating senior, he completed his medical degree at UC San Francisco, and went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where his Ph.D. in electrical engineering focused on using micro-fabricated devices and integrated circuits for biological detection. He has several first author publications spanning integrated circuits, imaging, and protein arrays. His clinical interest in oncology is using new techniques in imaging to guide therapeutic intervention, and he has clinical research efforts in, pancreatic, liver and prostate cancer as well as glioblastoma. His research focus is fundamentally guided by where innovations in diagnostic and treatment technologies can most benefit patient care.
Dr. Cong is currently Margaret Liu Collins and Edward B. Collins Professor and Director of Brain Interface Technology, Department of Neurological Surgery at University of California San Francisco (UCSF). His work is aimed at translational brain computer interface (BCI) and implantable neuromodulation technologies to address complex neurological disorders, including depression, ALS, and impacts of stroke.
Dr. Cong is an accomplished device engineering leader with significant industry experience in the realm of brain computer interface (BCI) and implantable neuromodulation. He joins UCSF from Google's Verily, where, for more than six years, he has held leading positions in neuromodulation, spearheading a number of engineering projects, where he initiated, led and completed overall implantable system development for Galvani Bioelectronics, a $715M joint venture between Google and GSK representing one of the world's first bioelectronics systems. The system received FDA IDE approval with the first chronic implant in early 2022. Prior to his work at Verily, Dr. Cong was a Principal Engineer at Medtronic, where he made major contributions to neuromodulation by leading ASIC and electronics platform development for next-generation brain-interfacing implantable devices, including the sensing-enabled Active PC+S, Summit RC+S brain stimulation device, and Percept device, which was commercially released in the market in 2020.
Dr. Cong received his bachelor's degree in Physics (Semiconductor Technology) from Shandong University, a master's degree in Microelectronics from Tsinghua University, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. He is an Associate Editor for IEEE transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems and a Guest Editor for IEEE Journal Solid-State Circuits. He served on the technical program committee for the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference and the European Solid-State Circuits Conference. He also served in panels for NIH (Nation Institute of Health) to review Brain Initiative proposals since 2014.
We are a research team at the University of California, San Francisco where we investigate the role of advanced computational tools in understanding brain functions and its related disorders. More specifically, our research program revolves around the development of interpretable machine learning tools to (1) integrate multi-modal data collected from the brain (and body) in both microscopic and macroscopic resolutions, (2) predict functions of biological systems in different resolutions, and (3) determine the functional differences across neurological disorders.
Job Titles:
- Asst Professor in Residence
Job Titles:
- Husain K, Gartner ZJ, Mayor S, Vale RD
Dissecting the stem cell niche with organoid models: an engineering-based approach.
Job Titles:
- Professor
- Professor at the Department of Bioengineering
Tejal Desai is a professor at the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences within the Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF); the director of the NIH training grant for the Joint Graduate Program in Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and UCSF; and the founding director of the UCSF/UC Berkeley Master's Program in Translational Medicine.
Dr. Desai's lab focuses in the area of biomedical micro and nanotechnology for therapeutic delivery. Professor Desai's research spans multiple disciplines including materials engineering, cell biology, tissue engineering, and pharmacological delivery systems to address issues concerning disease and clinical translation. She has published over 220 peer-reviewed articles, holds numerous patents, and is currently the founder of five start-up companies.
Her research efforts have earned recognition including Technology Review's "Top 100 Young Innovators," and Popular Science's Brilliant 10. Some of her other honors include the Dawson Biotechnology award, and both the UC Berkeley and Brown University Distinguished Engineering Alumni awards. Recently, she was named Chair of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows. In 2015, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Desai received her B.S. from Brown University in biomedical engineering and was awarded a Ph.D. in bioengineering jointly from UCSF and UCB.
Dr. Weaver is a professor in the Department of Surgery and the director of the Center for Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration. Her research focuses on the contribution of force, cell-intrinsic as well as extracellular matrix, to oncogenesis and tumor development. Dr. Weaver and her lab employ 2- and 3-D in-vitro cell culture techniques, clinical samples and animal models with force application techniques, traction force and atomic force microscopy to assess the influence of the mechanical aspects of the cell environment on cell behavior and tumor progression.
Dr. Weaver earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry/Chemistry at the University of Waterloo in 1985, and added an Honors Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, summa cum laude, from the University of Ottawa. She earned her doctorate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Ottawa in 1992.
Job Titles:
- Mendelsohn AD, Seerke R, Desai TA, German
Job Titles:
- Asst Professor in Residence
Vasilis Ntranos obtained his PhD in Electrical Engineering from USC in 2015, working on network information theory problems and their applications in data storage and wireless communications. After his graduate studies, Vasilis moved his focus to computational biology and machine learning, completing his postdoctoral training in EECS and Biological Engineering, working with Lior Pachter and David Tse at UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Caltech.
Vasilis joined UCSF in November 2019, where he is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and the Diabetes Center. He is a member of the BMS, and BMI Graduate Programs and his lab is affiliated with the Dept. of Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences, the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, and HIVE (Health Innovation via Engineering). Vasilis' main research interests are in computational methods development at the intersection of information theory, genomics, and machine learning, with a primary focus on single cell biology and alternative splicing.
Job Titles:
- Park KY, Keegan PM, Platt MO
Dr. Zev Gartner is a Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and is co-Director of the UCSF-based, multi-institution Center for Cellular Construction. He graduated from UC Berkeley and earned his PhD in Chemistry from Harvard University in 2004. He is working to understand how cells assemble into multicellular tissues; how the structure of tissues coordinate the behavior of individual cells; and how changes to tissue structure drive the progression of diseases like cancer. Toward these goals, he and his lab build, perturb, and model human tissues in vitro using techniques from the chemical, engineering, physical and biological sciences.