Meet our members!
Joanna Balcerek, MD, PhD
UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine
Dr Balcerek is a physician-scientist trainee in the Department of Laboratory Medicine. She earned her MD from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. She then completed a residency in Laboratory Medicine and the Herbert Perkins Cellular Therapy and Transfusion Medicine Fellowship at UCSF, and recently became board certified in both. During her Fellowship, Dr Balcerek helped develop a robotic cluster for cell therapy manufacturing. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow within Dr. Ari Molofsky’s group in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, working on tissue immune cells in the setting of chronic inflammation. Her professional goals are to leverage those insights into developing cellular therapeutics for treatment of cardiovascular disease.
Michael P. Busch, MD, PhD
Director and Senior VP (Vitalant Research Institute), Professor (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
Dr. Busch is a Professor of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the UCSB, and his MS, MD and PhD degrees from the USC and completed his residency at UCSF. He has played leadership roles in multiple national multi-center research studies funded by NIH and CDC contracts and has directed numerous NIH and CDC grant-funded studies based at the Research Institute and conducted in collaboration with UCSF, UCB and other national and international institutions. His research interests include the epidemiology, natural history, pathogenesis, and laboratory evaluation of transfusion-associated infections, blood safety implications of new and emerging viruses, and immunological consequences of transfusion. Dr. Busch is focused on a wide spectrum of transfusion-transmitted infectious diseases and immunological complications to enhance blood safety and to capitalize on the unique opportunities for natural history and pathogenesis research derived from identification of research subjects as a result of large-scale blood and plasma donor screening.
Carolyn S. Calfee, MD, MAS
Professor (UCSF Depts of Medicine and Anesthesia)
Carolyn S. Calfee, MD MAS is Professor of Medicine and Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco, where she attends in the medical intensive care unit. She received her medical degree from University of Pennsylvania and completed her residency, chief residency, and fellowship at University of California, San Francisco. Her primary academic focus is the pathogenesis and treatment of the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and sepsis, with special interest in molecular phenotypes and precision medicine in critical care, the role of environmental exposures in acute lung injury, and novel treatments for ARDS and sepsis.
Charles Chiu, MD, PhD
Professor (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
Charles Chiu, M.D./Ph.D. is a Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at University of California, San Francisco, Director of the UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center (VDDC), and Associate Director of the UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, He is a board-certified consulting infectious diseases physician at UCSF, and practices in both infectious diseases and clinical microbiology. Dr. Chiu obtained an MD and PhD in biophysics from UCLA and subsequently completed an internal medicine residency, infectious diseases fellowship, and postdoctoral research at UCSF. He heads a translational research laboratory engaged in clinical next-generation sequencing assay development for diagnosis of infectious diseases, pathogen discovery, bioinformatics software development, nanopore sequencing, and characterization of emerging infections (Lyme disease, enterovirus D68, and Zika virus). His work is supported by research grants from the NIH, Abbott Laboratories, Bay Area Lyme Disease Foundation, Global Lyme Alliance, USAID PREDICT program, UC Center for Accelerated Innovation, Sandler / Bowes Foundation, and California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine. Dr. Chiu has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, holds over 15 patents and patent applications, and serves on the scientific advisory board for Therabio, Karius, and Rubicon Genomics.
Laurence Corash, MD
Senior VP and Chief Scientific Officer at Cerus Corp. (Cerus)
Laurence Corash, M.D. is Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Cerus Corporation, which he founded in 1992. He is a Professor of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he served for 15 years as Chief of the Clinical Laboratory Hematology Service. He has published more than 200 original research papers in peer reviewed journals in the field of hematology and transfusion medicine. Dr. Corash graduated from New York University School of Medicine and completed Internal Medicine training at Bellevue Hospital, New York, NY. He was a Research Associate at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Bethesda, MD (1971-73) and completed training in Hematology and Hematology-Pathology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Clinical Center. From 1977 to 1981 he served as Assistant Chief, Hematology Service at the NIH Clinical Center. He is Board Certified in Medicine, Hematology, and Hematology-Pathology. Dr. Corash has collaborated with scientists in academic institutions and government agencies throughout the US and abroad, as well as colleagues at Cerus on research in blood cell aging and technology for inactivation of infectious pathogens in blood components, and he has directed the development of technology for the inactivation of pathogens in labile blood components. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator of a contract from the US Department of Health and Human Services to complete development of the INTERCEPT Blood System for Red Blood Cells. He is the Principal Investigator on a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop freeze dried pathogen reduced fibrinogen complex. He also leads the Convalescent Plasma for Emerging Pathogens Consortium to develop convalescent plasma for the COVID-19 pandemic. The INTERCEPT pathogen inactivation system for preparation of platelets, plasma, fibrinogen complex that he developed is in use by more than 300 blood centers around the world.
Kyle Cromer, PhD
Assistant Professor (UCSF Dept. of Surgery)
The research interest of our lab lies at the intersection of CRISPR-based genome editing and cell engineering with special focus on hematopoietic stem cells and red blood cells. Our mission is to close the gap between synthetic biology and the clinic in order to address current bottlenecks in treating the hemoglobinopathies and other hematopoietic disorders. In our work, we think about the genome as computer code. In the instance of disease, the code is somehow broken. While we can correct disease-causing typos, we believe there is untapped potential to cure disease by engineering novel properties into cells. Therefore, all of our work in some way attempts to answer the question - if you could introduce new code to any cell in the body, what would you write and where?
Joseph Cuschieri, MD
Professor (UCSF Depts. of Surgery & Laboratory Medicine), Chief of Surgery and Trauma Medical Director (ZSFG)
Dr. Cuschieri currently serves as Principal Investigator, Co-Principle investigator, or Co-Investigator on 3 federally funded grants and has authored or co-authored over 170 peer-reviewed articles and more than 10 book chapters. His national service includes active participation in major trauma, critical care, and surgical societies including the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma and the Society of Surgical Critical Care Program Directors. He also serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. Joseph Cuschieri earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan, and his Medical Degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine. He completed his general surgery residence and surgical critical care fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. Upon completion of his clinical training, he completed a 2-year NIH T32 Fellowship in the field of Trauma/Burn/Inflammation.
Christopher Dvorak, MD
Professor and Chief (UCSF Depts. Of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and BMT)
Christopher C. Dvorak, MD is Professor of Pediatrics, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, & Bone Marrow Transplantation at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and Director of the FACT-Accredited Pediatric Cellular Therapy Laboratory for UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals. He is a Member of the Helen Diller Family Cancer Center and of the UCSF Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research. He is the national Co-PI of the Primary Immunodeficiency Treatment Consortium (PIDTC) and Co-Chair of the Non-Malignant Diseases Working Committee in the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant. He is also Chair of the Cancer Control and Supportive Care Committee of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), and a past Chair of the Supportive Care Strategy Group of the Pediatric Transplant and Cellular Therapy Consortium (PTCTC). He has served as the Principal Investigator for several multi-center clinical trials in the COG, PTCTC, and PIDTC. His expertise is in designing clinical trials aimed at decreasing transplant-related morbidity/mortality, as well as optimizing approaches to transplant for very young children, especially those with immunodeficiencies.
Huimin Geng, PhD
Associate Professor (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
Dr. Geng is a faculty member at Laboratory Medicine, UCSF, and a member of UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Geng earned her PhD in Bioinformatics at University of Nebraska Medical Center and her MS in Computer Science at University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her research is focused on functional genomics, proteomics and epigenomics of hematologic malignancies (including lymphoma, leukemia, and multiple myeloma), based on computational and statistical analysis of large-scale data derived from next-generation sequencing and high-throughput array technologies. Recently, Dr. Geng has expanded her research field to transfusion medicine, collaborating with Dr. Pati on bioinformatic analysis related to traumatic brain injury and human platelet products.
Petros Giannikopoulos, MD
Assistant Adjunct Professor (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
I am a Principal Investigator at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) at UC Berkeley and an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF. My research focuses on developing molecular diagnostic assays to accelerate the advancement of CRISPR-based genomic therapies and supporting the implementation of precision editing for rare genetic disorders in the clinic. Currently, I serve as the director of the IGI's Interventional Genomics Unit, the IGI Clinical Laboratory, and the institute's next generation sequencing (NGS) platform. I obtained my MD from Harvard Medical School, completed my internship and anatomic pathology training at University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and completed fellowships in pediatric and molecular genetic pathology at Baylor College of Medicine and Harvard Medical School, respectively.
https://innovativegenomics.org/
https://innovativegenomics.org/igu/
Rachael Jackman, PhD
Associate Professor - UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine, Associate Investigator - Vitalant Research Institute
My long-term research goals are to improve our understanding of the wide range of immune consequences to allogeneic exposure and to identify methods to modulate these responses to protect against alloimmunization and rejection. Using our novel transfusion models alongside clinical samples from a range of alloexposed patients, our goal is to identify the mechanisms involved in regulating the alloresponse, evaluate protective approaches, and determine how these responses may vary in different types of patients. I completed my undergraduate training at the University of California, Berkeley in molecular and cell biology, and my Ph.D. at Yale University in immunobiology with Dr. Kim Bottomly.
Omar Khan, MD, PhD - Clinical Fellow
Chief Resident and Herbert Perkins Cellular Therapy & Transfusion Medicine Fellow (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
I completed my medical training at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and my PhD studies in Dr. John Wherry’s laboratory, where I focused on elucidating the transcription and epigenetic factors required for the differentiation of T cells in the context of chronic viral infection and cancer. More recently, I served as the Director of Immunology at ArsenalBio, a synthetic immunology company working to develop the next generation of programmable cell therapies for applications in oncology. Now, as a Clinical Fellow in Cellular Therapy and Transfusion Medicine at UCSF, my interests lie at the intersection of fundamental T cell immunology and synthetic biology with a key goal being to rapidly translate discovery research to bedside therapeutics. I am currently focused on optimizing mRNA-based immune cell engineering approaches to improve the safety, cost, and applicability of cellular therapies.
Lucy Z. Kornblith, MD
Associate Professor (UCSF Depts. Of Surgery & Laboratory Medicine)
Lucy Zumwinkle Kornblith, M.D. is an Associate Professor of Surgery and of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Her clinical practice includes trauma surgery, surgical critical care, and acute care surgery. She is a surgeon scientist focused on translational investigations in the field of post-injury platelet biology and platelet genomics, supported by the National Institutes of Health and the United States Department of Defense. Due to her role in coagulation biology, Dr. Kornblith has been instrumental in the National Institutes of Health funded Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) IV (coagulation) Program, for rapid advancement of therapeutics for COVID-19. Additionally, Dr. Kornblith is active in supporting efforts focused on the advancement of women surgeons, and is the University of California, San Francisco Department of Surgery Director for Gender Equity and co-chairs the Muriel Steele Society, an inclusive community dedicated to inspiring, supporting, and promoting women surgeons so they can thrive at all stages of their careers.
Mark Looney, MD
Professor (UCSF Depts. of Medicine, and Laboratory Medicine)
Mark Looney is a Professor of Medicine and Laboratory Medicine at UCSF. He completed medical school at the University of Tennessee and Internal Medicine residency and a Pulmonary/Critical Care fellowship at UCSF. He leads a laboratory investigating mechanisms of immune-mediated pulmonary injury and the hematopoietic potential of the lung.
Clifford Lowell, MD, PhD
Professor and Chair (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
Our laboratory studies signal transduction in innate immune cells using knockout mouse models. We have focused on tyrosine kinases, signaling adapter proteins and calcium sensors in neutrophils, macrophages and dendritic cells. Our major findings have illuminated the function of Src-family and Syk kinases in immune responses to various pathogens as well as in immune mediated diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosis and rheumatoid arthritis. We have also studied tyrosine phosphatases that down regulate these same signaling pathways, primarily in the setting of inflammatory diseases of the lung and skin. Future studies will involve studies of innate cells in inflammatory bowel disease models as well as during fungal infections, using genetically mutant mice. Overall, our goal is to elucidate how intracellular signaling pathways are affected in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases with the objective of providing more rational approaches to treatment of these conditions.
Anthony Luke, MD, MPH
Professor (UCSF Dept. of Orthopaedic Surgery), Director, (UCSF Human Performance Center)
Anthony Luke MD, MPH is the Benioff Distinguished professor in Sports Medicine and the Director of the Human Performance Center at UCSF. He trained in family practice at the University of Toronto followed by a fellowship in sports medicine at Children’s Hospital of Boston and Master’s of Public Health at Harvard. His research interests include in orthobiologics specifically platelet rich plasma injections in knee osteoarthritis, injury prevention in youth sports, running medicine and digital health. He is presently working on a randomized controlled trial investigating the platelet function and proteomic changes following PRP injection in patients with knee osteoarthritis.
Alpa Mahuvakar PhD
Researcher, Molecular Biology (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
I am a Senior Researcher in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, in Dr. Shibani Pati’s laboratory. As a trained molecular and cell biologist, my research at UCSF has focused on neurotrauma, including spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). My research goals have aimed to assess the effect of neuroinflammation on outcomes after trauma, specifically, aimed at vascular dysfunction and neurobehavior after injury. I have tested several cell-based as well as small molecule-based therapeutics with the goal of reducing secondary damage after the primary insult. Currently, I lead all the projects that evaluate the novel blood products in TBI and polytrauma models in the Pati lab.
Emin Maltepe, MD, PhD
Professor (UCSF Depts. of Laboratory Medicine, Pediatrics, and Developmental & Stem Cell Biology)
I am a neonatologist physician-scientist interested in pediatric drug and device development. My main area of expertise is oxygen delivery and the response to hypoxia during development and disease states. As cofounder of The Initiative for Pediatric Drug and Device Development, I have been involved in identifying novel therapies for newborn brain injury, translating oxygen delivery biotherapeutics for ischemic disease states, and investigating novel devices to support neonatal critical care. I received my medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, and have completed an internship, residency, and fellowship in pediatrics/neonatology at UCSF.
Michael Matthay, MD
Professor of Medicine and Anesthesiology (UCSF Dept. of Medicine)
Dr. Matthay's overall focus is on improving clinical care of patients with acute respiratory failure from the acute respiratory distress syndrome and from sepsis. His research and clinical trials groups are very well funded by grants from the National Institute of Health. He also spends considerable time mentoring physicians and young faculty in career development and academic medicine. Dr. Matthay earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. He has also completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Colorado Denver, where he completed a fellowship in cardiovascular-pulmonary medicine. He completed a fellowship in pulmonary disease at UCSF and a cardiology fellowship at the UCSF Cardiovascular Research Institute.
Ari Molofsky, MD, PhD
Associate Professor (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
Dr. Ari Molofsky is an Associate Professor at UCSF in the Department of Laboratory Medicine. Trained as a MD/PhD with a clinical specialization in hematopathology, his primary focus is leading a basic research laboratory that works at the intersection of immunology and tissue homeostasis and pathology. Dr. Molofsky uses foundation models to study organ development and remodeling, with a particular focus on stromal - immune niches, with studies that span brain, lung, liver, adipose tissue, skin, and intestine. Dr. Ari Molofsky is also an affiliate member of the UCSF Microbiology and Immunology Department, ImmunoX Program, Liver Center, Pulmonary Research Group, NeuroImmunology Center for Excellence, and the UCSF Diabetes Center.
Elena Nedelcu, MD
Clinical Professor in Medicine (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
Dr. Elena Nedelcu is the program director of the Herbert Perkins Cellular Therapy and Transfusion Medicine fellowship, and co-director of the Transfusion Medicine Elective and the Cellular Therapy Elective for the 4th year UCSF medical students. She earned her medical degree at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania and completed post-doctoral research in ex vivo expansion of cord blood cells and in utero transplantation of ontogenically diverse stem cells, Clinical Pathology training at Harbor-University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Hematopathology and Cellular Therapy fellowships at UC Davis, and Transfusion Medicine fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is board certified in Clinical Pathology, Hematology-Pathology and Transfusion Medicine and serves in AABB Global Transfusion Forum, Education Committee, The Blood Project Advisory Board, and the quality working group of the International Society for Blood Transfusion. Her main interests are patient safety/medical errors and education in transfusion medicine and cellular therapies. She serves as co-director of education for the Center of Excellence in Translational Research in Cellular Therapy and Transfusion Medicine.
Philip Norris, MD
Professor – UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine, Senior Investigator – Vitalant Research Institute
The Norris lab research interests focus on how the human immune system responds to viral infections and transfusion. Early efforts centered on defining how HIV-specific CD4+ T cells might contribute to control of viral infection. A second area of interest has been defining the earliest events of viral infections through study of subjects with HIV, West Nile virus, and hepatitis viruses. More recent projects include understanding how blood transfusion affects the immune system and modulates immune responses in transfusion recipients, with an emphasis on understanding immune signaling by extracellular vesicles. His lab is also directing several projects to understand the natural history of COVID-19 and how convalescent plasma might modify the disease course.
Shibani Pati, MD. PhD.
Professor (UCSF Departments of Lab Medicine and Surgery) (Director - Center for Research in Transfusion Medicine and Cell Therapies)
Dr. Pati is a translational vascular biologist. Her specific areas of investigation involve the use of stem cells, blood products and novel resuscitative modalities that can mitigate endothelial dysfunction, inflammation and coagulation disturbances in hemorrhage and trauma. Her lab also has research efforts aimed at understanding the mechanisms of vascular compromise in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and novel methods by which to mitigate it, with the intention of impacting patient outcomes. Her recent focus in TBI has been in studying the regenerative properties of novel blood products.
Hilde Schjerven, PhD.
Associate Professor (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
Hilde Schjerven is an Associate Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and a member of UCSF Bakar ImmunoX, the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center (HDFCCC) and the Center for Research in Transfusion Medicine and Cellular Therapies (CTMCT). Dr. Schjerven serves on the leadership team of the Cancer Immunology & Immunotherapy Program of HDFCCC as the Education and Training Liaison. Dr Schjerven leads a research laboratory studying hematopoietic development, blood cell malignancies and immune cell function, focused on the functional consequences of mutations in the transcription factor Ikaros, encoded by the IKZF1 gene. Ikaros is critical for proper regulation of immune cell development (hematopoiesis) and immune cell function, and recurrent mutations in IKZF1 are associated with several diseases, including immuno deficiencies, autoimmunity and leukemia. Current ongoing projects include research to understand how Ikaros regulates hematopoiesis at homeostasis, studies of how Ikaros regulates immune tolerance through its effect on multiple cell types and research to understand the molecular mechanisms of Ikaros tumor suppressor function in progenitor cell leukemia to enable personalized targeted therapies.
Brian Shy, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor in Residence (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
I am an Assistant Professor of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF, Visiting Investigator at the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology, and Director of the UCSF Investigational Cell Therapy Program. My focus is on the development of novel cell and gene therapies for early phase academic trials. I employ genome and epigenome engineering methods to develop new tools, technologies, and manufacturing processes that enable improved cellular therapies for inherited immune disorders, infectious disease, and malignancy. I have developed several methods to enable fully non-viral CRISPR engineering with large therapeutic constructs, established GMP-compatible manufacturing processes to implement these tools, and am helping to drive these approaches towards clinical trials. My laboratory goals are to continue improving these approaches to enable more sophisticated cellular therapies, and to facilitate an integrated academic program that connects the research, manufacturing, and clinical teams necessary to bring promising cell therapy products rapidly to patients.
celltherapy.ucsf.edu, shylab.org, https://gladstone.org/people/brian-shy
Saul Villeda, PhD
Associate Professor (UCSF Dept. of Anatomy)
Dr. Saul Villeda is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Endowed Chair in Biomedical Science at the University of California San Francisco and serves as Associate Director of the Bakar Aging Research Institute. He obtained his B.S. degree from the University of California Los Angeles, his PhD degree in Neuroscience from Stanford University, and started his independent career at the University of California San Francisco as a Sandler Fellow. Dr. Villeda has made the exciting discovery that the aging process in the brain can be reversed by altering levels of circulating factors in blood. Dr. Villeda’s research is best known for the use of innovative heterochronic parabiosis and blood plasma administration approaches to investigate the influence that exposure to young blood-derived or exercise-induced circulating factors has in promoting molecular and cellular changes underlying cognitive rejuvenation. His work has garnered accolades that include a National Institutes of Health Director’s Independence Award, the W.M. Keck Foundation Medical Research Award, the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging, and the McKnight Innovator Award in Cognitive Aging.
Girish Vyas, PhD, FRCPath
Professor (UCSF Dept. of Laboratory Medicine)
Girish N. Vyas, Ph.D. (Univ. of Bombay, 1965), F.R.C.Path. (London, 2012), completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Case-WRU in Cleveland, Ohio in 1967. Then he joined UCSF School of Medicine as a Lecturer in Hematology and Immunology Unit of the Department of Medicine. He moved to Department of Laboratory Medicine as an Assistant Professor and served as Director of Blood Bank at UCSF Medical Center from 1969-89. During his sabbatical leave in 1972-73 he worked as a visiting scientist at Weizmann Institute in Israel and Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Australia. In 1980 he got an American Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to work with Pierre Tiollais on molecular biology of HBV at the Pasteur Institute, Paris. During his four decades of faculty service at UCSF he trained 18 graduate and 46 postdoctoral scholars. His seminal contributions to our current knowledge about IgA deficiency and anaphylactic transfusion reactions, HBsAg structure, HBV vaccine and immune globulins in perinatal prevention of mother to child transmission of infection, screening and elimination of transfusion-transmitted HBV, HCV, HIV to enhance transfusion safety, and sustained commitment to immune prevention of HIV/AIDS. These contributions earned him the honor as a "Pioneer and Pathfinder in Transfusion Medicine" in 2008. He has edited 12 books and monographs and published 225 original papers. He has served on several committees of NAS-NRC, NIH, CDC, FDA, WHO, AABB, ASH, and UNDP and as the Editor-in-Chief of Biological. Currently he is an Emeritus Professor of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF and full-time CEO of TheraBiol, Inc., a start-up biotech company launched in 2012 for R&D of antibodies for prevention and treatment of persistent infections, HIV being the first target. In 2020 all assets of TheraBiol, Inc were assigned to GNVIE LLC, with Vyas serving as the principal.
Aijun Wang, Ph.D.
Chancellor's Fellow Professor of Surgery and of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis)
Dr. Aijun Wang is a Chancellor's Fellow Professor of Surgery and of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). He is the Vice Chair for Translational Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the Department of Surgery, Co-founder and Co-Director of the Center for Surgical Bioengineering (CSB), and the inaugural Dean's Fellow in Entrepreneurship at the UC Davis School of Medicine. He is also a Principal Investigator at the Institute for Pediatric Regenerative Medicine (IPRM) / Shriners Children’s Pediatric Research Center, Northern California. Dr. Wang’s research focuses on developing tools, technologies and products that combine molecular, cellular, tissue and biomaterial engineering to promote tissue regeneration and restore function. Specifically, the Wang Group is focused on engineering stem cell/gene therapy, extracellular vesicles/nanomedicine, and extracellular matrix/biomaterial scaffolds and developing clinically adoptable theranostics for the treatment of neurological and vascular disorders and diseases. Dr. Wang and his team at CSB specialize in bringing therapeutics from bench to bedside, through translational and IND-enabling studies, GMP manufacturing, and conducting clinical trials in both human and companion animal patients. Dr. Wang has been serving as PI on many major grants supported by multiple NIH institutes including NICHD, NINDS, NIBIB, NHLBI, Department of Defense (DOD), the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the University of California Center for Accelerated Innovation (UC-CAI), the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program of California (TRDRP), Shriners Children’s and other foundations. Dr. Wang has filed more than 20 US and international patent applications, published over 170 peer-reviewed papers and has received numerous awards, such as the UC Davis Health Deans’ Team Award for Excellence in Research, Cultivating Team Science Award, UC Davis Chancellor's Fellowship, Deloitte QB3 Award for Innovation, the Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award from the March of Dimes Foundation, the NIH/NHLBI Technology Development Award, the KidneyX: Redesign Dialysis Phase 2 Innovation award from the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Sacramento Region Innovation Award.
Arun Wiita, MD, PhD
Associate Professor (UCSF Depts. Of Laboratory Medicine, and Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences)
Dr. Arun Wiita is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Laboratory Medicine with a joint appointment in the Dept. of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences. Clinically, he is an Assistant Director of the UCSF Cytogenetics Laboratory. He completed his residency in Clinical Pathology and post-doctoral training in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF, his MD and PhD, with graduate training in single molecule biophysics, at Columbia, and his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Princeton.