People

Sanjeev Datar, MD, PhD

Professor, Pediatrics
Associate Director
Physician-Scientist Career Development Program (PSCDP)

Dr. Sanjeev Datar is a critical care specialist who cares for children in the intensive care units, including cardiac intensive care.  Dr. Datar's research, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health, is focused on better understanding how the lymphatic vasculature works in health and disease. Specifically, he is studying new ways to support and improve lymphatic function in the lungs of patients with congenital heart disease.

Alexandra Nelson, MD, PhD

Associate Professor, Neurology
Program Director
Physician-Scientist Career Development Program (PSCDP)

Dr. Nelson cares for patients with disorders that affect both movement and cognition, such as Huntington's disease, spinocerebellar ataxia and atypical parkinsonism. She also works closely with her patients' families. She is a member of the clinical and research team at UCSF's Memory and Aging Center and Huntington's Disease Clinic, designated a center of excellence by the Huntington's Disease Society of America.

Catherine Smith, MD

Associate Professor, Medicine, Hematology-Oncology
Associate Director
Physician-Scientist Career Development Program (PSCDP)

Dr. Catherine Smith is a hematologist-oncologist who cares for patients with acute leukemia and myeloproliferative neoplasms (blood cancers that occur when the body overproduces one of the blood cell types). She specializes in acute myeloid leukemia (also known as acute myelogenous leukemia or AML), a cancer of the blood and bone marrow that spreads rapidly. She has a particular interest in treating AML patients who have mutations in the FLT3 gene, which is involved in leukemia cell growth, division and survival and is a factor that may be useful in making a prognosis.

James Bayrer, MD, PhD

Assoc Professor in Residence
Pediatrics

As a pediatric gastroenterologist and physician scientist, I am keenly aware of the challenges faced by our pediatric population. The intestinal epithelium comprises the human body’s greatest environmentally exposed surface and is the largest sensory and endocrine organ. My research utilizes human intestinal organoids and animal models to understand how the intestine senses and responds to both regular and inflammatory stimuli.

Joshua Berke, PhD

Professor in Residence
Neurology

Josh Berke's laboratory at UCSF investigates brain mechanisms involved in learning, motivation and decision-making, and how these mechanisms go awry in disorders such as drug addiction, Parkinson's Disease and Huntington's Disease. (see www.berkelab.org). He is also Director of the Alcohol and Addiction Research Group, and holds the Rudi Schmid Distinguished Professorship in Neurology.

Joel Ernst, MD

Professor and Chief
Physician-Scientist Career Development Program Council Member
Medicine

The goal of my research is to provide the mechanistic basis for development of effective vaccines against tuberculosis.

Margaret Feeney, MD

Professor
Pediatrics

Dr. Feeney is a Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Global Health at UCSF. She is the Principal Investigator of several NIH-funded projects focused on the immune response to malaria and CMV in infants and children. Dr. Feeney is board certified in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and provides clinical care for children with complex infections at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, where she also teaches students and housestaff.

Ying-Hui Fu, PhD

Professor
Physician-Scientist Career Development Program Council Member
Neurology

Dr. Fu’s research uses human genetics combined with multiple model organisms to investigate molecular mechanisms of human conditions. Her laboratory has been focusing on two areas: one in myelin biology and the other in circadian rhythm and sleep behaviors. For myelin biology, they investigate the interlocking networks of protein-coding genes and non-coding RNAs in ensuring a healthy myelin. For circadian and sleep behaviors, over the last 15 years, she and her colleagues identified several mutations that lead to extreme morning lark phenotype.

John Greenland, MD, PhD

Associate Professor in Residence
Physician-Scientist Career Development Program Council Member
Medicine

Dr. Greenland is an Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and Staff Physician at the San Francisco VA Health Care System. He received his undergraduate degree from Stanford and completed his PhD through the Harvard graduate program in Virology. He received an MD from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology.

Suneil Koliwad, MD, PhD

Professor in Residence
Medicine

Dr. Suneil Koliwad is an Endocrinologist and an Expert in Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism. His lab focuses on the intersection of nutrition, inflammation, and metabolic tissue function in the context of normal physiology, and diseases such as obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease, and in the course of aging. His group strives to link basic mechanisms of metabolic regulation to causality in clinical patients, and has developed a highly innovative and deeply curated multiethnic obesity cohort at UCSF to assist in achieving this goal.

Lennart Mucke, MD

Professor in Residence
Neurology

Areas of investigation
We study processes that result in memory loss and other major neurological deficits, with an emphasis on Alzheimerís disease (AD) and related neurodegenerative disorders. Our long-term goal is to advance the understanding of the healthy and the diseased central nervous system to a point where rational strategies can be developed for the prevention and cure of these conditions.

Ken Nakamura, MD, PhD

Professor in Residence
Physician-Scientist Career Development Program Council Member
Neurology

Dr. Ken Nakamura is a neurologist who specializes in diagnosing and treating patients with Parkinson’s disease at the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Clinic. He also runs a research laboratory at the Gladstone Institutes, where he investigates how disruptions of mitochondria—the “power centers” of cells that convert nutrients into energy—contribute to the development and progression of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

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