People

  • Sanjeev Datar, MD, PhD

    Professor, Pediatrics

    Associate Director

    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.

    Leadership

  • Alexandra Nelson, MD, PhD

    Associate Professor, Neurology

    Program Director

    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.

    Leadership

  • Catherine Smith, MD

    Associate Professor, Medicine, Hematology-Oncology

    Associate Director

    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.

    Leadership

  • James Bayrer, MD, PhD

    Assoc Professor in Residence

    M_PEDS-GASTROENTEROLOGY

    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.

    Committee Members

  • Joshua Berke, PhD

    Professor in Residence

    M_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.

    Committee Members

  • Margaret Feeney, MD

    Professor

    M_PEDS-INFECTIOUS DISEASE

    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.

    Committee Members

  • Ying-Hui Fu, PhD

    Professor

    M_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.

    Committee Members

  • John Greenland, MD, PhD

    Associate Professor in Residence

    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.

    Committee Members

  • Suneil Koliwad, MD, PhD

    Professor and Chief

    Medicine

    Dr. Suneil Koliwad is an Expert in Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism, serving as Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at UCSF Health. His lab, based in the UCSF Diabetes Center, 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.

    Committee Members

  • Lennart Mucke, MD

    Director

    M_Neurology

    Overview
    Lennart Mucke’s laboratory aims to unravel how major neurologic and psychiatric conditions cause cognitive deficits, behavioral abnormalities, and other disabling symptoms, with an emphasis on dementias, epilepsy, and autism.

    Our group uses mouse models and brain cell cultures to study disease-causing factors and pathways at molecular, cellular, network, and behavioral levels. Such models are also used to identify and validate novel entry points for therapeutic interventions.

    Committee Members