Current
UCSF Fellows and their backgrounds:
Maria Barna, Ph.D. Maria was a
graduate student with Lee Niswander at Cornell
University, HHMI where she studied tissue morphogenesis
and patterning. In particular, how mesenchymal
progenitors give rise to skeletal elements each with a
unique location, shape, and size within the vertebrate
embryo. As a UCSF fellow, Maria will continue to
investigate the mechanisms regulating the growth and
shape of tissues during animal development, utilizing
both the chick and mouse embryos as model systems. The
central hypothesis of Maria’s research is that tissue
patterning relies on previously uncharacterized
mechanisms of cell-cell communication that occur rapidly
and dynamically. Maria employs new approaches to
investigate these mechanisms including high throughput
genomics, analysis of chromatin dynamics, as well as the
first live imaging system to study the early steps of
skeletal morphogenesis.
Hana El-Samad, Ph.D. Hana
arrived from UC Santa Barbara, where she was a graduate
student in Mechanical Engineering, Control and Dynamical
Systems. Hana is developing an interdisciplinary
research program, at the interface of mathematics,
physical and biological sciences, dynamical systems, and
control theory. Hana is interested in the modeling of
various cellular processes, including stress responses
and mechanisms of noise modulation in cellular networks.
She is also actively involved in devising mathematical
methods for biological model development, validation and
analysis, in addition to exploring methods for
biological system identification and systematic
experiment design.
Jennifer Fung, Ph.D. Jennifer
Fung was a postdoctoral fellow with Shirleen Roeder at
Yale where she examined what role synaptonemal complex
components play in crossover control during meiosis in
yeast. As a UCSF Fellow, Jennifer has developed a
microarray-based method to measure the level of
crossover control on a genome-wide basis in order to
rapidly identify mutants that affect the regulation of
crossover positioning on chromosomes. With the ultimate
goal of understanding the mechanism behind crossover
regulation, Jennifer is using time-lapse and structural
illumination microscopy, combined with microarray
analysis, genetics and biochemistry, to examine how
these mutants with varying levels of crossover control
affect overall chromosome segregation during meiosis.
Jennifer is also supported by an American Cancer Society
Research Scholar Award.
Ross Metzger, Ph.D. Ross was a graduate
student in Mark Krasnow's lab at Stanford, where he began
work on mouse lung development. Ross is interested in the
genetic and molecular mechanisms that control the
three-dimensional architecture of the lung during
development and evolution, and how this patterning
information is translated into the cell behaviors of
morphogenesis. As a UCSF Fellow, Ross is using
comprehensive mutant analysis to identify and assign
functions to genes in the airway branching program and to
understand how pulmonary vascular and other tissue patterns
are coordinated with the airways. He is also using genetic
approaches to understand how key genes in the branching
program are regulated, and how differences in gene
regulation contribute to species-specific differences in
pattern.
JJ Miranda, Ph.D. JJ was trained
in Steve Harrison's laboratory at Harvard where he
studied the structural biology of chromosome segregation
as a graduate student. As a UCSF Fellow, JJ is
developing a research program centered on the structural
biology of genome organization. A particular focus is
the molecular/structural mechanisms of gene insulation,
the phenomenon by which promoters in a given chromosomal
locus are shielded from the effects of regulatory
sequences beyond those located within the locus itself,
thus resulting in an autonomously functioning genetic
element. As an initial case study, JJ has chosen to
study complexes formed by the protein CTCF at two
insulator sites flanking the human hemoglobin beta
locus.
Miguel Ramalho-Santos, Ph.D.
Miguel was a graduate student with Douglas Melton at
Harvard where he studied the molecular genetics of
tissue stem cells, comparing and contrasting their gene
expression profiles to those of embryonic stem cells,
using the mouse as an experimental organism. His
strategic goal as a UCSF Fellow is to identify defining
signatures of different types of stem cell, in terms of
their genome-wide patterns of gene expression. He
occupies a lab in the Developmental and Stem Cell
Biology Program (DSCB) laboratories at Parnassus
Heights. Miguel is partially supported by a grant from
the DSCB Program, from philanthropic support aimed to
foster stem cell research at UCSF.
Sandler-Newmann
Foundation UCSF Fellow in Asthma Research:
Chris Allen, Ph.D. Chris was a graduate
student with Jason Cyster in the HHMI and Department of
Microbiology and Immunology at UCSF. His thesis research
focused on the organization and cellular dynamics of
germinal centers in lymphoid organs that orchestrate the
maturation of antibody responses. As a UCSF Fellow, Chris
intends to develop innovative new mouse models of asthma
and apply cutting-edge imaging technologies to investigate
mechanisms of disease pathogenesis. An ancillary goal is to
establish a framework for the development of new
therapeutic strategies for treating asthma.
Keck
Fellows:
The Keck Fellows Program for Imaging has recruited two
Fellows with a specific focus on cryo-electron microscopy
(cryo-EM). These independent research positions are similar
to UCSF Fellows but no future Fellows will be recruited in
this program.
Koji Yonekura, Ph.D. Koji was a
graduate student with Chikashi Toyoshima at the Tokyo
Institute of Technology where he studied cryo-EM. His
research interest focuses on how biological
macromolecular complexes function. Cryo-EM is one of his
major tools. Koji has also developed new methods for
high-resolution structure analysis. The current targets
include the bacterial flagellar motor and membrane
proteins.
Gang "Gary" Ren, Ph.D. Gary
arrived from the Baylor College of Medicine where he was
a staff scientist at the National Center for
Macromolecular Imaging. High blood cholesterol is one of
the major risk factors for atherosclerosis and coronary
disease. To better understand the mechanisms of
cholesterol transport, Gary uses cryo-EM to study the
structure and cholesterol transfer between LDL, VLDL and
HDL lipoproteins. Simultaneously, Gary is
also developing improved methods for single
particle cryo-EM.
