Given the substantial breadth and depth of scientific expertise at UCLA, multidisciplinary groups of basic, clinical and translational researchers cross campus will fuel advances in microbiome research to advance human health.

Grace M. Aldrovandi, MD, CM

Professor and Chief
Department of Pediatrics
Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases
UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Aldrovandi received her undergraduate and her medical degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She completed an internship and residency at McGill, as well as a research fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a board-certified pediatric infectious diseases specialist with over 20 years experience in caring for both general pediatric infectious diseases as well as HIV infected children and their families. Dr. Aldrovandi’s research interests include pediatric HIV, the effects of breast milk on child health and infections in immunocompromised children. She has published more than 200 peer review publications in such journals as Nature, Journal of Virology, and the New England Journal of Medicine and multiple book chapters. She has been a member of many National Institutes of Health study sections and lectured throughout the world. 

Dr. Aldrovandi has had continuous NIH funding for over 20 years, and in recognition of her significant contributions was honored with the prestigious Elizabeth Glaser Scientist Award. She and her collaborators were the first to describe increased morbidity and mortality among HIV-exposed uninfected infants, an essential discovery with potential implications for improving health outcomes in this vulnerable population. Dr. Aldrovandi's laboratory is at the forefront of investigating microbial communities' role in various compartments, ranging from mucosal (breast, vagina, rectum, oral) to non-mucosal (skin) regions. Their pioneering work demonstrated the presence of perturbations in the microbiome of infants born to HIV-infected women, despite the infants not being infected with HIV. Employing sophisticated bioinformatics approaches, they have skillfully modeled microbial maturation and strain transfer from breast milk to infant stool, unveiling new insights into this crucial area of research.

Having played prominent leadership roles in several NIH-funded clinical trials Networks, Dr. Aldrovandi has a deep understanding of the collaborative efforts essential for transformative research in the field. This unique perspective allows her to identify opportunities for innovative and impactful investigations.

Dr. Aldrovandi is deeply committed to nurturing the next generation of scientists and has actively engaged in mentoring activities to encourage underrepresented Latino and African-American high school students to pursue careers in STEM fields. Her mentoring efforts have garnered attention and recognition, with a feature on Despierta America, highlighting the impact of their work in inspiring and guiding young minds towards scientific excellence. Moreover, Dr. Aldrovandi has had the privilege of mentoring numerous talented individuals, guiding them through their academic and research journeys. Her mentorship has been instrumental in helping these individuals secure prestigious awards and grants, including T32, K08, K23, K99, R01, and a Doris Duke Award. ACTG IMPAACT Laboratory Center

Daniel T. Blumfield, PhD

Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology; UCLA Institute of the Environment & Sustainability
Co-Director, UCLA Evolutionary Medicine Program
UCLA College of Life Sciences
President, Board of Trustees, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

Dr. Blumstein received his undergraduate degrees in environmental, population, and organismic biology (magna cum laude), and in environmental conservation (cum laude) at The University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his MS and PhD in animal behavior at the University of California Davis, and was a DAAD post-doctoral fellow at the University of Marburg (Germany), an NIH-NRSA at the University of Kansas, and an Australian Postdoctoral Fellow at Macquarie University (Australia). He has studied animal behavior and conservation biology in Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, French Polynesia, Germany, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States. He was a Fulbright Fellow (to Pakistan) and is an elected Fellow of the Society of Biology and the Animal Behavior Society. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the UCLA Faculty Gold Shield Award for extraordinary accomplishment in undergraduate teaching and research, and the Animal Behavior Society’s Quest Award for seminal contributions to the study of behavior. He is the author of eight books and over 500 scholarly publications. He was an editor of the journal Animal Behaviour, and is currently an associate editor of the Quarterly Review of Biology, and is (or was) on the editorial boards of Behavioral Ecology, Biology Letters, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, and Ethology. He is the founding editor in chief of Frontiers in Conservation Science. A major thrust of his research works to integrate different fields and apply ecological, evolutionary, and behavioral principles to applied questions. He spends his summers studying marmot behavior and ecology at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Gothic, Colorado. Between 2009 and 2016 he was the chiar of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA. Blumstein Lab

Bridget L. Callaghan, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
Division of Life Sciences, UCLA College of Letters and Sciences

Dr. Callaghan leads a laboratory studying interactions between mental and physical health across development, and the impact that early caregiving relationships (particularly adverse caregiving) have on those interactions. Dr. Callaghan's lab is investigating the gastrointestinal and oral microbiome as pathways via which stressful early experiences may get 'under the skin' to influence physical and mental health. They are also examining the microbiome as a mediator of intergenerational and transgenerational effects of adversity on youth health outcomes. Dr. Callaghan's research has been generously funded through the National Institutes of Mental Health, Brain Behavior Research Foundation, and National Health and Medical Research Council. She has received several honors including the Federation of the Association of Behavioral and Brain Sciences Early Career Impact Award, and the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology Kucharski Young Investigator Award, and was named as a 'rising star' by the Association for Psychological Science. She received her BA and PhD in psychology and her masters in clinical psychology from the University of New South Wales in Australia. She has worked clinically in the field of developmental psychology, and completed her postdoctoral training at Columbia University. Dr. Callaghan is also a faculty-in-residence at UCLA where she lives in the Residential Halls with UCLA undergraduates, building community through programming and mentorship. Brain and Body Lab

Lin Chang, MD

Vice Chief, Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
Program Director, UCLA GI Fellowship Program
Co-Director, G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
Director, Clinical Studies and Database Core, Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center
Professor of Medicine
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Chang earned her medical degree from the UCLA School of Medicine and completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. She completed her gastroenterology fellowship training at the UCLA affiliated training program in gastroenterology. Dr. Chang’s clinical expertise is in disorders of gut-brain interactions which include irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic constipation and functional dyspepsia. Her research is focused on the pathophysiology of IBS related to stress, sex differences, genetic and epigenetic factors, neuroendocrine alterations, and gut microbiome and the treatment of IBS. She is the vice-chief of the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases at UCLA, co-director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, director of the Clinical Studies and Database Core of the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center, and program director of the UCLA Gastroenterology Fellowship Program. Dr. Chang is a recipient of the Janssen Award in Gastroenterology for Basic or Clinical Research, AGA Distinguished Clinician Award, and AGA Distinguished Educator Award. She has authored more than 160 original research articles, 70 review articles and 29 book chapters on her specialty interests and is a frequent speaker at national and international meetings. Active in professional organizations, she is a member of the Rome Foundation Board of Directors and previously served as clinical research councilor of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Governing Board and president of the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society (ANMS). She also serves as associate editor of the journal, Gastroenterology. She is a fellow of the AGA and American College of Gastroenterology (ACG). Chang Lab

Vivian Y. Chang, MD

Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics
Division of Pediatric Hematology Oncology
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Chang is a pediatric hematologist-oncologist and co-director of the Pediatric Cancer Predisposition program at UCLA. Her clinical expertise is taking care of families who have or are suspected to have underlying genetic conditions that increase risk of cancer. Her broad research interests are in precision health and using genetics and genomics to advance understanding of cancer susceptibility. Her lab is currently studying hematopoietic stem cell regeneration and leukemogenesis in Bloom Syndrome, a DNA repair disorder, that is characterized by short stature, mild immune deficiency, and early-onset cancer. We have found microbiome differences in a mouse model of Bloom Syndrome compared to wildtype mice and are investigating how this may be affecting hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal and regeneration. The Chang Lab

Irene A. Chen, MD, PhD

Associate Professor
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UCLA

Dr. Chen received a BA in chemistry and an MD-PhD in biophysics from Harvard and was a Bauer Fellow in systems biology at Harvard. She has received the Searle Scholar award, NIH New Innovator award, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award, and the David White award for outstanding contribution in astrobiology. She has been a Simons Investigator for the Collaboration on the Origin of Life since 2013. Her laboratory studies life-like biochemical systems to understand their fundamental properties and address emerging challenges in biotechnology and infectious disease. Their focus is biomolecular design and evolution in two nanoscale systems: simple synthetic cells and bacteriophages (phages). The Chen Laboratory

Christopher S. Colwell, PhD

Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Colwell is a neuroscientist who has served on the UCLA School of Medicine faculty since he joined the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences in 1997. He became an associate professor in 2002, and has been a professor since 2008. Dr. Colwell earned his BS in neuroscience from Vanderbilt University in 1985. During this time, he started his research in circadian rhythms under the mentorship of Dr. T. Page. Dr. Colwell earned his PhD in biology at the University of Virginia in 1991. His thesis work explored the neural mechanisms by which light regulates circadian rhythms. Dr. Colwell continued this line of research during a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia with Dr. G. Block. A second postdoctoral fellowship was carried out on the topics of motor control and excitotoxicity in the laboratory of Dr. M. Levine at UCLA. Dr. Colwell learned how to utilize imaging techniques to measure calcium levels inside neurons while a visiting scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Konnerth at the University of Saarland, Germany. Since Dr. Colwell's faculty appointment at UCLA, his laboratory's research has focused on understanding the mechanisms underlying circadian rhythms in mammals. Dysfunction in the timing these daily cycles is a key symptom in a number of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Better understanding the basic biology of this timing system should result in new therapies to improve the quality of life of these patients and the people who care for them. Dr. Colwell Profile
 

Jie Deng, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor in Residence
Department of Radiation Oncology
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA 

Dr. Deng is a physician-scientist who specializes in the study of tumor immunology in the context of cancer progression, radiation therapy and immunotherapy. One key component in optimizing cancer therapies for patients includes improving treatment-related toxicity profiles to maximize the therapeutic index of cancer therapy. One active area of her research focus includes studying the oral and gut microbiome in patients undergoing cancer therapy to better understand how the microbiome and immune system shape the response to cancer therapy and its associated side effects.

Tien S. Dong, MD, PhD

Director, Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center Biorepository Core and Human Probiotic Core
Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Dong graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a BS in biological sciences. He subsequently received his MD from the University of Chicago. He completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Chicago, where he stayed on as faculty for an additional year as a liver hospitalist. While at the University of Chicago, he trained in the laboratory of Dr. Eugene Chang where he investigated the role of the gut microbiome on microRNAs and colon cancer. He then joined UCLA as a gastroenterology fellow in 2016 and continued his research training at UCLA through the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) program under the mentorship of Dr. Joseph Pisegna and Dr. Jonathan P. Jacobs. He finished his PhD in molecular, cellular, and integrative physiology in 2020. Dr. Dong is board certified in internal medicine and gastroenterology.

Dr. Dong's research interest involves machine learning and how the intestinal microbiome influences the development of obesity, metabolic syndrome, chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. He is currently the director of the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center Repository Core. His clinical interests include cirrhosis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, alcoholic liver disease, autoimmune hepatitis, and other chronic liver diseases. Dong Lab

Jennifer A. Fulcher, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Infectious Diseases Section, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System

Dr. Fulcher completed her MD-PhD degrees through the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at UCLA, then completed additional postdoctoral research training in mucosal immunology. Clinically, she is a practicing infectious diseases physician, including providing longitudinal HIV primary care at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Her research interests include a focus on the effects of HIV and substance use on the gut and oral microbiome. Her group has recently showed that certain drug use, specifically methamphetamines, can exacerbate inflammatory microbiome changes in persons living with HIV. She has also published studies showing that methamphetamine use induces inflammatory cytokine production in the rectal mucosa, which may alter susceptibility to HIV. Current projects include understanding the mechanisms of methamphetamine-associated dysbiosis in both the oral cavity and gut, and delineating the mucosal immune consequences of this. In addition to NIH K08 funding, she has received a Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award and California HIV Research Program award to support her work.

Nandita Garud PhD

Assistant Professor
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
UCLA College of Life Sciences

Dr. Garud's research focuses on quantifying evolutionary dynamics in natural populations, with an emphasis on the human gut microbiome. Recently, she and her colleagues found that evolution can proceed in healthy human guts and that the broader ecological diversity can impact population genetic processes occurring within a species. Dr. Garud’s interdisciplinary training includes population genetics, statistics, and analysis of population genomic data, including metagenomic data. Her lab synthesizes these fields to develop and apply new computational methods to make population genetic inferences about the mechanisms of evolution, within and across host microbiomes. Dr. Garud received her BS in biology and biometry & statistics from Cornell University in 2008, MS in statistics from Stanford University in 2012, and PhD in genetics from Stanford University in 2015. She completed her postdoctoral training at the Gladstone Institutes at UC San Francisco and started her assistant professorship at UCLA in 2019. Dr. Garud is a Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator and a recipient of an NSF CAREER and UC Hellman fellowship. Garud Lab

Erica Grodin, PhD

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Grodin is a member of the Cousins Center on Psychoneuroimmunology and the Brain Research Institute. She is a clinical translational neuroscientist with a PhD in neuroscience and specialized graduate training in the neurobiology of alcohol use disorder (AUD). Dr. Grodin has several lines of research which seek to better understand the causes and correlates of AUD to ultimately identify promising interventions. One area of research seeks to characterize the gut microbiome brain axis in alcohol use disorder, with the goal of creating personalized psychobiotic treatments. Dr. Grodin’s research has been generously funded through the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the UCLA Friends of Semel Research Scholars Program. She has received several honors including being selected for the NIDA-NIAAA Frontiers in Addiction Research Early Career Investigator Showcase, the Research Society on Alcoholism Junior Investigator Merit Award, and has received travel awards from the American College on Neuropsychopharmacology, American Psychological Association, Winter Conference on Brain Research, and the Society for Biological Psychiatry. Dr. Grodin received her BA in psychology from American University and her PhD in neuroscience from Brown University.  

Arpana Gupta, PhD

Co-Director, Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center
Director, Neuroimaging Core, G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
Ingestive Behavior and Obesity Program
Associate Professor
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Gupta completed a PhD degree in psychology, followed by an APA accredited clinical internship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical Center. Her programmatic line of research focuses on the interactions between environmental and biological factors in shaping neurobiological phenotypes associated with stress-based diseases such as obesity. Broadly defined, her research aims to integrate two systems (the brain and the gut) in order to better understand the underlying mechanisms associated with obesity and altered ingestive behaviors. The application of a “systems biology” approach to her research allows her to test the interactions between multiple factors, both inside and outside the body (e.g., sex, race, brain, microbiome, inflammation, environment), in order to better understand the complex pathophysiology of obesity. This is relevant to obesity, as it is a risk factor for many chronic diseases, and disproportionately affects ethnic minorities and women. These alarming projections have led to NIH and Healthy People 2020 priority initiatives directed at reducing ethnic and sex disparities. Her goal is to develop a comprehensive model that provides a powerful and sensitive biomarker that will increase biological readouts of obesity and altered ingestive behaviors, thus bringing to the forefront those individuals who are at increased risk as a result of disadvantaged backgrounds.

In order to pursue this line of research she recently received a R01 grant from NIMHD (NIH) on the “Social Isolation and Discrimination as Stressors Influencing Brain-Gut Microbiome Alterations among Filipino and Mexican American.” She has also received several industry funded grants as PI and till date she has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles. These grants have allowed her to focus on the following main themes of research: 1) Investigate how novel pathways related to the brain-gut-microbiome (BGM) system may explain modulation of signals from the gut-microbiome on the brain via systemic immune activation; 2) Explain how risk factors associated with socio-cultural and environmental stressors “get under the skin” and are embedded in biology; 3) Identify subgroup differences (e.g., race and sex) related to obesity; 4) Model longitudinal patterns and changes across the lifespan as they relate to obesity in order to help predict risk factors leading up to the development of obesity while being able to identify prognostic markers and 5) Determine changes associated with various interventions (e.g., brain-targeted such as cognitive behavioral therapy, or gut-based such as specific diets) directed at altered ingestive behaviors and obesity. Gupta Lab

Yvonne L. Hernandez-Kapila, DDS, PhD

Diplomate ABP; ELAM Fellow
Felix and Mildred Yip Endowed Chair in Dentistry
Professor and Associate Dean for Research
Biosystems and Function, Periodontics
UCLA School of Dentistry

Dr. Hernandez-Kapila received her BA from Stanford University, and her DDS, periodontology residency training, PhD in oral biology, and postdoctoral fellowship from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The Hernandez-Kapila Lab focuses on basic, translational, and clinical studies focused on oral and systemic disease connections with a focus on the oral-gut-brain axis, host-microbe/ECM interactions, and the oral microbiome/virome.

Dr. Hernandez-Kapila is the Felix and Mildred Yip Endowed Chair in Dentistry and a professor and associate dean for research at UCLA School of Dentistry. Previously, she served as the founding director of Global Initiatives at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, where she worked with large subject cohorts in a global setting. She then served as chair of Periodontology and the Earl Robinson Endowed Distinguished Professor at UCSF School of Dentistry. As a clinician–scientist with >30 years of clinical, research, teaching/mentoring, and administrative experience, Dr. Hernandez-Kapila has made several important discoveries relating to the microbiome/virome of the oral cavity and its importance in the oral–gut–brain axis; linking oral and systemic diseases. Her work has also identified host–microbe interactions and cellular and molecular mechanisms governing oral cancer carcinogenesis and the pathogenesis of periodontal disease. Dr. Hernandez-Kapila is a highly experienced investigator and administrator who has been continuously funded by NIH for >30 years and published >150 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals. She has long-term service as a council member and grant reviewer for the NIH/NCI/NIDCR, served on editorial boards for high-impact journals/textbooks, and received national mentoring awards. In recognition of her seminal contributions to science and mentoring, Dr. Hernandez-Kapila received the American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) Distinguished Scientist Award in 2019, the UCSF Alumni Discovery Award in 2021, the Annual Research Lecture for the UCSF School of Dentistry Research and Clinical Excellence Day in 2019, and the American Association for Dental Research (ASDR) Irwin D. Mandel Distinguished Mentoring Award in 2019. Further, given, Dr. Hernandez-Kapila’s background as a first-generation college student from a historically marginalized community (Mexican/farm worker and low SES background), she understands diversity, equity, and inclusion issues at their core, and has served on multiple task-forces and programs to enhance diversity in science at all levels, including education/training and subject recruitment.

Andrea L. Hevener, PhD

Professor of Medicine
Sidney Roberts and Clara Szego Roberts Chair in Molecular Endocrinology
Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Iris Cantor-UCLA Women’s Health Center

Dr. Hevener’s laboratory studies the transcriptional regulation of metabolism and insulin action with a specific focus on the biological actions of hormone responsive nuclear receptors in metabolic tissues. Dr. Hevener is the associate director for research of the Iris Cantor-UCLA Women’s Health Center and the director of the NIH-sponsored UCSD-UCLA Diabetes Research Center Metabolic and Molecular Physiology Core. Dr. Hevener’s laboratory is supported UCLA Department of Medicine, the STOP CANCER Foundation I.C.O.N. Award, the Helmsley Charitable Trust, the UCLA CTSI, and the Iris Cantor Women’s Health Executive Advisory Board. In addition to ongoing National Institutes of Health R01 funding, Dr. Hevener is currently the principal investigator of Project 3 of an NIH U54 Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) studying sex differences and women’s health related to metabolism and the lead investigator of an NIH Director’s Common Fund award to study the molecular transducers of physical activity as part of the MoTrPAC consortium. The overarching goal of the Hevener laboratory is to identify therapeutic opportunities to improve the metabolic health of women and reduce chronic disease risk and burden.

Kent Hill, PhD

Professor, Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Elected Fellow, American Academcy of Microbiology

Dr. Hill studies cell biology, pathogenesis, and transmission of African trypanosomes, parasitic protozoa that afflict humans and other mammals. He is particularly focused on cilium biology and trypanosome motility and signaling mechanisms that contribute to parasite viability, cell-cell communication, pathogenesis, and transmission through the parasite’s insect vector. He has published numerous articles on these topics in influential journals, including Nature, PNAS, Journal of Cell Biology, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, PLoS Pathogens, eLife, Eukaryotic Cell, Cellular Microbiology, Trends in Microbiology, Annual Review of Microbiology, Nature Reviews Microbiology, and Cell Discovery. His group employs a multidisciplinary approach, combining cell biology, biochemistry, genetics, molecular genetics, structural biology (CryoEM), bioinformatics, proteomics, systems biology, tsetse fly transmission, and rodent infection models to understand parasite biology and host-pathogen interactions. Dr. Hill is internationally recognized as a world leader in the study of trypanosome motility, signaling, and cilium biology broadly. His group has pioneered efforts to understand flagellum structure and function in trypanosomes and established that beyond its role in motility, the flagellum provides a signaling platform crucial for parasite transmission and pathogenesis. Dr. Hill’s group discovered social motility in trypanosomes, which has stimulated renewed interest and progress in understanding trypanosome signal transduction systems used for transmission and infection. Dr. Hill received his BS in chemistry and biology from NOrthern Illinois University and his PhD from UCLA. Dr. Hill Profile

Elaine Y. Hsiao, PhD

Director, Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center
De Logi Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology
Division of Life Sciences, UCLA College of Letters & Sciences
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine
Department of Microbiology, Immunology, Molecular Genetics
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Hsiao leads a laboratory studying fundamental interactions between the microbiome, brain, and behavior, and their applications to neurological disorders. Inspired by the interplay between the microbiota and nervous system, the Hsiao laboratory is mining the human microbiota for microbial modulators of host neuroactive molecules, investigating the impact of microbiota-immune system interactions on neurodevelopment, and examining the microbiome as an interface between gene-environment interactions in neurological diseases. Research from the Hsiao Lab has provided foundational evidence for microbiota-based interventions to treat gastrointestinal and behavioral symptoms of autism, regulate intestinal motility by controlling serotonin biosynthesis, promote the anti-seizure effects of the ketogenic diet, and alleviate hyperlipidemia in metabolic disease. Their work in these areas form the bases of programs in four biotechnology companies and have led to several honors, including the Blavatnik National Award in Life Sciences, Takeda Pharmaceuticals and New York Academy of Sciences Innovators in Science Award, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Ben Barres Career Award, Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in Neuroscience, Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship in Neuroscience, Kavli Fellowship of the National Academy of Sciences, National Institutes of Health Director’s Early Independence Award, Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Science and Healthcare, and National Geographic’s Emerging Explorer Award. Dr. Hsiao received her PhD in neurobiology from Caltech, and her BS in microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics from UCLA. The Hsiao Lab at UCLA

Yu Huang, PhD

Traugott and Dorothea Frederking Endowed Chair in Engineering
Professor & Chair, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Huang received her BS in chemistry from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and her PhD in physical chemistry and MA in chemistry from Harvard University. Before Dr. Huang embarked on her independent career at UCLA, she was awarded the prestigious Lawrence Fellowship and held a joint postdoctoral position with Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her research focuses on mechanistic understanding of nanoscale phenomena and on exploiting the unique properties of nanoscale materials for various applications. Professor Huang’s achievements have gained her international and national recognition, including the Materials Research Society (MRS) Fellow, the Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), Eni Award in Energy Transition, International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) Prize for Experimental Electrochemistry, the International Precious Metal Institute (IPMI) Carol Tyler Award, the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE), the National Institute of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award, the World’s Top 100 Young Innovators award, the Sloan Fellowship, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Young Chemist Award, and the Nano 50 Award. She is also recognized as the Highly Cited Researcher in material science by Web of Science. Huang Research Group

Jonathan P. Jacobs, MD, PhD

Co-Director, Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center
Assistant Professor-in-Residence
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Jacobs graduated magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard University with an AB in biochemistry. He subsequently received his MD from Harvard Medical School, graduating magna cum laude in a special field. During college and medical school, he trained in the laboratory of Diane Mathis and Christophe Benoist where he investigated the immunologic mechanisms of an autoantibody-mediated model of arthritis. This research was supported by a fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Stanford University then joined UCLA as a gastroenterology fellow in 2010. He pursued additional scientific training at UCLA through the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) program under the mentorship of Jonathan Braun. He was awarded a PhD in cellular and molecular pathology in 2015 for his research on the intestinal microbiome and afterwards joined the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases faculty. He established the UCLA Microbiome Core in 2016 - which provides a comprehensive suite of microbiome-related services to support microbiome research by the UCLA scientific community - and is now co-director of the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center.

Dr. Jacobs’ research explores the role of intestinal microbes in the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other gastrointestinal disorders. This involves a translational approach that includes detailed characterization of patients’ microbiome by 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing, metagenomics, and metabolomics as well as modeling of the effect of disease-associated human microbial communities in humanized gnotobiotic mice (i.e. germ-free mice colonized with human microbiota). He has published nearly 100 original research articles and reviews in scientific journals including Microbiome, Gastroenterology, Cell Host & Microbe, Genome Medicine, Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Gut Microbes, Scientific Reports, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. His ongoing projects employ animal models and multi’omics analysis of patient cohorts to define the role of IBD-associated genes in shaping the intestinal microbiome and to identify microbes and microbial products that promote IBD, irritable bowel syndrome, obesity, and other diseases. Jacobs Lab

Swapna Joshi, PhD

Co-Director, Integrative Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core, Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Joshi co-leads research projects on developing epigenetic biomarkers for GI diseases. She has published in peer-reviewed journals including Nature and Gastroenterology and serves as a review editor on several journals and guest editor for Frontiers in Physiology. Dr. Joshi is the recipient of several awards including the American Journal of Gastroenterology (AGA) young investigator award in 2018 and 2019. G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience

Lisa Kilpatrick, PhD

Associate Researcher
G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Kilpatrick graduated from UCLA with a BS with honors in cognitive science and a BS in mathematics. Subsequently, she earned a MA in experimental psychology from Radford University and a PhD in biological sciences from University of California Irvine (UCI). At UCI, she trained with Dr. Larry Cahill, investigating sex differences in the role of the amygdala in emotional memory. Dr. Kilpatrick returned to UCLA to train with Drs. Bruce Naliboff and Emeran A. Mayer as a postdoctoral fellow, who continued to foster her interest in sex differences in the neurobiological correlates of emotional processes, including pain, stress, and resilience, in the context of irritable bowel syndrome and other pain conditions. 

Her work has focused on the brain-related aspects of the connection between the brain and body that positively or negatively impact health in multiple research areas with a brain-body aspect, including disrupted brain-gut communication in obesity, brain signatures related to self‐body perception before and after cross-sex hormone therapy in transgender individuals, facial dysmorphia-brain morphological relationships in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder due to prenatal alcohol exposure, and the impact of mind-body interventions on brain functional organization in late-life depression. Further, she has sought to understand the influence of sex on brain-body dysregulation, as an important step towards tailoring effective and beneficial therapies to the individual. G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience

Hon Wai "Michael" Koon, PhD

Adjunct Professor
UCLA Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Prof. Koon received a master’s degree in pharmacology and a PhD in molecular biology at the University of Hong Kong. He then completed his postdoctoral training in gastroenterology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Prof. Koon focuses on basic, clinical, and translational research on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), C. difficile infection, and metabolic diseases. Over the last decade, Prof. Koon discovered antimicrobial peptides cathelicidin and elafin as serum biomarkers for indicating the presence of intestinal strictures in Crohn’s disease (CD) patients and predicting the future clinical activity in IBD patients. He also developed a convenient machine-learning algorithm to indicate intestinal strictures in CD patients accurately. Some of his inventions were patented and licensed to a diagnostic company for commercial development.

Prof. Koon has published in Gastroenterology, Scientific Reports, Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and the Journal of Infectious Diseases. His projects have been funded by CCF, NIH, industrial funds, and philanthropic donors. His research team consists of a postdoctoral researcher and several undergraduate research students. Prof. Koon’s team has advanced research platforms such as a robotic liquid handling system, automated imaging system, flow cytometer, human 3D organoid and ex-vivo cultures, high-throughput screening, and immunological and microbiologically humanized animals. Prof. Koon’s research provides an integrated view of interactions between different systems. He welcomes research collaborations for discovering solutions for gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases. Koon Lab

Jennifer S. Labus, PhD

Director, Integrative Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core, G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience & Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center
Adjunct Professor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
 
Dr. Labus is a research scientist and an applied statistician with expertise in biostatistics, bioinformatics, treatment-outcome research, pain neuroscience, multimodal brain imaging, microbiome, metabolomics, and multi-omics integrative analysis. Using state-or-the-art computational, biostatistical, and bioinformatics, she performs large-scale integrative analyses to assesses the complex interactions between various levels of biological data (e.g., microbiome, metabolomics, immune markers, multimodal brain imaging data) with clinical phenotypes. The overall goal of her systems-based biological approach is to elucidate the underlying physiological mechanisms of health and disease, provide new targets for treatment, improve existing treatments and advance precision-based medicine. She is currently applying this state-of-the-art approach to study chronic pain, obesity, autism, cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Labus has made seminal contributions to mapping neural networks underlying visceral pain and elucidating brain-gut-microbiome axis in humans. As a result, she was the recipient of the 2011 Master’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic or Clinical Digestive Sciences, American Gastroenterology Association. Dr. Labus has been the recipient of a K08 Career Development award, Effective connectivity of central response in irritable bowel disorder, from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). She has served as the primary investigator on two grants funded by the National Institute of Childhood Health and Human Development (NICHD): R01HD076756 Profiling vulvodynia subtypes based on neurobiological and behavioral endophenotypes and R21HD086737 Deriving novel biomarkers of localized provoked vulvodynia through metabolomics: A biological system-based approach. Dr. Labus is a co-investigator on several NIH and industry funded grants, international research collaborations, and is actively involved in mentoring undergraduate, graduate and medical students and postdoctoral fellows. G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience

Jeffrey Lackner, PsyD

Professor and Chief 
Division of Behavioral Medicine
Vice Chair of Research
Department of Medicine 
Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo

Dr. Lackner received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Rutgers University before completing his residency at the University of Texas Medical School (Houston). After completing a post-doctoral fellowship in behavioral medicine/pain at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, he joined the faculty of the University of Buffalo School of Medicine. There, he Is professor and chief of the Division of Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Medicine. His main areas of scholarship involve developing and testing brief, low intensity behavioral self-management treatments for centralized pain disorders, identifying the biobehavioral mechanisms that underlie benefits, and identifying for whom they are most effective. The treatment his team has developed is regarded as one of the most effective treatments in its class and one of the few that provide multisymptomatic relief across the full spectrum of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients for whom there is no satisfactory medical option. His work has informed practice guidelines in US, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Sweden Canada and UK as part of its rigorous NICE recommendations. Informed by longstanding collaborations with UCLA collaborators, the depth, novelty, and breadth of this work has helped transform our understanding of IBS from an intractable “psychosomatic/psychiatric” condition to a complex centrally-mediated pain disorder with precise cognitive-affective vulnerabilities amenable to behavioral change. The impact of Dr. Lackner’s work, published in top tier medical and behavioral science journals, has earned him fellowships with the American Gastroenterological Association, Society of Behavioral Medicine, Association for Psychological Science, Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, and the Division of Health Psychology of the American Psychological Association. His current collaborations with UCLA focus on establishing the efficacy profile and active ingredients for brief, low intensity behavioral treatments for patients with treatment-resistant pelvic pain. Dr. Lackner Profile

Helen Lavretsky, MD, MS

Professor of Psychiatry In-Residence, Department of Psychiatry
Director, Late-life Mood, Stress, and Wellness Research Program
Director, Integrative Psychiatry 
Director, Post-COVID Clinic
Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Lavretsky is a geriatric integrative psychiatrist with federally funded research program in integrative mental health using breathing-based mind-body interventions (yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, Qi Gong). She is a recipient of the Career Development awards from the NIMH/NIH and the NCCIH/NIH, and other prestigious research awards. Her current research studies include investigations of novel therapeutic options for caregiver stress, mood, and cognitive disorders in older adults, and Long-COVID. She is the Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, and the Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and the recipient of the Distinguished Investigator awards for research from the American College of Psychiatrists and the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. She is the director of Research for the UCLA Integrative Medicine Collaborative and the Integrative Psychiatry Program. Dr. Lavretsky is the president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. She serves on the Advisory Research Council to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Late-Life Depression, Stress and Wellness Research Program

Berkeley Limketkai, MD, PhD

Director of Clinical Research, UCLA Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
Health Sciences Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Limketkai received his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati, where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society. He subsequently completed his internal medicine residency, gastroenterology fellowship, and PhD education at Johns Hopkins University. His doctoral dissertation explored the role of vitamin D in IBD pathogenesis and severity. Given his clinical and research interests in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and nutrition, Dr. Limketkai pursued advanced training as the Theodore M. Bayless Fellow in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases at Johns Hopkins University and clinical nutrition training through the Nestlé Nutrition Institute.
 
Prior to joining UCLA, Dr. Limketkai served on the clinical faculty at Stanford University and as lead IBD physician at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. He also spearheaded the Gastrointestinal Nutrition Program and initiated the Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) Program at Stanford. 
 
As director of IBD clinical research, Dr. Limketkai is keenly interested in studying the relationship between [mal]nutrition and IBD, developing evidence-based frameworks for precision nutrition, and analyzing large data of clinical outcomes and health services utilization. Dr. Limketkai has also been actively involved in the technology and innovation space, previously working as a developer at an Internet startup, contributing to several drug and device development projects, and completing a biodesign fellowship at UCLA. Ongoing endeavors include applying technology (e.g., digital health, artificial intelligence) for nutrition and gastroenterology. Limketkai Lab

Cathy Liu

Programmer/Analyst
G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Cathy serves as the data manager for all clinical research data generated at the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience. She is also part of the center’s Neuroimaging Core’s database team and manages the PAIN Repository database. G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience

Aldons J. “Jake” Lusis, PhD

Professor, Microbiology, Human Genetics and Medicine
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Lusis’ lab studies naturally occurring genetic variations in mice and in humans to help understand interactions underlying complex cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. A major focus of the lab has been integrate clinical traits with “intermediate" phenotypes obtained using high throughput technologies such as RNA sequencing, metabolomics, or proteomics, an approach known as "systems genetics" (Seldin et al. 2019 Nature Metab. 1:1038-1050). To facilitate this approach, they have developed a reference resource termed the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel (HMDP) that can be used to carry out whole-genome association mapping and analyze complex genetic interactions (Norheim et al. 2019 Cell Metab. 29; 1-18). Current research projects include atherosclerosis, heart failure, fatty liver disease and obesity. Lusis Lab

Emeran A. Mayer, MD

Founding Director, Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center
Director, G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
Professor of Medicine, Physiology and Psychiatry
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Mayer received his MD degree from the Ludwig Maximilian’s University in Munich, Germany, in 1976, completed his residency at the Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver, Canada, and his GI fellowship training at the UCLA/VA Wadsworth Training Program. Dr. Mayer has a career long interest in clinical and research aspects of brain body interactions, with a longstanding focus on the bidirectional communication between the brain and the gut in health and disease. He is recognized as one of the leading investigators in the world of brain gut microbiome interactions in gastrointestinal disorders, including chronic visceral pain, functional and inflammatory bowel disorders, ingestive behavior and obesity. He has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1989.

He has been PI of a NIH Center grant on sex differences in functional GI disorders for the past 18 years, and PI on a NIDDK funded U01 consortium grant of brain bladder interactions for 18 years, co-PI on a grant by the Department of Defense on brain-gut-microbiome interactions in autism spectrum disorders, co-PI on a Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation grant on brain-gut-microbiome signatures of stress-related IBD symptom flares, and co-PI on a NIH U19 consortium grant and a RO1 grant on brain gut microbiome interactions in Alzheimer’s disease. 

He has published 415 peer-reviewed articles in the leading GI and neuroscience journals, including 100 reviews and book chapters and has co-edited three scientific books. His articles have been cited 61,566 times and his h-factor is 125. He has published two books for the general public on brain gut microbiome interactions (the bestselling The Mind Gut Connection, and more recently The Gut Immune Connection) which have been translated into 14 languages. A third book, Interconnected Plates, will be published in Fall 2023. 

Dr. Mayer has received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Mentor Award from the American Gastroenterological Association and the Ismar Boas Medal of the German Gastroenterological Association. He has been a regular member of the NIDDK CIMG study section from 2010-2015, has been president of the Functional Brain Gut Group, and associate editor of Gastroenterology. G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience

Jeff F. Miller, PhD

Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences
Director of the California NanoSystems Institute
Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Miller’s laboratory focuses on molecular mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis, the evolution of functional diversity in bacteria and phage, and bio-inspired engineering of precision antibiotics. Dr. Miller received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Case Western Reserve University and his PhD in Molecular Biology from Tufts University School of Medicine.  After postdoctoral training with Dr. Stanley Falkow at Stanford, he joined the faculty at UCLA in 1990. From 2002-2014 he held the M. Philip Davis Chair in Microbiology and Immunology and served as Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics. In November, 2014, he was appointed Director of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. In 2004, Dr. Miller co-founded AvidBiotics Corp., a biotherapeutics company in South San Francisco.  In 2017 AvidBiotics split to form Pylum Biosciences, a precision antibiotics company, and Xyphos Inc., an immuno-oncology company that was acquired by Astellas Pharma in December, 2019.  In 2009 Dr. Miller was appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to serve on the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.  From 2012-2014 he served two consecutive terms as President of the American Society for Microbiology, which represents over 40,000 members in the US and abroad.  Dr. Miller is a former Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, a member of the American Academy of Microbiology, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2015 he was elected to membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Jeffrey H. Miller Lab

Anna Barbara Moscicki, MD

Distinguished Research Professor of Pediatrics
Chief, Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine
Associate Vice Chair of Clinical Research
Department of Pediatrics
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Moscicki is a pediatrician, board certified in adolescent medicine. She has a background training in STI epidemiology, molecular virology, and mucosal immunology. She has over 30 years of experience working in the field of molecular epidemiology, behavioral studies of adolescents, mucosal immunology, and phase I and II clinical trials. Much of her work has focused on detailing the natural history of HPV in adolescents primarily from a 25-year study “Natural History of HPV in Teens.” More recently, her work has focused on the microbiome and HPV and CIN 2 clearance utilizing biorepository samples from cohort studies. She has also been involved in HIV research over the last 20+ years and is now involved in Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort (PHACS) study. She leads several sub-studies within PHACS looking at the vaginal microbiome in those living with HIV and HPV clearance as well as development of precancers. Her research has crossed numerous disciplines including behavioral, epidemiology, social science, public health, virology and immunology. Much of her work has influenced cervical cancer screening and management guidelines in the US, specifically as they relate to young women and those living with HIV. Dr. Moscicki Physician Profile

Million Mulugeta, DVM, PhD

Director, Models of Gastrointestinal Function and Disease (MGFD) Core
Adjunct Professor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Mulugeta currently leads three NIH supported research projects on the gut-brain-gut connection through the study of functional and structural circuitry of the autonomic nervous system to pelvic organs (colon and bladder) in health and disease states. These works involve multi-center experts and international teams and are supported by two NIH grants. Dr. Mulugeta is also a University PI on a National Science Foundation supported research to develop novel devices (smart pill) to assess gut secretomotor functions in health and diseases, through SBIR industry-university partnership. In addition, he studies the specific role of CRF2 receptors (CRF2R) in stress-related alteration of colonic function and visceral pain. The project tests the hypothesis that CRFR2 activation modulates stress-related neuroenteric physiology, gut motor function alterations and stress-related visceral pain of colonic origin.

Dr. Mulugeta has published several papers on the brain-gut interaction and stress related gastrointestinal motility, pain and inflammatory responses. He is a reviewer for numerous medical journals and serves as editorial board member for the American Journal of Physiology. Dr. Mulugeta serves as a member to several special emphasis panel of NIH to review grant applications. He is recipient of several awards including the 2011 International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders award in basic sciences. Taché Lab

Bruce Naliboff, PhD

Project Scientist
Director, Pain Research Program, G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Career Scientist, VA-GLA (ret.)

Dr. Naliboff received his PhD in clinical psychology from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and interned at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. During his long tenure at UCLA and the VA, he has served as senior psychologist in the UCLA and VA Pain Management Programs as well as a VA career scientist. Dr. Naliboff's research has focused on psychosocial and brain mechanisms of stress and chronic pain with an emphasis on chronic visceral pain disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). He has led critical studies into the perceptual and cognitive aspects of chronic pain states including the role of negative and positive emotions in modulating pain symptoms and impact. He is also a leader in the development and evaluation of non-pharmacological therapies for both visceral and somatic pain, and studied the clinical use of opioid medications. Dr. Naliboff has over 200 scientific publications on these topics, has had continuous funding from the NIH and VA, and he has served as a consulting editor for numerous scientific publications in psychology and medicine and on national and international committees as a grant reviewer and program consultant. G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience

Aydogan Ozcan, PhD

Chancellor's Professor at UCLA
Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation
Electrical & Computer Engineering, Bioengineering
UCLA Samueli School of Engineering
HHMI Professor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Associate Director, California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)

Dr. Ozcan is elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and holds >65 issued/granted patents in microscopy, holography, computational imaging, sensing, mobile diagnostics, nonlinear optics and fiber-optics, and is also the author of one book and the co-author of >1000 peer-reviewed publications in leading scientific journals/conferences. He has received major awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), International Commission for Optics ICO Prize, Dennis Gabor Award (SPIE), Joseph Fraunhofer Award & Robert M. Burley Prize (Optica), SPIE Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award, Rahmi Koc Science Medal, SPIE Early Career Achievement Award, Army Young Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Navy Young Investigator Award, IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award and Distinguished Lecturer Award, National Geographic Emerging Explorer Award, National Academy of Engineering The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Award and MIT’s TR35 Award for his seminal contributions to computational imaging, sensing and diagnostics. Dr. Ozcan is elected Fellow of Optica, AAAS, SPIE, IEEE, AIMBE, RSC, APS and the Guggenheim Foundation, and is a Lifetime Fellow Member of Optica, NAI, AAAS, SPIE and APS. Dr. Ozcan is also listed as a Highly Cited Researcher by Web of Science, Clarivate. Ozcan Research Institute

Paivi E. Pajukanta, MD, PhD

Professor of Human Genetics
Diller-von Furstenberg Family Endowed Chair in Precision Clinical Genomics
Vice Chair, Department of Human Genetics
Director, Cardiometabolic Genomics, Institute for Precision Health
Director, Genetics and Genomics PhD Program
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Pajukanta's research group is identifying biological mechanisms of DNA variants and genes involved in complex cardiovascular and metabolic disorders using integrative genomics approaches. Her research aims to discover gene-environment interactions and context-specific transcriptional and epigenomic effects contributing to cardiometabolic disorders in Mexicans and Europeans by integrating transcriptomics, epigenomics, and genomics data with deep clinical and histology-based phenotype and electronic medical record data. Dr. Pajukanta is especially interested in single cell RNA-sequencing studies of metabolic tissues to decompose cell-type proportions and cell-type specific expression of genes and their connections to cardiometabolic traits; as well as in genomic studies of the admixed Mexican population that has been underrepresented in genomic studies despite their high predisposition to obesity, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemias, fatty liver disease, and other cardiometabolic disorders. Dr. Pajukanta has served as a principal investigator in several NIH R01 grants and as a project leader of an NIH PPG grant. She has trained multiple undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students; taught graduate level courses; and served as a problem-based learning tutor of medical students. She is also the director of the genetics and genomics home area of graduate education at UCLA; the vice chair in the Department of Human Genetics at UCLA; and the director of cardiometabolic genomics at the Institute for Precision Health at UCLA. Dr. Pajukanta Profile

Junyoung O. Park, PhD

Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Co-Director, UCLA Metabolomics Center
Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UCLA

Dr. Park's research group engineers metabolism for sustainable bioproduct synthesis and quantifies metabolic flux control in microbial, cancer, and immune cells for therapeutic discovery by employing liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), isotope tracing, and mathematical modeling. His recent awards include NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) and Hellman Fellowship. Park Lab

Joseph Pisegna, MD

Chief, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Parenteral Nutrition
Veterans Administration Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Wadsworth VA
Professor-In-Residence of Medicine and Human Genetics
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
 
Dr. Pisegna’s main research interest is the molecular pharmacology of hormones and receptors in the gastrointestinal tract. These research and clinical interests derive from research in the biochemistry and molecular physiology of neuroendocrine tumors as well as an understanding of the molecular interaction of peptide hormones and their receptors. His clinical efforts are currently focused on the management of gastric hypersecretory conditions, neuroendocrine tumors of the GI tract, and Zollinger Ellison Syndrome (ZES), medical conditions that derive from alterations in the expression of gastrointestinal hormones. Dr. Pisegna cloned the receptor for human cholecystokinin A (CCKA), the cholecystokinin B (CCKB or gastrin) receptor and the pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP) receptor. He has previously demonstrated that PACAP is a potent stimulant of gastric acid secretion and is expressed on neurons innervating the stomach, on enterochromaffin-like cells (ECL) of the stomach expressing receptors for PACAP. Using mice lacking the PAC1 receptor, he has demonstrated that the mice develop a gastric acid hypersecretory condition resulting from hypergastrinemia. Recently his lab is focused on understanding the role of peptide hormones in the development of obesity, metabolic syndrome and NAFLD. Dr. Pisegna's research interests extend to understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in satiety and metabolic syndrome including the role of the gastrointestinal microbiome.

Srinivasa T. Reddy, PhD

Professor In-Residence
Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology; Department of Cardiology

Dr. Reddy is interested in understanding the expression, regulation, and mechanism of action, of enzymes involved in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism, and their role in the development of inflammatory diseases with focus on discovering diagnostic and therapeutic molecules for their treatment. His laboratory is conducting pioneering research on PON proteins. Dr. Reddy received his PhD in compartive biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed his postdoctoral fellowship in cell and molecular biology from University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Reddy Profile

Karen Reue, PhD

Professor and Vice Chair, Human Genetics
Associate Director, UCLA/Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

The Reue laboratory is interested in the identification of genes, pathways, and the role of sex in the development of traits underlying the Metabolic Syndrome, including obesity, dyslipidemia, and insulin resistance. Using genetic manipulation in mouse models, our findings have revealed independent roles for gonadal hormones and genetic sex (XX vs. XY chromosomes) in dietary lipid absorption, regulation of circulating lipid levels, development of adipose tissue, mitochondrial function, and statin-related diabetes. Laboratory of Karen Reue

Rachel Sarnoff, MD

Health Sciences Clinical Instructor of Medicine
Primary Care – Disorders of the Gut-Brain Interaction (DGBI) Fellow
Division of General Internal Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Sarnoff graduated with honors from Brown University with a concentration in human health and biology. Between college and medical school, she worked in Dr. Jeffrey Friedman’s lab at Rockefeller University, where she investigated genetic enhancer proteins for leptin hormone. She completed medical school at NYU Langone School of Medicine, where she was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society as a student role model for compassionate medical care. At NYU, she worked under the mentorship of Dr. Martin Blaser, investigating connections between the gut microbiome and precancerous colon polyps that was featured on CBS News. Dr. Sarnoff completed her internal medicine residency and chief residency at UCLA, where her passion for teaching, communication, and innovation in medical education and patient care led her to receive multiple teaching and young investigator awards. Primed by her microbiome work and ignited by the complex patients she saw during her residency, her interest in the gut environment expanded to disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBI). 

After chief year, Dr. Sarnoff partnered with her closest mentor, Dr. Lin Chang, to create a physician-scientist training program for herself with the goal of developing a DGBI niche within primary care. To learn how to design and critique clinical trials in the DGBI space, she is completing a master of science in clinical research, for which she has been granted Department of Medicine IGNITE funds. She is also a Career Enhancement Core scholar within the Chang-Mayer SCORE NIH grant, where she is designing her own studies as well as recruiting for clinical trials. Her research is also supported in part by the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center. She has been awarded support for the rest of her clinical and research training by the Department of Medicine. Clinically, she practices as a primary care provider at Internal Medicine Suites, where she trains residents and medical students. Finally, she trains under DGBI specialists such as Dr. Chang as well as the Integrative GI interdisciplinary care team. She is most interested in identifying factors that influence risk of developing DGBI, such as early life adversity, psychological comorbidity, and microbiome changes. 

Dr. Sarnoff is board certified in internal medicine. She is dual appointed by the divisions of general internal medicine and digestive diseases. 

Jenny Sauk, MD

Director, Clinical Care, UCLA Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
Health Sciences Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Disease
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Sauk received her undergraduate degree from Yale University and earned her medical degree from University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She subsequently completed her internal medicine residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell Medical Center and her gastroenterology fellowship at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. After completing her gastroenterology fellowship, she joined Mount Sinai’s faculty as the Gerald and Ruth Crohn Dickler Faculty Scholar in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Dr. Sauk subsequently joined the faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and developed a specialized practice in IBD at the MGH Crohn’s and Colitis Center. Her clinical interest remains in the inflammatory bowel diseases, specifically ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s disease. Dr. Sauk’s research interests have centered on clinical outcomes in inflammatory bowel disease. She is board certified in gastroenterology. Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Andrea Shin, MD, MSCR

Health Sciences Clinical Instructor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases 
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA 

Dr. Shin received her medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine and also completed her internal medicine residency at Indiana University School of Medicine. She then earned a master’s degree in clinical and translational research while training as a research fellow at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, followed by completion of a clinical fellowship in gastroenterology and hepatology at Indiana University.

Dr. Shin specializes in the care of patients with disorders of gut-brain interactions (DGBI) and gastrointestinal motility disorders. She is committed to providing individualized care that emphasizes the multidimensional nature of DGBI and motility disorders. Her research interests relate to her clinical expertise and focuses on developing novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to treating disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), functional diarrhea, chronic diarrhea, chronic constipation, and anorectal disorders. She is a past recipient of an institutional career-development award (KL2) and a current recipient of a K23 career development award through the National Institutes of Health. She is a member of the Rome V Functional Bowel Disorders Committee, served as a lead physician investigator for the American Gastroenterological Association’s (AGA) 2015 IBS in America Campaign and is a former member of the AGA Clinical Practice Update Committee. She now serves on the AGA Research Awards Panel as the AGA Patient Education Advisor, and as a council member for the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society. She has co-authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications, serves as associate editor for Neurogastroenterology & Motility, and serves as an editorial board member for Alimentary, Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and BMC Medicine.

Catia Sternini, MD

Associate Director, UCLA: Digestive Diseases Research Center
Director, UCLA Imaging and Stem Cell Biology Core
Director, UCLA Pilot and Feasibility Study Program
Professor-in-Residence, Departments of Medicine and Neurobiology
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
 
Dr. Sternini's research program is focused on two major areas: 1) the neuronal circuits that form the enteric nervous system or “brain in the gut,” which regulate intestinal functions, and 2) chemosensing in the gastrointestinal tract in conditions of gut microbial imbalance and obesity. Studies on the enteric nervous system are focused on the identification of enteric neuronal circuits and their targets in health and disease states and on the mechanisms that govern receptor-mediated responses with an emphasis on the µ opioid receptors, the primary targets of opioids clinically used for pain control. Chronic use of opioids induces opioid bowel dysfunction, a debilitating condition characterized by severe constipation and abdominal pain, the treatment of which remains a major challenge. The discovery that opioids differ in their efficiency to induce receptor internalization, a key regulatory process of receptor function, in enteric neurons and that receptor trafficking and signaling pathways differ in distinct neuronal cell populations, sheds light on the mechanisms of action of opioids on enteric neurons compared to the brain, which is essential for the development of effective analgesics devoid of gastrointestinal side effects. Additional studies are focused on changes in the expression of transmitters and receptors in different pathological conditions such as intestinal ischemia, enteric neuropathies, and chronic constipation. Studies on gut chemosensing are focused on the expression and regulation of taste receptors in the gastrointestinal tract in diet-induced obesity based on the finding that bitter taste receptors, the first point of contact with foodstuff in the oral cavity that can impact on food consumption, are expressed in enteroendocrine cells in the intestine, and are upregulated in a microbiota-and diet-dependent manner. These studies are testing the innovative hypothesis that bitter taste receptors detect luminal content including bacteria and bacteria products to induce functional responses through the release of signaling molecules by enteroendocrine cells, which modulate intestinal homeostasis, caloric intake, and metabolism. Taste receptors in the gut might represent a functional link between microbiota and host leading to modulation of gut function, appetite and satiety through the brain-gut-microbiome axis and might be a potential target for obesity prevention and treatment. Sternini Lab

Dr. Yvette Tache

Distinguished Research Professor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System

Dr. Taché is a recognized leading expert in brain-gut interactions and the role of peptides in the underlying mechanisms of stress-related gut dysfunction and central vagal regulation of gut function. She and her research team reported some of the pioneer work on the central actions of peptides to influence digestive function and feeding behavior. Her laboratory provided the preclinical groundwork showing potential benefit of blocking corticotropin releasing signaling pathways in experimental models of irritable bowel syndrome and postoperative ileus. Building on her initial work on the peptidergic regulation of vagal activity to the gut, she is investigating with Dr. Pu-Qing Yuan their role in the modulation of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory reflex in the context of post-operative ileus. In collaboration with Dr. Lixin Wang, they demonstrated the role of ghrelin agonists to alleviate gut motor dysfunction in models of Parkinson’s disease. She is directing a consortium NIH SPARC grant on the structural and functional mapping of mammalian colonic nervous system.

Dr. Taché joined the Division of Digestive Diseases in 1982 and was appointed professor-in-residence in 1987 and distinguished professor since 2009. Professor Taché developed this field of research through continued competitive grants obtained from the National Institute of Health (NIH) since 1982 as well as Veteran Administration (VA) Merit Award since 2000 up to 2022. She was director of the Animal Core within the NIHDDK Digestive Diseases Center up to 2020 and a co-director of the UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience (CNSR). She published 392 peer-reviewed articles, 180 reviews, 23 editorials and edited 15 books. Professor Taché has been the recipient of NIHDDK MERIT Award, the Distinguished Research Award in Gastrointestinal Physiology from the American Physiological Society, the Janssen Award for Basic Research in Gastrointestinal Motility, the Senior Investigator–Basic Science Award from the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders, the Research Scientist Award from the Functional Brain-Gut Research Group, the Outstanding American Gastroenterology Association (AGA) Women in Sciences, the Research Mentor Award from the AGA Institute Council,  Distinguished Scientist Award for Women in Neurogastroenterology  from the American Neurogastroenterology & Motility Society,  and the Senior Research Career Scientist Award and Middleton Award from the Veteran Administration and the Legion of Honor from the French Government. She served on NIH and VA grant application review panels and editorial boards of many peptides, integrative physiology, gastroenterology, and stress-related journals and was an associated editor of Plos One. Taché Lab

Kirsten Tillisch, MD

Chief of Integrative Medicine, Greater Los Angeles VA
G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
Health Sciences Professor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
 
Dr. Tillisch completed her undergraduate work at the Otis Institute of Parsons School of Design, earning a bachelor of fine arts with honors. She obtained her medical degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and was elected to the medical honor society Alpha Omega Alpha. She continued on at UCLA to complete her training in internal medicine and gastroenterology, graduating in 2003. Dr. Tillisch is the gastroenterology leader for the Scientific Foundations of Medicine Course for first year medical students at the David Geffen School of Medicine. She is an advocate for the incorporation of integrative practices within the medical system to advance health. She is a medical acupuncturist and is trained in medical hypnotherapy by the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. She has a clinical interest in chronic pain and functional gastrointestinal disorders, and was a member of the Rome IV Committee for Central Disorders of Gastrointestinal Pain. Her research interests include brain-gut-microbiome interactions, the effects of complementary and alternative medicine interventions such as meditation, probiotics, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, and herbal therapy on health and disease, and treatment of functional gastrointestinal disorders. In addition to her role at UCLA, Dr. Tillisch is the chief of Integrative Medicine at the Greater Los Angeles VA, managing programs in Tai chi, yoga, acupuncture and integrative health.

Hung Ton-That, PhD

Professor of Oral & Systemic Health Sciences
Director, Dentist-Scientist and Oral Health-Researcher Training Program
UCLA School of Dentistry

Dr. Ton-That’s laboratory focuses on the molecular assembly on the cell surface of Gram-positive pathogens, oxidative protein folding in these monoderms, and virulence mechanisms of the Gram-negative pathobiont Fusobacterium nucleatum.

Dr. Ton-That obtained a BS in chemistry and a PhD in microbiology from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1996 and 2000, respectively. As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Ton-That trained with Dr. Olaf Schneewind at the University of Chicago to investigate the mechanism of pilus assembly in Gram-positive bacteria. Between 2004 and 2018, he held faculty positions at the University of Connecticut Health Center and the University of Texas McGovern Medical School, continuing his studies of Gram-positive pili and their role in biofilm formation and bacterial pathogenesis. In July 2018, he joined the faculty of the Division of Oral Biology and Medicine at the UCLA School of Dentistry. Dr. Ton-That is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. Ton-That Lab

Elizabeth Videlock, MD, PhD

Health Sciences Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Videlock grew up in Philadelphia and earned a BS in chemistry from Yale University. She studied medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Videlock began her research career in the field of the gut-brain axis during medical school under the mentorship of Dr. Lin Chang in the UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience.

She then trained in internal medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Dr. Videlock returned to UCLA for her gastroenterology fellowship as a Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) fellow. Through the STAR program, Dr. Videlock completed a PhD in the laboratory of Charalabos "Harry" Pothoulakis with co-mentorship from Dr. Chang. Her doctoral research used translational and cell culture approaches to study peripheral molecular changes in IBS.

Dr. Videlock joined the UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases faculty in 2019. Her laboratory is within the UCLA Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Videlock Lab

Elizabeth Volkmann, MD, MS

Associate Professor
Director, UCLA Scleroderma Program
Founder and Co-Director, UCLA Connective Tissue Disease-Related Interstitial Lung Disease (CTD-ILD) Program
Division of Rheumatology
Department of Medicine
University of California, Los Angeles

As a clinical-translational investigator, Dr. Volkmann research studies in systemic sclerosis aim to: 1) predict clinical phenotypes; 2) identify prognostic biomarkers to inform risk stratification; 3) define biological targets for therapeutic intervention; and 4) characterize novel treatment response biomarkers. She conducted the first study to characterize the gut microbiome in patients with systemic sclerosis, and she now leads an international microbiome consortium study in systemic sclerosis comprised of investigators from four continents and more than 12 countries. Dr. Volkmann has an enduring interest in understanding the effects of diet on microbial community structure and function in patients with systemic sclerosis. She is the recipient of numerous awards in rheumatology, including the Edith Busch Prize in Rheumatology (2020) and the Doctor of the Year Award from the National Scleroderma Foundation (2022). As a member of the UCLA community for over 20 years, she enjoys mentoring aspiring physician scientists and collaborating with specialists across disciplines, including radiology, pulmonary medicine, nuclear medicine, and gastroenterology. Dr. Volkmann Provider Profile

Karol Watson, MD, PhD

Co-Director, UCLA Program in Preventive Cardiology
Director, UCLA Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Health Program
Professor of Medicine
Division of Cardiology
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
John Mazziotta, MD, PhD, Term Chair in Medicine

Dr. Watson is a principal investigator for several large National Institutes of Health research studies including the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study and the Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. She is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and a member of the American Heart Association. She is also a board member of the American Heart Association, Western States Affiliate, and of the American Society of Preventive Cardiology. Dr. Watson is the chairperson of the Scientific Advisory Board for WomenHeart, the largest national organization for women survivors of heart disease.

Paul S. Weiss, PhD

UC Presidential Chair
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry & Biochemisty, Bioengineering
Distinguished Professor of Materials Science & Engineering
California NanoSystems Institute
University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Weiss received his SB and SM degrees in chemistry from MIT in 1980 and his PhD in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986. He was a postdoctoral member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories from 1986-88 and a visiting scientist at IBM Almaden Research Center from 1988-89. He served as the director of the California NanoSystems Institute and held the Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences at UCLA from 2009-14. Before coming to UCLA, he was a distinguished professor of chemistry and physics at the Pennsylvania State University, where he began his academic career in 1989. His interdisciplinary research group includes chemists, physicists, biologists, materials scientists, mathematicians, bioengineers, electrical and mechanical engineers, computer scientists, clinicians, and physician scientists. They focus on the ultimate limits of miniatu­rization, exploring the atomic-scale chemical, physical, optical, mechanical, electronic, and spin properties of surfaces, interfaces, supramolecular, and biomolecular assemblies. They develop new techniques to expand the applicability and chemical specificity of scanning probe microscopies. They apply these and other tools to study self- and directed assembly, and molecular and nanoscale devices. They advance nanofabrication down to ever smaller scales and greater chemical specificity to operate and to test functional molecular assemblies, and to connect to the chemical and biological worlds in neuroscience, gene editing, cancer immunotherapy, tissue engineering, cellular agriculture, and the microbiome. He has authored over 500 publications, holds over 40 patents, and has given over 900 invited, plenary, keynote, and named lectures. He is involved in startups from his and other labs in biotechnology, food security, energy, entertainment, and healthcare.

Dr. Weiss has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Young Investigator Award (1991-96), the Scanning Microscopy International Presidential Scholarship (1994), the B. F. Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Award (1994), an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1995-97), the American Chemical Society (ACS) Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry (1996), a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1997), a NSF Creativity Award (1997-99), the ACS Award in Colloid and Surface Chemistry (2015), the ACS Southern California Section Tolman Medal (2017), the ACS Patterson-Crane Award in Chemical Information (2018), and the IEEE Nanotechnology Pioneer Award (2019), among others. He was elected a fellow of the: American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000), American Physical Society (2002), American Vacuum Society (2007), ACS (2010), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2014), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2016), Canadian Academy of Engineering (2017), Materials Research Society (2019), IEEE (2021), and an honorary fellow of the Chinese Chemical Society (2010) and Chemical Research Society of India (2020-21). He received Penn State’s University Teaching Award from the Schreyer Honors College (2004), was named a nanofabrication fellow at Penn State (2005), and won the Alpha Chi Sigma Outstanding Professor Award (2007). He was a visiting professor at the University of Washington, Department of Molecular Biotechnology (1996-97) and Kyoto University, Electronic Science & Engineering Department and Venture Business Laboratory (1998 and 2000), and a distinguished visiting professor at the Kavli Nanoscience Institute and the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Caltech (2015). He is a visiting scholar at the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science & Technology and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University (2015-). He held the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) Chaire d'excellence Jacques­Beaulieu (2016-17) and was a Fulbright Specialist for the Czech Republic (2017). Weiss was a member of the U.S. National Committee to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (2000-05). He has been the technical co-chair of the Foundations of Nanoscience Meetings and thematic chair of the Spring 2009 and Fall 2018 ACS National Meetings. He was the senior editor of IEEE Electron Device Letters for molecular and organic electronics (2005-07), and was the founding editor-in-chief of ACS Nano (2007-2021). At ACS Nano, he won the Association of American Publishers, Professional Scholarly Publishing PROSE Award for 2008, Best New Journal in Science, Technology, and Medicine, and ISI’s Rising Star Award a record ten times. Paul Weiss Lab

Gerard C. L. Wong, PhD

Professor
Department of Bioengineering
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics
California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA

Dr. Wong received his BS and PhD in physics at Caltech and Berkeley. He joined the Materials Science Department and Physics Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000 and was recruited to UCLA in 2009. His research recognition includes a Beckman Young Investigator Award and an Alfred P Sloan Fellowship. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Wong Lab

Xia Yang, PhD

Professor, Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology
Professor, Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology
Vice Chair, Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology (MCIP) PhD Interdepartmental Program
Vice Chair, Computational and Systems Biology (CaSB) Undergraduate Interdepartmental Program
UCLA

Dr. Yang's lab specializes in developing computational tools to integrate multiomics data (genetic, transcriptome, epigenome, proteome, metabolome, and microbiome) and model multitissue multiomics networks underlying complex diseases. She received her PhD in molecular genetics and bioinformatics from Georgia State University and then did postdoctoral training in systems genetics at UCLA. She was subsequently senior research scientist at Rosetta Inpharmatics/Merck & Co and then principal scientist and director of Systems Biology at Sage Bionetworks, before returning to UCLA as a faculty. Her experiences in both industry and academia enable a broad research portfolio from computational tool development and disease mechanism investigations to drug discovery and environmental exposure studies using multiomics approaches. Yang Lab