Understanding how the body senses and adapts to variations in oxygen levels, and studying what goes wrong when there is too little or too much oxygen in the body.
Understanding the genetic, nutritional, and metabolic causes of subclinical vitamin deficiencies, with the goal of developing personalized nutritional therapies.
Skyler Y. Blume, Ankur Garg, Yolanda Marti-Mateos, Ayush D. Midha, Brandon T.L. Chew, Baiwei Lin, Cecile Yu, Ryan Dick, Patrick S. Lee, Eva Situ, Richa Sarwaikar, Eric Green, Vyas Ramanan, Gijsbert Grotenbreg, Maarten Hoek, Christopher Sinz, and Isha H. Jain
Xuewen Chen, Augustinus G. Haribowo, Alan H. Baik, Andrea Fossati, Erica Stevenson, Yiwen R. Chen, Nabora S. Reyes, Tien Peng, Michael A. Matthay, Michela Traglia, Alexander R. Pico, Daniel F. Jarosz, Abigail Buchwalter, Sina Ghaemmaghami, Danielle L. Swaney, and Isha H. Jain
Alan H. Baik, Augustinus G. Haribowo, Xuewen Chen, Bruno B. Queliconi, Alec M. Barrios, Ankur Garg, Mazharul Maishan, Alexandre R. Campos, Michael A. Matthay, Isha H. Jain
Isha is an Associate Investigator and Professor at Gladstone Institutes and UCSF. Prior to becoming a Core Investigator, Isha was part of the inaugural cohort of recipients of Arc's Innovation Investigator Award. The Jain Lab investigates how the body responds to changes in “what we breathe” and “what we eat”. More specifically, they are studying how variations in oxygen levels in the atmosphere and vitamin levels in the diet can affect disease progression. They are using this information to “turn the oxygen and vitamin dials” to treat a wide range of metabolic disorders from rare genetic diseases to age-associated degeneration.
Emma graduated from Santa Clara University and holds a Bachelor's Degree in both Psychology and Public Health. During her time in college, she gained valuable experience working in a psychology lab and serving as a student manager for the public health department & school of law. In addition to Emma's professional pursuits, she has a passion for live music, skiing, surfing, exercise, film photography, and travel. These interests allow her to maintain a well-rounded perspective and bring creativity and adaptability to her work.
Skyler grew up in Davis, California and received his Bachelor's Degree from UC Berkeley, where he majored in Molecular and Cell Biology. There, he worked in the lab of Gertrude Buehring where he studied Bovine Leukemia Virus as a potential etiological agent of breast cancer. He went on to work for a pathology practice in San Diego, where he performed immunohistochemistry. In his free time he enjoys learning about new cuisines, exploring nature, and listening to podcasts.
Tej grew up in Los Angeles and recently graduated from UC Berkeley where he majored in Molecular and Cellular Biology as well as Economics. While in college, he gained experience in cardiology in the lab of Dr. Matthew Budoff where he focused on analyzing CT scans for clinical studies. He went on to study brain tumor immunogenicity in Dr. Olivia Lu's neuro-oncology lab at UCSF. During his free time, he enjoys playing soccer, skiing, and reading a good mystery.
Alan was born in Los Angeles and attended Harvard University, where he majored in biology. He completed medical school, internal medicine residency, and cardiology fellowship at UCSF. As a Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Fellow, he worked in the lab of Bill Kaelin at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, studying the mechanisms of remote ischemic preconditioning in a murine model of cardiac ischemia-reperfusion. Alan is also a cardiologist and assistant professor at UCSF, interested in better understanding oxygen metabolism and signaling in myocardial infarction and cardiovascular disease.
Galih received his bachelor's degree in Biology from Gadjah Mada University. He then joined the labs of Joost Holthuis at Utrecht University and Anne-Claude Gavin at the EMBL-Heidelberg to study protein-lipid interactions for his master's degree. During his PhD, he worked in the labs of Howard Riezman at University of Geneva and Maya Schuldiner at the Weizmann Institute of Science, studying the roles of sphingolipid in neurodegenerative disease and ischemia-reperfusion injury. Galih is currently interested in understanding nutrient dependencies of cells under hypoxia and ischemia.
Ankur attended IIT Delhi for her undergraduate studies in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology. She received her PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics, in the lab of Xin Zhang at Columbia University studying the role of Fgf signaling in tear gland development. During a post-doc at UCSD, she worked in the lab of Xin Sun where she studied pulmonary neuroendocrine cells. She is now interested in studying the signaling mechanisms underlying hypoxia as a therapeutic intervention for neurodegenerative and metabolic disorders.
Yolanda received her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. There, she worked at the Biochemistry Department to study mitochondrial cardiomyopathy models in drosophila melanogaster. For her PhD, she joined Dr. José Antonio Enríquez's lab at the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) to work on murine models for heart failure therapies targeting mitochondrial protease OMA1. Following her work on age-associated chronic liver disease, she became interested in the study of aging etiology. At the Jain Lab, Yolanda is excited to be studying how molecular oxygen can modulate the aging process.
Jessica earned her undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from Cal Poly SLO. She pursued Biotechnology and Stem Cell Technology Certificates at City College of San Francisco, completing a CIRM Bridges Internship at UCSF in Aimee Kao's lab, studying heavy metal toxicity on iPSC-derived neurons in the context of primary tauopathies. Following her internship, Jessica worked as a Research Associate at BioMarin Inc. for a year before enrolling in graduate school at Baylor College of Medicine. For her PhD in Molecular & Cellular Biology, she worked in Sean Hartig's lab, investigating N-acetylaspartate's role in adipose tissue metabolism and whole-body energy balance. Jessica is excited to return to the Bay Area and contribute to new discoveries in oxygen metabolism across various tissues.
Gautam was born and raised in India. He earned his undergraduate degree in Life Sciences from Osmania University in Hyderabad. Following this, he joined the integrated master's and Ph.D. program at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, where he had the opportunity to explore multiple scientific disciplines. For his doctoral research, he joined Dr. Patrick D'Silva's lab, focusing on the role of DJ-1 and its homologs in alleviating metabolic stress in Parkinson's disease. His current research interests focus on deciphering regulatory proteins that interact with vitamins.
Jon received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He subsequently completed his medical and graduate training at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he worked in the lab of David Pagliarini studying coenzyme Q biosynthesis. Jon is currently a clinical pathology resident at UCSF through the Physician-Scientist Pathway.
Navdar received his undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Bilkent University in Turkey and his PhD in Cell Regulation from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. During his PhD, he worked in the labs of Mike Brown and Joe Goldstein, where he discovered Insig-mediated regulation of mammalian HMG CoA reductase ubiquitination and degradation. Subsequently, he did postdoctoral research on Hedgehog signal transduction pathway at The Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University, and on lung surfactant at Harvard Medical School. After working at a food-tech startup for a couple of years, Navdar is excited to return to basic biomedical research.
Yohei earned his undergraduate and master's degrees in pharmacology from the Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences and is a certified pharmacist. His early research focused on cardiac mitochondrial function in heart failure rodent models. During his PhD at the University of Tokyo in Dr. Juro Sakai's lab, he studied epigenetic regulation in adipocytes to explore new clinical applications for obesity and diabetes. As a postdoc with Dr. Christopher K. Glass at UC San Diego, he expanded his expertise to chromatin dynamics and the epigenetic regulation of macrophage responses to environmental signals. Yohei is interested in investigating how vitamins influence gene regulation under physiological and pathological conditions. His ultimate goal is to contribute to drug discovery by translating basic research into clinical applications.
Brandon was born and raised in South Florida. He received a B.S. in Biochemistry and Neuroscience at the University of Miami. There, he worked on how neural stem cells can contribute to recovery after a brain injury. He then joined Dr. Ajit Divakaruni's mitochondrial bioenergetics lab at UCLA and studied the bioenergetics of glioblastoma and macrophage inflammatory activation. Outside of the lab, Brandon enjoys discovering new films at independent cinemas, and working towards crafting the perfect cup of coffee.
Brandon was born and raised in Hawaii on the island of Oahu. He received a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Southern California. At USC, he worked in the lab of Dr. Nicolas Graham where he helped to develop a protocol for enriching and detecting protein methylation via liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy and analyzed multiple public data sets to determine metabolic pathway dependencies in cancer cell lines. Outside of lab, Brandon enjoys hiking, playing video games, and exploring ramen shops.
Ayush grew up in San Jose, California, and attended Harvard University, where he majored in developmental biology. As an undergraduate student, he worked in the labs of Dr. Susan Bonner-Weir and Dr. Cristina Aguayo-Mazzucato at Joslin Diabetes Center. There, he studied mechanisms of aging in pancreatic beta-cells and the secretory changes associated with cellular senescence. At UCSF, Ayush is excited about advocating for universal healthcare and studying metabolism in physiology and disease. In his free time, he loves watching and playing basketball, experimenting with new recipes on his cast-iron skillet, and seeing new movies.
Will was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He attended UW-Madison, earning his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Biochemistry. There, he worked in the lab of Dr. Pam Kreeger studying the microenvironmental factors that drive metastasis in ovarian cancer. At UCSF, Will is excited to investigate cardiac hypoxia/ischemia using iPSC-derived cardiac cell types. Outside of lab, Will loves to run and is learning how to make the perfect charcuterie board.
