Lily Jan, PhD
Professor, Department of Physiology
Dr. Jan is a Professor in the Department of Physiology at UCSF. She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and has received numerous accolades including Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America Presidential Award, Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience, Wiley Prize in Biomedical Reseaarch, a Gruber Neuroscience Prize, and a Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science. Lily’s lab is interested in the basic mechanisms of neuronal signaling involving ion channels. Starting with molecular identification of the founding members of potassium channel families and the calcium-activated chloride channel family, they then proceed to learn how these ion channels work and what they do in neurons at specific brain regions. These studies are outlined in an iBiology talk. Lily earned her undergraduate degree in Physics from National Taiwan University before pursuing a PhD in Biology at California Institute of Technology. She completed subsequent postdoctoral research at both Caltech and Harvard Medical School before joining the Physiology Department and Neuroscience program at UCSF.
Nerissa Ko, MD, MAS
Professor, Department of Neurology
Dr. Ko is a Professor of Neurology, Vice Chair for Diversity in the Department of Neurology, and the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation Endowed Professor of Neurocritical Care. She completed her neurology residency and fellowship training at UCSF, and currently serves as the Associate Director of the UCSF Neurovascular Service, the Medical Director of the Adult Neurointensive Care Units, and the Director of the Neurocritical Care Fellowship Program. With her clinical training and experience as a neurointensivist and vascular neurologist combined with her background in clinical research and genetic epidemiology methods, Dr. Ko has had a successful longitudinal clinical research program in subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and brain aneurysms for over a decade. She is board certified in Vascular Neurology and Neurocritical Care, with a Master’s in Advanced Studies in Clinical Research from the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. With funding support from the NIH, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the American Heart Association, Dr. Ko has been the PI for a longitudinal outcome study of SAH patients, a quantitative cerebral blood flow study in cerebral vasospasm, and an aneurysm genetics study. She has also served as a co-Investigator on numerous clinical trials, and most recently the NorCal Regional Coordinating Center of the NIH Stroke Trials Network. She is currently the study neurologist for the UCSF Brain Arteriovenous Malformation (bAVM) study and co-director of the UCSF Center of Excellence for Cerebral Cavernous Malformations (CCM). Our goal is to use rigorous clinical research methodologies to integrate physiologic, radiographic, genetic and biomarker information to improve our understanding of acute and chronic neurological injury in patients with complex vascular diseases of the brain. Understanding these mechanisms is crucial to refining our current risk assessment tools and to identifying better targets for intervention that will ultimately improve patient outcomes in the neurointensive care unit and beyond.
Lauren Weiss, PhD
Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Institute for Human Genetics
Dr. Weiss is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Institute for Human Genetics at UCSF. The long-term goal of the Weiss lab is to understand the genetic architecture of autism. The current goals are two-fold. First, understanding complex genetic mechanisms by which autism spectrum disorder (ASD) susceptibility genes may act, including identification of gene-by-environment, gene-by-sex, and gene-by-gene interaction. Second, to leverage known genetic risk factors through analytical and experimental models to dissect genetic mechanisms and identify potential diagnostic, treatment, or prevention strategies. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) generated from patient samples with major risk factors are used as an experimental model to functionally test genetic hypotheses and move towards prevention and treatment. Dr. Weiss received her BS in Human Genetics from the University of Michigan and her PhD in Human Genetics from The University of Chicago, where she studied quantitative traits related to ASD in a founder population and began studying gene-by-sex interaction. She completed postdoctoral training at Harvard and the Broad Institute in Psychiatric Genetics, where she performed the first GWAS of ASD and identified the 16p11.2 copy number variant as a strong risk factor for ASD. She received an NIH New Innovator Award shortly after joining the faculty of UCSF in 2008. In 2016 she earned The Chancellor's Award for the Advancement of Women.
Kristine Yaffe, MD
Professor & Vice Chair, Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Epidemiology
Dr. Yaffe is a Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Epidemiology, the Roy and Marie Scola Endowed Chair and Vice Chair of Research in Psychiatry at UCSF. Dr. Yaffe is dually trained in neurology and psychiatry and completed postdoctoral training in epidemiology and geriatric psychiatry, all at UCSF. In addition to her positions at UCSF, Dr. Yaffe is the Chief of Neuropsychiatry and the Director of the Memory Evaluation Clinic at the San Francisco Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center. In her research, clinical work, and mentoring, she has worked towards improving the care of patients with cognitive disorders and other geriatric neuropsychiatric conditions. Dr. Yaffe's research focuses on the epidemiology of dementia, cognitive aging, and brain health, with an emphasis on prevention and modifiable risk factors. She is the principal investigator of more than a dozen grants from the NIH, Department of Defense, and several foundations. Dr. Yaffe served as the Co-Chair of the United States’ Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Cognitive Aging which released a report in 2015 entitled, “Cognitive Aging: Progress in Understanding and Opportunities for Action”, and she is a member of the Beeson Scientific Advisory Board and the California Governor’s Alzheimer’s Prevention and Preparedness Task Force. With over 500 peer-reviewed articles (H-index=134; recognized by Clarivate Analytics as one of the most highly cited researchers in her field), Dr. Yaffe has received several awards for her groundbreaking work, including the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry’s Distinguished Scientist Award and the American Academy of Neurology’s Potamkin Prize for Alzheimer’s Research. Most recently, Dr. Yaffe was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.