Program in Immunology Faculty

Seema Aceves, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine
UC San Diego
saceves@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE); Mechanisms of tissue remodeling in EoE; Genetics of food allergic EoE

Graduate Program Member

Ferhat Ay, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
ferhatay@lji.org

Associate Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego

Research Interests:
Understanding the role of epigenetics and 3D chromatin structure in control of gene expression within the context of several diseases such as cancer and malaria through computational analysis and modeling

Chris Benedict, PhD

Associate Professor
La Jolla Institute
benedict@lji.org

Research Interests: 
The role that signaling by TNF-related cytokines play in antiviral defense, and what viruses do in turn to counteract these cytokines

Scott Biering, PhD

Assistant Professor
UC San Diego
sbiering@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Viral pathogenesis with a focus on host-pathogen interactions at the interface of physiological barriers.
 

Lori Broderick, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Director of Recurrent Fever Disorders Clinic at Rady Children’s Hospital
UC San Diego
lbroderick@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Investigating molecular mechanisms of immune dysregulation in rare, pediatric disorders

Graduate Program Member

David H. Broide, MBChB

Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
dbroide@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Mechanisms of allergic inflammation and asthma; Airway hyperreactivity, airway inflammation, mucus expression, and airway remodeling; Immunohistology and image analysis quantitation of eosinophils, mast cells, T cells, and macrophages in the lung; Eosinophils and mast cells in vitro and in vivo

Graduate Program Member

Jack Bui, MD, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
jbui@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
How the innate immune system recognizes developing tumor cells

Graduate Program Member

Hannah Carter, PhD

Associate Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
hkcarter@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Computationally modeling how DNA mutations in tumor genomes impact intracellular biological processes and cellular behaviors and how these cellular-level changes cause cancer

John Chang, MD

Professor
UC San Diego
jtc007@ucsd.edu

Adjunct Associate Professor
La Jolla Institute

Research Interests:
Cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying T lymphocyte fate specification

Graduate Program Member

Hilde Cheroutre, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
hilde@lji.org

Research Interests:
Autoimmunity and Inflammation; Cancer Immunotherapy; Development, function, and regulation of white blood cells; Immune memory cells

Hiutung "Hiu" Chu, PhD

Assistant Professor
UC San Diego
hiuchu@ucsd.edu

Adjunct Assistant Professor
La Jolla Institute

Research Interests:
Understanding mechanisms that direct immune tolerance in the gut, particularly identifying the common language by which symbiotic bacteria induce commensal-driven immune responses

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Michael G. Constantinides, PhD

Research Interests:
Understanding how microbes influence the development and function of innate lymphocytes and the mechanisms by which these immune cells reciprocally regulate the microbiota and provide immunity to pathogens.

Maripat Corr, MD

Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
mpcorr@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
The role of antigen presentation in the host immune response; role of innate immunity and inflammation

Michael Croft, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
mick@lji.org

Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego

Research Interests:
The cellular regulation of immunity and tolerance, and how membrane-bound and soluble stimulatory molecules control function of T cells and cells such as epithelial cells and fibroblasts that contribute to inflammatory and autoimmune disease

Graduate Program Member

Ben A. Croker, PhD

Associate Professor
UC San Diego
bcroker@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Inflammatory cell death: implications for host-microbe interactions and chronic inflammation

Graduate Program Member

Shane Crotty, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
shane@lji.org

Associate Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
 
Research Interests:
The underlying immunology of vaccines, particularly the development of potent antibody responses and memory, with a predominant focus on the important role of CD4 T cells in these processes

Graduate Program Member

Gregory A. Daniels, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
gdaniels@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Using clinical and molecular markers to improve immunoncology outcomes and better defining markers of toxicity and improve the therapeutic window in cancer therapy

Graduate Program Member

Matthew Daugherty, PhD

Associate Professor
UC San Diego
mddaugherty@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Utilizing evolutionary principles, combined with virology and mechanistic biochemistry, to understand how our immune system has evolved to defend against pathogens and how pathogens counter-evolve to defeat host immunity

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Michael David, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
midavid@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Understanding the mechanisms by which interferons mediate these pleiotropic effects on a cellular and molecular level

Graduate Program Member

Antonio De Maio, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
ademaio@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Identifying genes that regulate the inflammatory process as potential therapeutic targets

Graduate Program Member

Taylor Doherty, MD

Associate Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
tdoherty@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Identifying novel mechanisms that regulate type 2 innate lymphocytes

Graduate Program Member

Lars Eckmann, MD

Professor
UC San Diego
leckmann@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Cytokine responses in mucosal immunity

Graduate Program Member

Tal Einav, PhD

Gen-Sheng Feng, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
gfeng@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Deciphering the anti-oncogenic effects of oncoproteins in the liver, and development of combinatorial immunotherapy for liver cancer by coordinated activation of innate and adaptive immunity

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Alessandra Franco, MD, PhD

Associate Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
alfranco@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
T-cell Repertoire in Kawasaki disease; biological function of IVIG therapy; immune-regulation in infants and young children; cytotoxic T cell biology; carbohydrate T cell recognition; designer glycopeptides containing tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens as vaccines for prevention/treatment of epithelial cancer

Graduate Program Member

Richard L. Gallo, MD, PhD

Distinguished Professor and Founding Chairman of Dermatology
UC San Diego
rgallo@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Obtaining a better understanding of the immune mechanisms through which epithelial surfaces and the microbiome detects danger and protects human health

Graduate Program Member

Partho Ghosh, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
pghosh@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Interactions between bacterial pathogens and hosts, with a particular focus on how bacterial pathogens subvert the innate immune response

Graduate Program Member

Mark H. Ginsberg, MD

Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
mhginsberg@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Molecular structure and function of intergrins in immune response

Graduate Program Member

Christopher K. Glass, MD, PhD

Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine
Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
ckg@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Understanding the mechanisms by which sequence-specific transcription factors, co-activators and co-repressors regulate the development and function of macrophages

Graduate Program Member

Ananda Goldrath, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
agoldrath@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Understanding how CD8+ T cell immunological memory is generated and maintained by identifying the transcriptional and signaling events that regulate the survival and differentiation of T cells as they navigate the immune response and become long-lived memory T cells

Graduate Program Member

Monica Guma, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
mguma@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Signal Transduction pathways and rheumatoid arthritis (RA); Synoviocytes in RA

Graduate Program Member

J. Silvio Gutkind, PhD

Distinguished Professor/ Chair of Pharmacology
UC San Diego 
sgutkind@health.ucsd.edu 

Research Interests: 
GPCR in cancer and tumor immunity

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Tracy M. Handel, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
thandel@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Structure and function of chemokines and chemokine receptors

Graduate Program Member

Matt Hangauer, PhD

Stephen Hedrick, PhD

Professor Emeritus
UC San Diego
shedrick@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Immune homeostasis: the sum of lymphocyte dynamics

Graduate Program Member

Hal M. Hoffman, MD

Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine
UC San Diego
hahoffman@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Regulation of cytokines and inflammation by cryopyrin

Graduate Program Member

Patrick Hogan, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
phogan@lji.org 

Research Interests: 
Autoimmunity and Inflammation; Cancer Immunotherapy; Processes by which proteins interact with each other and with DNA to turn on genes in the nucleus; protein-protein interactions

Alisa Huffaker, PhD

Assistant Professor
UC San Diego
ahuffaker@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Plant peptide signals, Peps, which regulate broad spectrum plant defense responses against pathogens and herbivores, and their application to manipulate plant resistance to biotic attack

Graduate Program Member

Enfu Hui, PhD

Associate Professor
UC San Diego
enfuhui@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Mechanistic dissection of immune checkpoints using reconstitution, microscopy, and cell biological approaches  

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Juliana Idoyaga, PhD

Associate Professor
UC San Diego
jidoyaga@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Dendritic cell and macrophage biology in health and disease, and how to harness the function of these cells through the rational design of therapeutic approaches for cancer, infections and autoimmunity

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Mohit Jain, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology
UC San Diego
mjain@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:

Utilizing large-scale biosampling, mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, and computational informatics to map the non-genetic underpinnings of human physiology and disease, including within the immune system

Graduate Program Member

Susan Kaech, PhD

Professor and Director, NOMIS Center for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis
NOMIS Chair
Salk Institute
skaech@salk.edu

Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
 
Research Interests:
How long-term immunity forms (or does not) to infection or cancer, by elucidating the basic principles that govern effector and memory T cell development; How T cells metabolically adapt to their environments and how this controls their function and differentiation states in tumors and diseased tissues

Graduate Program Member

Michael Karin, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
mkarin@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Biomedical and basic research in cancer biology

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Dan Kaufman, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
dskaufman@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Blood and immune cell development from human pluripotent stem cells; engineering stem cells to produce lymphocytes with improved anti-tumor and anti-viral activity

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Toshiaki Kawakami, MD, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
toshi@lji.org

Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
 
Research Interests:
Signal transduction in the immune and hematopoietic systems

Graduate Program Member

Kelly Kersten, PhD

Assistant Professor 
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute
kkersten@sbpdiscovery.org

Research Interests:
Dissecting the underlying mechanisms by which cancers evade destruction by the immune system. Specifically, we focus on the crosstalk between myeloid cells and T cells in the tumor microenvironment.

Thomas Kipps, MD, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
tkipps@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Immunobiology and genetics of human B-cell malignancies, with emphasis on chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)

Graduate Program Member

Hiroshi Kiyono, DDS, PhD

Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
hkiyono@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Mucosal immunology; mucosal immune responses in allergic and inflammatory diseases

Graduate Program Member

Mitchell Kronenberg, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
mitch@lji.org

Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
 
Research Interests:
How T cells, called natural killer T cells (NKT), survive, grow, and regulate other immune cell types; the development of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and an immune-mediated disease of the intestine, which include Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Vipin Kumar (Chaturvedi), PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
vckumar@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Identification and characterization of novel cellular and molecular mechanisms in immune regulation mediated by innate-like NK T cell subsets as well as regulatory CD4 and CD8 T cell subsets in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases

Graduate Program Member

Hojun Li, MD, PhD

Li-Fan Lu, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
lifanlu@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Understanding both cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of immune activation and immune suppression, two distinct and yet complementary activities of the immune system

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Cressida A. Madigan, PhD

Assistant Professor
UC San Diego
cmadigan@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Infection-induced inflammation in tuberculosis and leprosy

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Vivien Maltez, PhD

Assistant Professor
UC San Diego
vmaltez@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Understanding immune cell interactions within the tumor that dictate therapeutic potential, with an emphasis on leveraging imaging techniques that retain critical spatial information.

Andrew Mendiola

Gerald P. Morris, MD, PhD

Associate Professor
UC San Diego
gpmorris@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
T lymphocyte function and development in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT)

Graduate Program Member

Cornelis Murre, PhD

Distinguished Professor
UC San Diego
cmurre@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Gene regulation in adult stem cells and developing lymphocytes

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Sam Myers, PhD

Assistant Professor
La Jolla Institute
sam@lji.org

Adjunct Assistant Professor
UC San Diego and Moores Cancer Center

Research Interests:
How protein expression drives the development of autoimmune diseases, cancers and more.

Graduate Program Member

Victor Nizet, MD

Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Pharmacy
UC San Diego
vnizet@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Understanding the fundamental mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis and the innate immune system, novel therapeutics and vaccines, innovative strategies to combat antibiotic-resistant infections and sepsis.

Graduate Program Member

Sandip P. Patel, MD

Assistant Clinical Professor
UC San Diego
spatel@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Early phase clinical trials involving immunotherapy across all types of cancer

Graduate Program Member

Bjoern Peters, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
bpeters@lji.org

Associate Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
 
Research Interests:
Development and validation of tools to analyze and predict which parts of a pathogen, allergen or cancer cell are targeted by immune responses; identification of differences between immune cells in individuals with opposite disease outcomes; development of community standards for knowledge representation to promote interoperability and re-use of data

Graduate Program Member

Manuela Raffatellu, MD

Professor 
UC San Diego
manuelar@ucsd.edu 
 
Research Interests:
Understanding how mucosal responses are orchestrated in response to mucosal pathogens like Salmonella typhimurium

Graduate Program Member

Tariq Rana, PhD

Professor 
UC San Diego
trana@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Discovering fundamental mechanisms of RNA biology that regulate the immune response to viral infections and cancer, and the host response to immunotherapy

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Anjana Rao, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
arao@lji.org

Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego

Research Interests:
Understanding the control of gene expression in immune and non-immune cell types, including stem cells, by signalling pathways and protein and DNA modifications.

Graduate Program Member

Eyal Raz, MD

Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
eraz@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Host responses to microbial Toll-like receptor (TLR) and the non-TLR simulation; Role of Transient receptor potential (TRP) family by which the host interacts with diverse chemical and biochemical originate from the environment

Graduate Program Member

Miguel Reina-Campos, PhD.

Assistant Professor
La Jolla Institute for Immunology
miguel@lji.org

Robert Rissman, PhD

Associate Professor
UC San Diego
rrissman@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Novel biomarker discovery and experimental neuropathology in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Parkinson’s Disease (PD), and preclinical animal models

Graduate Program Member

Fabian Rivera-Chávez, PhD

Assistant Professor
UC San Diego 
fcrivera@health.ucsd.edu 

Research Interests:
Investigating the molecular mechanisms by which enteric bacterial pathogens use virulence factors to modulate host-microbe metabolism.

Jesus Rivera-Nieves, MD

Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego
jriveranieves@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Defining the role of adhesion molecules in the pathogenesis of experimental inflammatory bowel disease, particularly ileitis

Graduate Program Member

Alistair Russell, PhD

Assistant Professor
UC San Diego
a5russell@ucsd.edu 

Research Interests: 

Studying the interferon response during viral infection using influenza A virus as a model, using single-cell transcriptomics, single virion genomics, flow cytometry, population-based sequencing, and fine-grained genetic analyses to delineate the molecular events that proceed engagement of innate immune signaling pathways in responding cells.

Erica Ollmann Saphire, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
erica@lji.org

Adjunct Professor
UCSD School of Medicine

Research Interests:
Studying the molecular basis of viral pathogenesis and immunology, combining cryoEM, Xray crystallography, virology, and immunology to develop vaccines and treatments for emerging infectious disease

Graduate Program Member

Stephen Schoenberger, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
sps@lji.org

Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
 
Research Interests:
Achieving a mechanistic understanding of the generation and regulation of T cell responses in the context of in vivo infection and tumor development

Graduate Program Member

Alessandro Sette, Dr. BiolSci

Professor
La Jolla Institute
alex@lji.org

Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
 
Research Interests:
Defining in chemical terms the specific structures (epitopes) that the immune system recognizes, and uses this knowledge to measure and understand immune responses

Graduate Program Member

Nisarg Shah, PhD

Assistant Professor of Nanoengineering
UC San Diego
nshah@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Design and synthesis of polymeric biomaterials that regulate the fate of cells resident in tissues by providing cell-instructive cues to control spatiotemporal cellular behavior

Graduate Program Member

Andrew Sharabi, MD, PhD

Associate Professor 
UC San Diego
ansharabi@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Immunotherapy and radiation; Human pappilomavirus mediated cancers; B-cell biology and anti-tumor antibody responses

Sonia Sharma, PhD

Associate Professor
La Jolla Institute
soniasharma@lji.org
 
Research Interests:
Using unbiased, genome-scale approaches to unravel innate immunity, the body’s early immune response to microbial pathogens and neoplastic cells

Sujan Shresta, PhD

Professor
La Jolla Institute
sujan@lji.org
 
Research Interests:
The immunology and virology of dengue virus (DENV) and Zika virus (ZIKV)

Stephanie Stanford, PhD

Assistant Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
ststanford@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
The roles of protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) in diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis

Graduate Program Member

Ina Stelzer, PhD

Emily Troemel, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
etroemel@ucsd.edu 

Research Interests:
Host/pathogen interactions, understanding the strategies that pathogens use to attack their hosts and how hosts defend themselves against these attacks as well as understanding the cell biology underlying these interactions, and the evolutionary events that shaped them

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Ajit Varki, MD

Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine
UC San Diego
a1varki@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Sialic acids in microbial infectivity, the regulation of the immune response, the progression and spread of tumors, and unique aspects of human evolution

Graduate Program Member

Judith Varner, PhD

Professor
UC San Diego
jvarner@ucsd.edu

Research Interests:
Mechanisms controlling myeloid cell roles in cancer immune suppression by examining myeloid cell trafficking, proliferation, and polarization; roles for signal transduction and epigenetics in the regulation of gene expression and polarization

Graduate Program Member

Pandurangan Vijayanand, MD, PhD

Professor

William K. Bowes Distinguished Professor
La Jolla Institute
vijay@lji.org

Associate Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego
 
Research Interests:
Employing genomics tools to understand, diagnose and treat pulmonary diseases such as asthma, lung cancer and infectious disease

Graduate Program Member: Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science

Maurizio Zanetti, MD

Professor Emeritus of Medicine
UC San Diego
mzanetti@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
Fate determination of memory T cells; Impact of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and the ER stress response and functional characteristics of immune cells; Modular genetic programming in cell-based vaccine

Graduate Program Member

Ye Zheng, PhD

Professor
Salk Institute
yzheng@salk.edu

Associate Adjunct Professor
UC San Diego

Research Interests:
Studying the development and function of regulatory T cells in the context of autoimmune diseases, metabolic diseases, and cancer

Graduate Program Member

Elina Zuniga, PhD

Associate Professor
UC San Diego
eizuniga@ucsd.edu
 
Research Interests:
The cellular and molecular aspects of immune responses during acute and chronic viral infections to determine general principles of antiviral immunity, immune-evasion, persistence and pathogenesis

Graduate Program Member