Science is for everyone.
Science is for everyone. But if you don’t speak PCR or CRISPR, the latest journal articles can be difficult to understand. This blog is designed to democratize science by explaining recent scientific discoveries with everyday language. We are a group of scientists with varied areas of focus (see below) at the University of California, San Francisco. In addition to our specific area of study, we are passionate about communicating the latest scientific findings in a way that engages both scientists and non-scientists.
If you're curious, you are welcome. We invite challenging questions and comments, but keep it classy. Disrespect will not be tolerated.
Deeper questions? Want to guest post? Hit us up at friendlyscientist (at) breakingdownbio.com
This blog is funded by the vision and generosity of ImmunoX.
Contributors
Mallar Bhattacharya, MD, attends at Moffitt Hospital ICU and directs a research laboratory at the Mission Bay Campus focused on the functions of lung macrophages. Ongoing studies are exploring the role of macrophage interactions with other cell types in lung disease models, including lung fibrosis and asthma.
Jeremy F Brooks, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Zikherman Lab at the University of California San Francisco. His work focuses on understanding antibody responses. Jeremy’s blogs will break down the biology of vaccines and antibodies in the context of emerging, evolving and established infectious diseases.
Daniele C Cary, PhD, is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the research laboratory of Dr. B. Matija Peterlin at UCSF, and her research interests include HIV transcription, inflammation, and understanding resting T cell biology in the context of HIV. Prior to UCSF, Dr. Cary completed her PhD at Boston University in the lab of Andrew Henderson, studying regulation of inflammation and HIV in tissue resident macrophages. Dr. Cary has always been interested in finding ways to effectively communicate science, by making complicated ideas fun and engaging for different audiences. She maintains her own blog at https://your5minutebiobreak.blogspot.com/.
Carlos Castellanos is a fifth-year graduate student in the Biomedical Sciences (BMS) graduate program at UCSF. He was born in Bogotá, Colombia although he has lived most of his life in the United States. He completed his undergraduate in Biological Engineering at MIT and spent two years working for Adimab, an antibody discovery company. There he worked on single B cell cloning technology and profiled hundreds of antibodies from human donors to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). He currently works in the laboratory of Dr. Jeoung-Sook Shin studying mechanisms by which dendritic cells instruct adaptive immune responses. He is very passionate about immunology, vaccines, dendritic cells, and science in general. Aside from science, Carlos also loves to read, watch movies, and enjoy awesome food and drinks.
Vincent Chan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Microbiology & Immunology and Pathology at UCSF. He is also the Bakar Endowed Chief Strategist for the ImmunoX Initiativeand co-directs the UCSF Immunoprofiler Consortiumfor cancer research. Vincent has also been actively involved in various program-building efforts on Parnassus campus, including the founding of the UCSF CoLabsand launching of the COMET Consortiumfor COVID-19 immunophenotyping. His current research interests are in the discovery of immune archetypes for colorectal and prostate cancers. Vincent is a trained biomedical engineer in bioprinting and regenerative medicine at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the Johns Hopkins University. He has a green thumb for rare aroid houseplants and enjoys caring for his jellyfish aquarium.
Elizabeth Crouch, MD/PhD, is a neonatologist and neuroscientist studying how brain blood vessels form and interact with the developing neural tissue. This is particularly relevant for premature babies who are at risk for a devastating brain hemorrhage for which there are no treatments. She started her journey as a scientist studying Biochemistry at DePauw University. After graduation, she spent two years studying B cells with Dr. Rafael Casellas at the NIH. Subsequently, she moved to New York to obtain an MD/PhD at Columbia University. During her graduate school tenure, she engineered a protocol to purify brain blood vessel cells and interrogate their impact on adult neural stem cells in the lab of Dr. Fiona Doetsch. Her findings supported the idea that brain blood vessels may harbor latent functional abilities that could be harnessed for therapeutic purposes. This work laid the foundation for her current studies figuring out how blood vessels serve as master architects in the developing human brain.
Ynes Helou, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow studying T cell development and signaling in the laboratory of Dr. Arthur Weiss at UCSF. Ynes completed her PhD training at Brown University, where she used emerging proteomic technologies to analyze signaling networks in cells. Outside of the lab, she enjoys trying her hand at challenging recipes, nature walks, and science fiction.
Navchetan Kaur, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Butte Lab at Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute at UCSF. She has a PhD in Immunopathology with primary focus on “Genetic predisposition and Immune dysfunction in coexistent autoimmune diseases”. Previously while working at Tulane School of Medicine, she developed tools for automated analysis of ambiguous HLA typing of deceased donors. Her current research interests include creating translational models and tools in the field of organ transplantation using Electronic Health Records and other large datasets while innovating using machine learning and deep learning to create predictive models.
Than S. Kyaw is a MD/PhD student in the Turnbaugh lab studying how the gut microbiome affects chemotherapy treatment outcomes. Before coming to UCSF, he completed his undergraduate studies at UC San Diego, where he explored how microbes adapt to the deep-sea environment. He is passionate about increasing public awareness of complex microbial communities and their impact on health and the environment. He loves to travel, drink boba, and raise different species of coral and fish.
Geil Merana is a 4th year PhD student at UCSF studying immune responses to commensal microbes in the gut and skin. She is especially interested in the biology of CD4+ T cells and dendritic cells. Outside of the lab, she enjoys video games, camping, and cooking or baking.
Anthony Venida hails from the east coast and grew up in Maryland where he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in the biological sciences and music. After graduating, he worked at the NIH as a post-baccalaureate fellow in the lab of Michael Lenardo to better understand the signal transduction pathways that regulate human T-lymphocytes. He is currently interested in identifying mechanisms used by pancreatic cancer cells to avoid immune clearance in the Perera lab. In his spare time, he absolutely loves carrying around Tupperware to steal free food from seminars, eating copious amounts of food because he runs and bikes too much, and will gladly finish your leftovers.
Nina K Serwas, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Krummel lab at UCSF since September 2017. She is interested in the question how the immune system is kept in check to prevent autoimmune or autoinflammatory diseases, and how we can use these mechanisms to generate sustained rejections of malignancies. Her work specifically focusses on the uptake and processing of antigens from peripheral tissues and how this can be manipulated to trigger certain immune responses. She currently holds a Long-Term Fellowship from the Human Frontiers Science Program.
Nina performed her PhD research in the Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria where she discovered and characterized novel genetic causes for autoimmunity in primary immunodeficiency patients.
Fauna Yarza was born and raised in Northern California. She worked her way through community college before graduating from San Jose State University and joining the Biomedical Sciences program at UCSF. Fauna is a HHMI Gilliam Fellow and her research in Seemay Chou's laboratory focuses on how ticks interact with other organisms, including the bacteria that cause Lyme disease and the vertebrates ticks feed on. In her free time, Fauna can be found in the mountains and spending time with her cute dogs.
Xiaoyuan Zhou, PhD, has been working as a postdoc in microbiome bioinformatics since 2017 in the laboratory of Dr. Sergio Baranzini at UCSF. Her research interests involve understanding the microbiota-host crosstalk in human diseases with different bioinformatic, molecular and animal models.