People

The Ahituv lab is focused on identifying gene regulatory elements and linking nucleotide variation within them to various phenotypes including morphological differences between species, drug response and human disease. It develops and uses massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs) that allow for high-throughput functional characterization of gene regulatory elements.

Dr. Steven Altschuler is interested in discovering principles underlying cellular individuality, the emergence of collective cellular behaviors, and the evolution of drug resistance. Dr. Altschuler also applies high-throughput technology developed by his laboratory to diverse problems, including mapping paths of signal transduction and accelerating drug discovery. Prior to arriving at UCSF, Dr. Altschuler worked at UT Southwestern, Harvard, Rosetta Informatics, Microsoft, Princeton, and the Institute for Advanced Studies.

The molecular and developmental basis for the majority of birth defects is unknown. Tissues and organs form during embryonic development through the integration of numerous signaling and transcriptional pathways. Our major goal is to define pathways controlling organ formation to understand normal development, the molecular basis for congenital and other genetic defects, and potential mechanisms for organ regeneration and repair. Our focus is primarily on the cardiovascular system, but the development of other organs and tissues is also being investigated in our laboratory.

In the Bondy-Denomy lab, we study CRISPR-Cas bacterial immune systems in an effort to understand their role in antagonizing viruses called bacteriophages. We are very interested in how CRISPR works and the ways that phages inhibit and evade CRISPR-Cas function.