Dr. Schafer is Professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at UCSF and Chief of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the San Francisco VA Health Care System. She is board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in the subspecialty of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. Her research focus is osteoporosis and bone metabolism. One of her research emphases is osteoporosis treatment and the assessment of response to osteoporosis therapy.

1. Programmatic implementation of population-based colorectal cancer screening and follow-up of abnormal screening results. We embrace big data and technology to design, develop, and deliver economic and effective services for patients and health systems.

2. Use of human gut samples to study HIV, Covid-19, barrier function, systemic inflammation, inflammatory bowel disease, and microbiome. Approaches employed: organoid models, isolation of epithelial cells and lymphocytes, single cell, spatial transcriptomic analysis, microbial profiling, and blood-based profiling.

The Spitzer Lab is working to develop our understanding of how the immune system coordinates its responses across the organism with an emphasis on tumor immunology. We combine methods in experimental immunology and cancer biology with computation to understand the modes in which the immune system can respond to tumors and to rationally initiate curative immune responses against cancer.