I am a physician-scientist with an interest in airway epithelial dysfunction in asthma. Specifically, my lab focuses on understanding how genetic risk variants that are associated with asthma at a population level, actually confer risk of disease at a molecular level. We use novel techniques such as conditionally reprogrammed primary airway epithelial cells, CRISPR gene deletion, and biospecimens from large numbers of human subjects to discover the function of genes associated with asthma and elucidate the causal single nucleotide polymorphism.

The Halkias lab studies the cellular and molecular signals that drive human immune development with a focus on understanding how early life host-microbe interactions influence adaptive immune responses to perinatal inflammatory disorders such as preterm birth. Early life is a critical time in immune development marked by rapid exposure to environmental antigens. Microbial colonization of mucosal tissues plays a key role in the development and education of the host immune system and influences the susceptibility to immune-mediated disease later in life.

Stephen L. Hauser, M.D. is the Robert A. Fishman Distinguished Professor of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is Director of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, an umbrella organization that links the clinical and basic neurosciences at UCSF to accelerate research against neurologic diseases. A neuroimmunologist, Dr. Hauser’s research has advanced our understanding of the genetic basis, immune mechanisms, and treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS).