People

Peter Turnbaugh, PhD

Professor
Microbiology and Immunology

I lead an interdisciplinary group of microbiome researchers committed to understanding host-associated microbes, reducing these complex microbial ecologies to molecular mechanism, and applying these lessons to improve the practice of medicine. Our three major topics of interest right now are pharmacology, nutrition, and phage biology. While we love sequencing and gnotobiotic mice, our work is question-driven not limited to a specific approach.

Vaibhav Upadhyay, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor
Medicine

I'm a K08 funded physician scientist studying impact of gut microorganisms on human health and applying multi-omic technologies to the study of chronic diseases with clinical focus in pulmonary medicine.

Martin Valdearcos, PhD

Assistant Professor
Diabetes Center

Microglia are emerging as critical regulators of brain homeostasis with an expanding array of functions beyond their established roles as immune sentinels such as synaptic remodeling, neuronal excitability, and myelin plasticity. These highly dynamic cells continuously monitor their microenvironment for alterations, and distinct populations and activation states have been identified based on brain anatomical location, sex, and age.

Erin Van Blarigan, ScD

Associate Professor
Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Archana Venkataraman, PhD

Postdoc
Cellular Molecular Pharmacology

Alan Venook, MD

Professor of Clinical Medicine
Medicine

Dr. Venook is a Medical Oncologist with expertise in Gastrointestinal cancers. He leads that program in the UCSF
Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. The program boasts a robust clinical trials portfolio primarily for patients in need of new options.

Sofia Verstraete, MD

Associate Professor
Pediatrics

Alessandro Villa, DDS, MPH, PhD

Associate Professor
Orofacial Sciences

Slavena Vylkova, PhD

Scientific Communications Manager
Medicine

Dr. Slavena Vylkova manages the scientific communications for the Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine (BCMM). Her responsibilities include assisting with pre-award research funding operations, scientific writing/editing and project development.

Robert Wachter, MD

PROFESSOR AND CHAIR
Medicine

Robert M. Wachter, MD is Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is the author of 300 articles and 6 books. He coined the term “hospitalist” in 1996 and is often considered the “father” of the hospitalist field, the fastest-growing medical specialty in U.S. history. He is past president of the Society of Hospital Medicine, past chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine, a Master of the American College of Physicians, and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. In 2004, he received the John M.

Evan Walker, MD

Assistant Professor
Medicine

Dr. Walker is a medical oncologist with a specific focus on gastrointestinal cancers. He maintains clinical practices at UCSF and the San Francisco VA.

Emmanuelle Waubant, MD, PhD

Professor
Neurology

Dr Waubant trained as a neurologist in Toulouse, France. She continued her training as a neuroimmunology fellow in Dr Stephen Hauser’s UCSF laboratory, focusing on matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) and their tissue inhibitors (TIMP), and their role in migration of lymphocytes through equivalents of the blood-brain barrier. In 1994, Dr Waubant returned to Toulouse to complete her 2-year junior faculty/chief residency in neurology. Dr Waubant later returned as a clinical research fellow at the UCSF MS Center with Dr Donald Goodkin.

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