Understanding how immune cells promote cardiovascular disease in the elderly.
Trevor Fidler, Professor
UC San Francisco
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2025 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2026.
We’re interested in understanding why clonal hematopoiesis is associated with cardiovascular disease. Clonal hematopoiesis is a high prevalent disease in the elderly which occurs when hematopoietic stem cells acquire cancer mutations that promote cell survival. People with clonal hematopoiesis have a 40% increase in mortality. However, rather surprisingly this increase in mortality is not due to increased cancer but is associated with increased atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Utilizing murine models and human samples we seek to understand if these associations are causative by identifying the mechanisms underlying this association. Since the mutations are are passed on from the stem cell to the blood immune cells, we initiate these studies by focusing on understanding how the cancer mutations affect immune cells. Currently patients diagnosed with clonal hematopoiesis do not have any therapeutic options, thus understanding why these mutations are associated with cardiovascular disease may lead to better treatment options. In addition, identification of the underlying mechanisms may identify enhanced susceptibility to currently approved therapeutics which could be deployed in a precision medicine approach.
Role: The undergraduate researcher will become familiar with laboratory techniques related to molecular biology, physiology, and cardiovascular disease. Students will be expected to become proficient in laboratory techniques including histology, gene expression, and sequencing, and biochemical assays. Eventually students will be expected to take ownership of their project, reading the literature to aid in designing new experiments and understanding research concepts. We expect qualified students to be in lab ~12 hours a week and 2-3 days per week during the duration of this program. Depending on the workload, students can expect to contribute to both projects listed, which will provide the student a broader understanding of our research interests.
Qualifications: We are seeking to recruit undergraduate students who have taken upper division coursework in cell biology, genetics, molecular biology, etc., and their associated lab. Preferably, we are interested in students with excellent time management skills, are well-organized, and are able to understand experimental design. We expect students to have a basic understanding of commonly use molecular biology techniques that include Western Blot, PCR, and gel electrophoresis. We don't expect proficiency in these techniques, but students should be able to understand the mechanisms behind it. Sophomore and juniors are preferred. Currently, we are interested in recruiting 1 additional URAP student to the lab.
Please state in your application what qualities you have that sets you apart from other students. This can be as general or as specific as you would like.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Cesar De Jeronimo Diaz, Post-Doc
Hours: to be negotiated
Off-Campus Research Site: 555 Mission Bay Blvd S. San Francisco CA, 94159