URAP

Michelle Koo - Staff Curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The world's natural history museums are responsible for documenting over 1.8 billion species known as a result of 300 years of biological exploration of the planet. The information contained in museums include observational and specimen-based data, text, images, sound and video and form the foundation of what we know...

Michelle Koo - Staff Curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) is a vibrant research and informatics center for the campus and the natural history communities around the world. The world's natural history museums are responsible for documenting over 1.8 billion species known as a result of 300 years of biological exploration of the planet...

Britt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Microbiomes change over time, often with important functional consequences for their hosts. But the ecological drivers of microbiome succession are poorly understood. We are studying the role that microbial interactions play in this process by examining the constituents of the digestive microbiome of the insectivorous California pitcher plant (Darlingtonia californica...

Britt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Phage, viruses that infect and kill bacteria, are ubiquitous, yet their impacts on beneficial bacteria that colonize plants are not well understood. Phage are abundant in the soil and therefore soil-dwelling bacteria must hone defenses against phage in order to survive. Likewise, phage must hone their capacity to infect...

Britt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

We are building a new system (fire blight of pear trees) to better understand how bacteriophage viruses might impact the ability of a bacterial pathogen (Erwinia amylovora) to colonize and infect pear trees. We are tracking bacteria-phage interactions through time by isolating individual phages from each of 25 diseased...

Britt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

In natural systems, microorganisms interact with myriad other microbial populations which influence their evolution and ecology. When associated with a eukaryotic host, these complex microbial communities (known as microbiomes) also interact with and impact their host’s ecology and evolution, nutrient acquisition, and pathogen susceptibility. Despite the microbiome's vast importance on...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Global warming is increasing ambient temperatures, negatively impacting pregnancy outcomes, as well as a female and male fertility - but to what degree? And what are the mechanisms of effect? We have started integrating extensive research on heat and reproduction from animals with the more limited on humans to answer these...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Climate change is increasing ambient temperatures around the globe. In some low- and middle-income countries, existing cooling technologies might be effective, but are difficult to access because of supply chain constraints or policies like tariffs. This project will conduct comparative case studies in four different countries to understand what...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

In large parts of Sub Saharan Africa, health facilities (e.g. hospitals and clinics) lack appropriate energy infrastructure. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where much of the continent's unelectrified are exposed to both climate and conflict pressures, the near-total absence of a central grid requires the health sector...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

In an effort to understand how different cooling interventions can impact indoor heat among tin shed homes in Dhaka, Bangladesh. We have collected sociodemographic, physical and mental health, and sleep data, as well as temperature, humidity, and wind speed...

Renaud La Joie - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

Recent advances in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) therapeutics have given families and clinicians hope for slowing and eventually halting the effects of the disease, but existing disease-modifying therapies only target a single biochemical pathway, have limited clinical benefit, and are only able to be administered to a small proportion of...

Patricia Lang - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Climate change has dramatically reshaped plant life on Earth. Despite these widespread biological shifts creating serious challenges—such as mismatches in plant-biotic or plant-abiotic interactions—we still lack a comprehensive understanding of their molecular underpinnings. This project aims to characterize the genetic drivers underlying the most evident plant...

Barbara Laraia - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

As human life spans increase, so do the risk of developing chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases. For example, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death among women. These chronic conditions can take a lifetime to develop. Poor quality diets, stress, eating patterns and socioeconomic...

Peggy G. Lemaux - Professor of Cooperative Extension, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

General Description and Research Approach. Were heat waves or intense rainfall events common when you were growing up? Now, these events are common due to effects of climate change. These events include heatwaves, more severe and frequent rainstorms, increased wildfires and droughts. Recent Los Angeles fires are an example of...

Peggy G. Lemaux - Professor of Cooperative Extension, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench), is the fifth most important cereal crop worldwide and is a critical food, forage, and emerging biofuel crop. Understanding the photosynthetic mechanisms by which sorghum can capture sunlight more efficiently under adverse climate conditions is critical to using this crop to remove carbon dioxide that...

Dennis Levi - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Research in my lab focuses on how we perceive visual forms and patterns, and how form and depth perception are degraded by abnormal visual experience early in life (amblyopia). Specifically, we use psychophysics, eye-movements, computational modelling and brain imaging (fMRI) to study the neural mechanisms of normal pattern vision...

Dennis Levi - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Most observers experience the world in three dimensions (3D) made possible by a combination of monocular and binocular cues to depth. In Amblyopia, a developmental disorder of spatial vision, a significant portion of observers have very coarse or no stereopsis (a cue for 3D perception). Previous research has shown that...

Dennis Levi - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Amblyopia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of spatial vision characterized by a reduction in visual acuity. Previous research has shown that several neuro, oculomotor and perceptual deficits are also present in persons with amblyopia. Particularly, research has shown that amblyopes have longer saccadic and manual latencies to stimuli (i.e., the time...

Dennis Levi - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Most people with degraded vision (amblyopia) lack 3D-depth vision (stereoblindness). Using a simple training, the depth perceptual sense can be recovered and some people can experience depth in 3D movie theatres for the first time. The goal of the project is to test this phenomenon extensively and investigate what...

Jennifer Lewis - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae causes disease in a large number of different plant species, using the type III secretion system to secrete and translocate effector proteins into the plant. Many of these effector proteins are believed to function primarily in the suppression of host defense signaling. However recognition of...

Jennifer Lewis - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae causes disease in a large number of different plant species. Virulence is primarily achieved by the type III secretion system, which secretes and translocates effector proteins into the plant. Many of these effector proteins are believed to suppress host defense signaling. However recognition of these...

Meng C. Lin - Professor, Optometry

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Dry eye disease (DED) is pervasive with some reports estimating over 16 million adults diagnosed with DED in the United States. It has been well documented that race, sex, systemic conditions, medications, and contact lens use are among the risk factors for DED. There are numerous dry eye questionnaires and...

Meng C. Lin - Professor, Optometry

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

This research investigates the fascinating impact of aging on the morphology of the Meibomian gland (MG), which plays a pivotal role in Ocular Surface Disease. Traditionally, clinicians have employed subjective methods to identify and grade MG features such as atrophy, tortuosity, length, width, and ghosting. At the exciting crossroads of...

Meng C. Lin - Professor, Optometry

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Scleral lenses, unlike standard contact lenses, are large-diameter rigid lenses that rest on the sclera (white part of the eye) and create a tear-filled reservoir to hydrate the anterior ocular surface. They are primarily recommended for patients with corneal irregularities and dry eye diseases due to their capability...

Fenyong Liu - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The long-term goals of our research are (1) to study the functions of genes of human herpes simplex virus (HSV) (the causative agent of genital herpes and cold sores) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) (the leading cause of congenital abnormalities in newborns and blindness and death in AIDS patients) in regulation...

Juan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Lateral line sensory system, or lateral line organ, or simply the lateral line, is a system of sensory organs found in fish and some tetrapods (four-legged vertebrates). The lateral line enables those vertebrates to detect and perceive the hydrodynamic and physical environment they inhabit including movement, vibration, and pressure...

Juan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Scientific illustration is art in the service of science by drawing, painting, or rendering images of scientific subjects to accurately inform and communicate sciences. Research in fossil fishes (paleoichthyology) is at the junction of paleontology and ichthyology, and therefore, possesses characteristics of both —-- the incomplete nature of fossil preservations and...

Juan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Our study aims to explore the intricate details of mammalian hearing, with a specific emphasis on the function and evolution of the middle ear, with comparative anatomy with fish hearing apparatus. This critical aspect of auditory anatomy plays a pivotal role in the way mammals perceive and interpret sound. By...

Juan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Catfishes (Siluriformes) are remarkable among hearing specialist fishes in their possession of the Weberian apparatus, a conductive multi-ossicle chain linking the inner ear and swim bladder that is analogous to the middle ear ossicles of the mammalian tetrapods. Work with laboratory animals has produced considerable insight into the role...

John Liu - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary brain cancer. Despite decades of research to better treat this cancer, most patients unfortunately die within 2 years of diagnosis. Surgery followed by radiation therapy and chemotherapy comprise the standard of care for patients with GBM, but resistant to treatment poses a major...

Gabriel Loeb - Professor, Medicine, UCSF

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

I am a scientist and physician investigating molecular mechanisms underlying human disease--with a particular focus on kidney disease. My laboratory integrates computational approaches with human genetics and advanced experimental models to discover genetic mechanisms of disease. We have a particular interest in understanding the molecular basis of kidney disease...

Gabriel Loeb - Professor, Medicine, UCSF

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

I am a scientist and physician with a broad interest in mechanisms underlying human disease. Our laboratory studies genetic mechanisms underlying kidney disease and develops approaches to discover novel disease mechanisms that are broadly applicable to many human diseases. Many of the genetic variants (changes in the genome) which contribute...

Gabriel Loeb - Professor, Medicine, UCSF

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     

Polycystic Kidney Disease is the most common genetic cause of kidney failure. We know the genes that are mutated in Polycystic Kidney Disease but still do not have good treatments for patients with this disease. Our laboratory, which is led by a physician-scientist works on mechanisms underlying polycystic kidney...

Gabriel Loeb - Professor, Medicine, UCSF

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Our laboratory is developing induced pluripotent stem cell derived kidney organoids as: 1) Models of human kidney disease 2) Models amenable to CRISPR screens with the goal of identifying new pathways and therapeutic targets for kidney diseases...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Pollinators are essential components of a healthy ecosystem and provide vital benefits to both plants and animals. The student-run pollinator garden on the south side of the Valley Life Science Building (VLSB) supports native insects, spiders, and other wildlife and is an environmental education resource for students. Our goal...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Plants are adapted to the physical conditions in their environments, including temperature, precipitation, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and light level. In cooler and drier habitats, leaves tend to be smaller with condensed venation and toothed margins. While under warmer and wetter conditions, leaves tend to be larger, have ‘drip tips’, and...

Dengke Ma - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Life requires a constant supply of energy, yet animals can adapt by slowing down or temporarily shutting off costly processes. One key strategy is ribosomal hibernation, in which ribosomes—the cell’s protein-making machines—pause activity to conserve resources. In the nematode C. elegans, ribosomal hibernation is linked to sleep...

Dengke Ma - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The nematode C. elegans can be frozen alive, suspend life and revive later virtually any long after freezing, unlike many other multicellular organisms, including flies, fish, mice and humans. How C. elegans achieves this feat remains a fascinating unsolved mystery. This project will use our newly established reporters and assays...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The huge diversity of animal lifeforms that occupy virtually every ecological niche on our planet are all produced through the transformation of a single-celled zygote to a multicellular, fully functional organism via the processes encompassed by embryogenesis. It is through tweaks and changes to these developmental mechanisms that new...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The evolution of vertebrates is intimately linked to the advent of the neural crest, a migratory and multipotent cell population that gives rise to many defining vertebrate characteristics, such as the jaw and peripheral gangilia. Where the neural crest arise along the body axis during developmement has great impacts on...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The neural crest (NC) is a transient stem cell population that emerges during early vertebrate embryogenesis. Characterized by its migratory behavior and multipotency, the NC gives rise to diverse cell types and tissue derivatives including elements of the peripheral nervous system, the craniofacial skeleton, and the cardiovascular system. The NC...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Ischemic heart disease and stroke are major drivers of cardiovascular disease mortality. In humans, cardiac injury leads to the formation of a fibrotic scar without replacement of cardiomyocytes. This reduces the heart’s ability to recover, irreversibly lowering an individual’s cardiovascular health. However, the regenerative capacity of the heart after injury...

Norma Cecilia Martinez Gomez - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Methylotrophs are plant-associated bacteria that metabolize plant-derived methanol using lanthanide- or calcium-dependent methanol dehydrogenases. As interacting systems, methylotrophic communities form dynamic and metabolically diverse biofilms that contribute to the health of plants. However, the molecular mechanisms driving interactions between co-occurring methylotrophic symbionts remain poorly understood. As...

Jimmy McGuire - Professor, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The island of Sulawesi in Indonesia is a hotspot of biodiversity and model system for studying the evolution of organisms. Our lab has conducted numerous expeditions to the island to document its biodiversity and collect samples for genetic analysis. Our lab uses molecular and morphological tools to reconstruct the evolutionary...

Jimmy McGuire - Professor, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Amphibians are the world’s most imperiled vertebrate group. Confounding efforts to combat amphibian declines is that we have little knowledge concerning most of the species and much of it not easily accessible. Since 2000, we have been developing an informatics platform to create a web page for every species of...

Marisa Medina - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

There are a limited number of human omics datasets that include menopausal status information for female subjects and include enough premenopausal and postmenopausal women. For instance, multi-omics data has been generated for thousands of Framingham Heart Study (FHS) participants and hundreds of TwinsUK female twin pairs. We will compare...

Marisa Medina - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

A subset of women experience an accelerated rise in certain cardiometabolic risk factors around the time of menopause, increasing their risk for heart disease and other conditions. We would like to discover why some women experience dramatic changes while others are relatively protected...

Patina Mendez - Lecturer, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Streams in California have a variety of forms including: (a) intermittent streams that only flow for part of the year, and often are dry throughout the summer, (b) protected streams in national, state, regional, and county parts, and (c) urban streams that serve recreational needs and stormwater management. The project...

Patina Mendez - Lecturer, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Studies in ecology and evolution rely on properly curated museum material and access to museum records and specimen. Caddisflies, in the insect order Trichoptera, are aquatic insects closely related to moths and butterflies. In this project, the student will assist with labeling, organizing, and curating caddisflies. The student will also...

Guanghan Meng - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Myopia (nearsightedness) is the most prevalent eye condition worldwide, affecting a rapidly growing portion of the population and requiring regular monitoring of eye health in both children and adults. Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a widely adopted imaging technology for diagnosing ocular diseases and monitoring eye health. However, the high...