Bio

I am Professor at UCSF, where I also hold the Heidrich Friends and Family Endowed Chair. I use a combination of “wet lab” methods including DNA and RNA sequencing, and immunological profiling in combination with “dry lab” analytical approaches encompassing bioinformatics, complexity theory, and mathematical modeling. Specifically, my current research involves immunological studies using in-vitro and in-vivo experimental models, sequencing of whole genomes and transcriptomes. I am also the lead investigator in a multi-million-dollar international effort to characterize the role of gut bacteria in MS. In one of our most ambitious projects, I lead a multi-disciplinary team worldwide aiming at integrating all the available knowledge obtained in different research domains (SPOKE). We develop bioinformatics tools and strategies to integrate this information with millions of electronic medical records to create unique 'health barcodes'' that describe the status of a given patient in a multidimensional space. These profiles provide a powerful novel way to cluster patients with similar conditions and guide doctors to provide better personalized care. I have published my research in several top-tier journals like Science, Nature, PNAS, J. Immunol, and PLoS Biol. I am a member of the American Association of Immunologists, the American Society for Human Genetics and an elected member of the American Neurological Association. I also serve as an ad-hoc reviewer for many specialized journals. Currently, I am a member of the UCSF Graduate Program in integrative quantitative biology (iPQB), the Institute for Human Genetics, and the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute. I conducted my postdoctoral research at UCSF between 1997 and 2002. I am a graduate from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1997 obtaining a PhD with honors in human molecular genetics. I earned my degree in clinical biochemistry from the same institution, in 1992.