PRISM Mentors

My health services research lab focuses on how novel risk predictors can be used to guide improvements in patient centered outcomes and healthcare value. I study improvement of healthcare outcomes for vulnerable populations such as frail and older adults and disparities in care for vascular patients. My accumulated research points to frailty as a versatile tool that can guide surgical decision making, inform patient consent and design quality improvement initiatives at the patient and hospital level. My previous work includes the development and validation of the Risk Analysis Index (RAI), a surgical frailty calculator that can be used prospectively with a clinical questionnaire or retrospectively. The RAI is easily applied, and when used in widespread preoperative screening, was associated with reduced mortality. The next step is to incorporate frialty screening into clinical workflow and develop interventions to mitigate postoperative adverse events for these high-risk patients. Using mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) research and implementation science, we are now developing interventions to improve outcomes for this high risk population.

The research at Stanford's Health Policy Data Science Lab is centered on developing and integrating innovative statistical machine learning approaches to improve human health and health equity. This includes ethical algorithms in health care, risk adjustment, comparative effectiveness research, and health program evaluation. 

Our research focuses on the control of immune responses to alloantigen and viruses (EBV, SARS-CoV-2) using both experimental models and human immunology. Current studies ongoing in the lab are:

Insight into Development and Progression of Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome and  COVID in Children.
Exosomes and microRNAs in the regulation of  Immune Responses
NK Cell Diversity and Responses to viral and allo antigens
Novel T regulatory populations

Molecular and Cellular Immunobiology/CyTOF/bioinformatics

Current Research Projects

• Pediatric Research Immune Network on SARS-CoV-2 and MIS-C (PRISM)
• Work with our team to consent subjects, obtain and process samples for immune assays to determine the immune responses in children with COVID.

• Identification and Therapeutic Targeting of a Novel Cell Population in Rejection of Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation
• Work with our microsurgeon to establish the cell populations, using CyTOF, important in the initiation of T cell‒mediated rejection of vascularized composite allotransplantation.

• Exosomes as a Reliable Noninvasive Method for Monitoring VCA Graft Rejection
• Work with our microsurgeon to assess the importance of exosomes and their cargo in graft rejection in a novel experimental model of vascularized composite allotransplantation

• Exosomes and the Immune Response in Allograft Outcomes in Pediatric Transplant
Recipients
• Work with a senior postdoctoral fellow to determine the impact of an allograft on the early post-transplant immune response.

Prof. Wang directs the Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology and is a leading expert in biosensors, information storage and spintronics. His research and inventions span across a variety of areas including magnetic biochips, in vitro diagnostics, cancer biomarkers, magnetic nanoparticles, magnetic sensors, magnetoresistive random access memory, and magnetic integrated inductors. 

Prof. Wang directs the Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology and is a leading expert in biosensors, information storage and spintronics. His research and inventions span across a variety of areas including magnetic biochips, in vitro diagnostics, cancer biomarkers, magnetic nanoparticles, magnetic sensors, magnetoresistive random access memory, and magnetic integrated inductors. 

Prof. Wang and his group are engaged in the research of magnetic nanotechnologies and information storage in general, including magnetic biochips, in vitro diagnostics, cell sorting, magnetic nanoparticles, nano-patterning, spin electronic materials and sensors, magnetic inductive heads, as well as magnetic integrated inductors and transformers. He uses modern thin-film growth techniques, lithography, and nanofabrication to engineer new electromagnetic materials and devices and to study their behavior at nanoscale and at very high frequencies. His group is investigating magnetic nanoparticles, high saturation soft magnetic materials, giant magnetoresistance spin valves, magnetic tunnel junctions, and spin electronic materials, with applications in cancer nanotechnology, in vitro diagnostics, spin-based information processing, efficient energy conversion and storage, and extremely high-density magnetic recording. His group conducts research in the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials (GLAM), Stanford Nanofabrication Facility (SNF) and Stanford Nano Shared Facilities (SNSF), Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) hosted at Stanford, and Stanford Cancer Institute. The Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology (formerly CRISM) he directs has close ties with the Information Storage Industry and co-sponsors The Magnetic Recording Conference (TMRC).

My laboratory seeks to identify mechanisms responsible for human congenital heart disease, the most common cause of still-births in the U.S. and one of the major contributors to morbidity and mortality in infants and toddlers. We believe that by understanding the mechanisms regulating growth and differentiation of heart precursor stem/progenitor cells during early embryonic development we can then apply these principles to understand the pathogenesis heart malformation during fetal development and to leverage them for treating adult onset heart diseases such as heart failure and arrhythmia. We currently use both genetically-modified mice as our in vivo model to understand the biology of heart development as well as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as a in vitro model to study the process of heart cell formation. Our major areas of interests include cardiovascular developmental biology, disease modeling, tissue engineering, and regenerative biology. Within each of these areas we are particularly focused on understand the major genes that regulate the proper formation of heart chambers and the consequesnces of disrupting the normal expression of these genes and how that may lead to the development of congenital heart diseases. While mouse models are useful for studying the process of heart formation, they are not exactly like the human hearts in various ways. Since human heart fetal tissue are diffulty to obtain, we have chosen to use iPSCs derived from patients with particular congenital heart diseases to study steps involved in human heart malformation. Furthermore, to bring our work closer to treating heart disease patients, we have combined our expertise in stem cell biology with 3D biopring to make engineered functional heart tissue for screening drugs and to serve as replacement tissues for damaged heart muscles.

Mission of our group is to “Predict, prevent and alleviate pain”. Broad range of human pain research topics including neuroimaging, transcranial magnetic stimulation, EEG, psychophysics, patient outcomes, learning healthcare systems across many NIH funded projects. Projects include mechanistic characterization of pain to novel treatment developments.

Heilshorn's interests include biomaterials in regenerative medicine, engineered proteins with novel assembly properties, microfluidics and photolithography of proteins, and synthesis of materials to influence stem cell differentiation. Current projects include tissue engineering for spinal cord and blood vessel regeneration, designing injectable materials for use in stem cell therapies, and the design of biomaterials for culture of patient-derived biopsies and organoids. Postdoctoral candidates with expertise (or an interest in learning) preclinical animal models of injury and disease are particularly encouraged.

Department URL:
https://mse.stanford.edu

We work to advance water resources management to promote resilient and equitable responses to an uncertain future. We develop computational modeling approaches that bridge the natural, built, and social environments. Our approach improves understanding of the water and climate risks that threaten people and the environment, while developing systems-based engineering and policy solutions.

Water resources planning under uncertainty

The investigative interests of my lab falls within the general themes of

1) Developing precision diagnostics for infectious diseases that integrates pathogen, host, and drug response information. This includes

• Developing high-content, near-patient, diagnostic system for rapid broad pathogen detection and characterization.
• Integrating multi-omics molecular and phenotypic data layers with novel computational approaches into advanced diagnostics and predictive analytics for acute infections.
• Developing personalized, rapid antimicrobial susceptibility analysis system based on early response kinetics in physiological conditions to inform antimicrobial choice, dosage, and duration.
• Exploring the clinical utility of serum bactericidal assay as a humoral immune functional assessment in the prediction of bloodstream infections. 

2) Understanding the functional roles of extracellular DNA in neutrophil extracellular traps and biofilm

• As a DNAzyme that drives bactericidal effects and immunopathologies. 

Lab overview

The communication between cells and their environment depends on a finely tuned decoding of extracellular cues into an array of intracellular signaling cascades that drive a cellular response. These signals are integrated through highly dynamic and context specific signaling networks that collectively define the phenotypic output. Given the complexity and dynamic state of signaling networks, the current understanding of their constituents and how they are spatiotemporally regulated in the cell as a result of a specific input is incomplete.

The Huttenhain lab studies mechanisms of intracellular signal integration through G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) by employing an interdisciplinary approach to probe, model, and predict how signaling network dynamics translate extracellular cues into specific phenotypic outputs. GPCRs represent the largest family of membrane receptors and mediate most of our physiological responses to hormones, neurotransmitters and environmental stimulants.  Developing quantitative proteomics approaches to capture the spatiotemporal organization of signaling networks and combining these with functional genomics to study their impact on physiology, we aim to better understand GPCR signaling and to provide a solid foundation for the design and testing of novel therapeutics targeting GPCRs with higher specificity and efficacy.

Relevant publications

• Lobingier B, Hüttenhain R, Eichel K, Ting AY, Miller KB, von Zastrow M, Krogan NJ. (2017) An approach to spatiotemporally resolve protein interaction networks in living cells. Cell 169, 350-360. PMC5616215.
• Polacco BJ, Lobingier BT, Blythe EE, Abreu N, Xu J, Li Q, Naing ZZC, Shoichet BK, Levitz J, Krogan NJ, Von Zastrow M, Hüttenhain R. (2022) Profiling the diversity of agonist-selective effects on the proximal proteome environment of G protein-coupled receptors. bioRxiv 2022.03.28.486115
• Zhong X, Li Q, Polacco BJ, Patil T, DiBerto JF, Vartak R, Xu J, Marley A, Foussard H, Roth BL, Eckhardt M, Von Zastrow M, Krogan NJ, Hüttenhain R. (2023) An automated proximity proteomics pipeline for subcellular proteome and protein interaction mapping. bioRxiv 2023.04.11.536358
   

Our lab uses the tools of cognitive neuroscience to understand how decision making, executive control, and learning and memory are implemented in the human brain.  We also develop neuroinformatics tools and resources to help researchers make better sense of data and to do research that is more transparent and reproducible.

My lab is focused on the development of imaging and molecular biomarkers for precision cancer medicine. We are interested in a broad range of clinical applications, including early cancer detection, diagnosis, prognostication, and prediction of treatment response. To achieve this goal, we integrate and analyze large-scale patient data sets with clinical annotations, including both imaging (radiologic, histopathologic) and molecular (genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic) data. In addition, we develop and apply novel statistical and machine learning methods. We are a multidisciplinary team with a diverse background and yet converging theme. Our ultimate goal is to clinically translate novel biomarkers to guide selection of optimal therapy and improve outcomes for cancer patients.

The Kopito laboratory seeks a molecular understanding of how cells maintain the fidelity of their proteomes. Unlike DNA, which can be repaired if damaged or incorrectly made, proteins cannot be mended. Instead, damaged or incorrectly synthesized proteins must be rapidly and efficiently destroyed lest they form toxic aggregates. Our laboratory use state-of-the-art cell biological, genetic and systems-level approaches to understand how proteins are correctly synthesized, folded and assembled in the mammalian secretory pathway, how errors in this process are detected and how abnormal proteins are destroyed by the ubiquitin-proteasome system.

Department URL:
https://biology.stanford.edu/

The Kopito laboratory seeks a molecular understanding of how cells maintain the fidelity of their proteomes. Unlike DNA, which can be repaired if damaged or incorrectly made, proteins cannot be mended. Instead, damaged or incorrectly synthesized proteins must be rapidly and efficiently destroyed lest they form toxic aggregates. Our laboratory use state-of-the-art cell biological, genetic and systems-level approaches to understand how proteins are correctly synthesized, folded and assembled in the mammalian secretory pathway, how errors in this process are detected and how abnormal proteins are destroyed by the ubiquitin-proteasome system.

Roger is interested in a variety of topics in high energy astrophysics and cosmology. Much of Roger's group are currently focused on understanding the cosmic gamma-ray sources discovered by the Fermi Space telescope, principally pulsars and blazars. This inherently multi-wavelength question requires them to use telescopes all over the world and in space in order to assemble data on these objects and then to develop and test theoretical models to explain what we see.

Roger has broad interests in particle astrophysics and cosmology. Roger and his group are currently working on studies of gravitational lensing, compact objects (black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs) and cosmic rays, tackling difficult questions such as the unknown nature of the gamma-ray flares of the Crab Nebula. He is interested in topics which range from pure theory through phenomenological studies to analysis of observational data. Some of his groups research is strongly computational but plenty is not.

The Hernandez-Lopez Lab works at the interface of mechanistic, synthetic, and systems biology to understand and program cellular recognition, communication, and organization. We are currently interested in engineering biomedical relevant cellular behaviors for cancer immunotherapy. We are also launching new multidisciplinary projects.

We are looking for outstanding, motivated graduate students and physician-scientists from diverse fields who are interested in joining our interdisciplinary research program. Postdoctoral candidates with expertise (or an interest in learning) preclinical animal models of disease or structural biology (cryo-EM) are particularly encouraged.

Dr. Sarangi is a senior scientist at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory with 19 years of experience in the application of a combination of hard and soft x-ray spectroscopic techniques to a range of systems, from complex biological/biomimetic catalysts to related homogenous catalyst systems. One of her main research foci is understanding the mechanism of first row transition metal metalloenzyme active sites involved in redox catalysis. She drives the technological development on several x-ray spectroscopy facilities and plays a critical role in training and dissemination of synchrotron-based techniques. She is also involved in strategic planning to enhance access of various research user communities to SSRL facilities.

How did the Universe form and evolve and what is it made of? Our group works on a range of topics in cosmology and astrophysics, with a focus on the formation of cosmological structure in the Universe, its impact on galaxy formation, and its use in determining the nature of dark matter and dark energy. We build and analyze numerical simulations and develop models of large scale structure and galaxy formation for comparison with large observational datasets, and develop new techniques to learn about the dark side of the Universe from these data.  We are actively involved in the ongoing Dark Energy Survey (DES), the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), and also work on finding, measuring, and modeling dwarf galaxies with the SAGA survey.

The Frock laboratory is interested in elucidating mechanisms of DNA double-stranded break (DSB) repair and chromosome translocations.  We employ a high-throughput sequencing technology that identifies and maps cellular DSBs.  We are interested in further developing this technology to more fully quantify the DSB repair fates from targeted DSBs.  Our research disciplines are broad and cover aspects of molecular and cancer biology, bioinformatics. immunology, genome editing, and radiation biology.