PRISM Mentors

Stanford Solutions Science Lab.

The Stanford Solutions Science Lab designs solutions to improve health and well-being of children, families, and the planet.  Dr. Robinson originated the solution-oriented research paradigm. He is known for his pioneering obesity prevention and treatment research, including the concept of stealth interventions. His research applies social cognitive models of behavior change to behavioral, social, environmental and policy interventions for children and families in real world settings, making the results relevant for informing clinical and public health practice and policy. His research is largely experimental, conducting rigorous school-, family- and community-based randomized controlled trials. He studies obesity and disordered eating, nutrition, physical activity/inactivity and sedentary behavior, the effects of television and other screen time, adolescent smoking, aggressive behavior, consumerism, and behaviors to promote environmental sustainability. Rich longitudinal datasets of physical, physiological, psychological, behavioral, social, behavioral, and multi-omics measures are available from our many community-based obesity prevention and treatment trials in low-income and racial/ethnic minority populations of children and adolescents and their parents.

Stanford Screenomics Lab - Human Screenome Project.

People increasingly live their lives through smartphones. Our Stanford Screenomics app captures everything that people see and do on their smartphone screens – a record of digital life – by taking a screenshot every 5 seconds. The resulting sequence of screenshots, make up an individual’s screenome, an unique and dynamic sequence of exposures, thoughts, feelings, and actions. To date, we have collected more than 350 million screenshots from 6-12 months of phone use from national samples of about 500 hundred adults and adolescents and their parents. Opportunities available to study the screenome to understand digital media use and its impacts on health and behavior,  develop novel diagnostics and prognostics from the screenome, and deliver precision interventions to improve health and well being. An opportunity to help build this paradigm-disrupting new science.

Our research is focused on structural characterization of materials used for energy conversion and storage and for desalination. We use X-ray techniques at SSRL to establish structure-function relationships in complex materials.

The Weker Research Group is at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), a Directorate of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. SLAC is a Department of Energy National Lab managed by Stanford Univeristy. Our research is focused on X-ray microscopy and X-ray characterization of materials far from equilibrium. Using X-rays we study a broad range of systems including energy storage materials such as Li-ion batteries, catalysts, and 3D metal printing (additive manufacturing). 

Our group at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is leading R&D of machine learning applications for in the area of experimental neutrino physics and a wider community of High Energy Physics.  Modern neutrino experiments employ a big (100 to 10,000 tonnes), high-resolution (~mm/pixel) particle imaging detectors that records meters-long particle trajectories produced from a neutrino interaction. We address fundamental challenges in modeling these detectors, analyzing particle images, and inferring physics from big data using machine learning and advanced computing techniques. Our research has potential to accelerate physics discovery process by orders of magnitude and to maximize physics information extracted from the big, high-recision particle imaging detectors. 

Areas of technical R&D include:

• Development and optimization of end-to-end deep-learning based data analysis chain
• Scaling applications at massively parallel computing infrastructure
• Quantification of uncertainty/confidence-interval for deep-learning models
• Mitigation and quantification of domain shift (e.g. discrepancies between data and simulation)
• Differentiable software for modeling physics and solving the inverse problems

Areas of physics research include:

• Neutrino oscillation analysis and cross-section measurements at the Short Baseline Neutrino program and Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment
• Physics of neutrino-nucleus interaction including modeling of many-body interactions inside a large (~40 nucleons) nucleus
• Modeling of detector physics processes using machine learning and differentiable simulation softwares

For details, feel free to contact Kazuhiro Terao.

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.

We are a highly interdisciplinary group with a diverse set of research interests that span various areas of medicine and public health. These interests include i) the use of novel causal inference techniques in electronic health record data to assess the real-life effectiveness of clinical (e.g., medications), behavioral, and health services interventions; ii) deep learning in satellite imagery and other publicly available geotagged data sources to monitor health indicators in low- and middle-income countries; iii) the re-analysis of clinical trial data to gain novel insights; and iv) randomized trials and analysis of household surveys in low- and middle-income countries to improve population health (with a focus on chronic conditions, particularly cardiovascular disease risk factors).

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 focus is in computational systems biology, primarily in cancer and more recently in neurodegenerative diseases.  We develop and apply methods to understand biological processes underlying disease, using high-throughput genomic and proteomic datasets and integrating them with phenotypes and clinical outcomes. A key interest is dissecting how the cellular composition and organization of tissues affects their behaviour in disease; and how these things might be targeted for therapy or diagnostic purposes. We collaborate with many wet lab and clinical groups at Stanford, including in the areas of cancer, immunology, and neuroscience.

My research utilizes multimodal imaging (fMRI, dMRI, qMRI), computational modeling, and behavioral measurements to investigate human visual cortex. We seek to understand how the underlying neural mechanisms and their anatomical implementation enable rapid and efficient visual perception and recognition. Critically, we examine how the human brain and visual perception change across development to understand how the interplay between anatomical constraints and experience shapes visual cortex and ultimately behavior.

We strive to create a lab that reflects the diversity of our global community and is actively involved in solving scientific and societal problems that affect all of us. I am also involved in the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and the Ophthalmology T32 training grant.

We are interested in the molecular mechanisms involved in synaptic transmission and plasticity using electrophysiological, optogenetic and behavioral tools in mouse brain and spinal cord. We study brain circuit alterations caused by stress, drugs of abuse, and pain. Our lab focuses on three regions of the central nervous system 1) the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a key nucleus in the reward pathway and containing neurons that regulate sleep architechture, and 2) spinal dorsal horn to brain connections that carry pain information, and 3) the lateral hypothalamus, a region critical in regulation of sleep/wake cycles. We have a postdoctoral opening for a highly motivated researcher for a new project in our lab. This project will probe brain circuits controlling sleep, testing for alterations in mice with mutations in bipolar disorder-related genes. The new postdoc will use electrophysiological and optogenetic approaches in mice to examine excitability changes and be part of a vibrant multi-university collaboration that will for the first time study how neuronal circuits, sleep/wake states, and behavior are altered with CRISPR driven bipolar disorder-linked gene mutations.

We study how genetic and environmental factors contribute to biological diversity and adaptation. We are particularly interested in understanding (1) how behavior evolves through changes in brain function and (2) how animal physiology evolves through repurposing existing cellular components.
Our mission is to perform rigorous, ethical, and ecologically relevant science across many areas of organismal biology. We aspire to maintain an environment that fosters creativity, diversity, and inclusion as well as engagement with communities in the areas where we work.
We stand in solidarity with the BlackLivesMatter Movement. Scientists and the institutions we work in are complicit in centuries of racism and we will hold ourselves and our institutions accountable by using lab meetings to reflect on our own privileges and by demanding action from Stanford University. We will continue supporting the careers of our Black colleagues by inviting them to seminars, reading their papers, and promoting their work through collaboration and our social media spaces. We are committed to including classrooms in predominantly Black neighborhoods to our Froggers School Program.

The overarching goal of Brain Dyanamics Lab is to develop computational methods that could allow for anchoring psychiatric diagnosis into biological features (e.g., neural circuits, spatiotemporal neurodynamics). The lab is funded through an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2), an NIMH R01, and a faculty scholar award from Stanford’s Maternal and Child Health Research Institute. Our lab excels in developing data-driven computational methods to generate clinically and behaviorally relevant insights from high-dimensional biological data (e.g., neuroimaging) without necessarily averaging the data at the outset. The lab also actively pursue developing novel technologies for experimental design and data collection for enhancing human cognition (e.g., creativity and collaboration). Lastly, the lab also uses large-scale biophysical network modeling approaches to study effects of neuromodulation via TMS and pharmacology (e.g., psychedelics).

Dr. Michael Zeineh received a B.S. in Biology at Caltech in 1995 and obtained his M.D.-Ph.D. from UCLA in 2003. After internship also at UCLA, he went on to radiology residency and neuroradiology fellowship both at Stanford. He has been faculty in Stanford Neuroradiology since 2010. He spearheads many initiatives in advanced clinical imaging at Stanford, including clinical fMRI and DTI. Simultaneously, he runs a lab with the goal of discovering new imaging abnormalities in neurodegenerative disorders, with a focus on detailed microcircuitry in regions such as the hippocampal formation using advanced, multi-modal in vivo and ex vivo methods, with applications to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and mild traumatic brain injury.

Specific projects:

Ex vivo MRI of iron in Alzheimer’s disease
MR-histopathology correlation (both traditional histology and clearing methods)
MR-PET of AD
7T MR in AD
Analysis of iron-changes in exosomes from AD
Multi-modal MRI (DTI, ASL, QSM, rsfMRI) in mild traumatic brain injury
7T MR in Epilepsy
Ultra-high resolution 7T MRI
X-ray imaging of iron
X-ray imaging of myelin and myelin orientation
Scattered light imaging
Hippocampal microanatomy

The Bernstein Lab has several major foci:
 

1. Using iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes to develop a better understanding of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and congenital heart disease.
2. The role of alterations in mitochondrial structure and function in normal physiology and in diseases such as dilated and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
3. Single cell analysis of mitochondrial function reveals significant heterogeneity.

Specific projects underway in our lab include:

1. Using CRISPR-edited iPSC-cardiomyocytes to understand the mechanisms of cardiomyopathies and to solve the genotype-phenotype conundrum in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

2. The role of altered metabolism and mitochondrial function in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

3. Alterations of mitochondrial structure and function, including processes of mitofusion, mitofission, autophagy and mitophagy, in normal physiology and disease.

4. Development of high-throughput single cell imaging technologies to measure single cell mitochondrial function, and to measure single mitochondrial function to determine the role of heterogeneity in cell life-death decision-making.

5. Development of micro-engineered platforms for assessment of biomechanics of single iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes.

We also are interested in clinical heart failure and cardiac transplantation in children, specifically:

1. Understanding alterations in immune system function in patients with after implantation of a left ventricular assist device, Immune system biomarkers that predict adverse outcomes after pediatric VAD implantation.

2. Understanding alterations in immune system function in children with heart failure before and after heart transplant.

3. Development of biomarkers for the detection and monitoring of post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder in pediatric solid organ transplant patients.
 

Possible T-32 Options Include:
Training in Myocardial Biology at Stanford (TIMBS)

In contrast to many other organs, a significant portion of lung development and growth occurs postnatally during the first decade of life. The immaturity of the lung after birth heightens its susceptibility to insults that can disrupt this developmental program, but also offers immature lung a greater capacity for repair and regeneration after injury. The main focus of the Alvira lung is to define developmental pathways that direct postnatal lung growth with the long-term goal of leveraging this knowledge to create new therapies to preserve lung development and promote repair in the setting of injury. Our lab uses genetically modified mouse models, human lung tissue, and single cell transcriptomics to define what makes the immature lung unique from the adult lung at the molecular and cellular level with a key focus on transcriptionally-distinct populations of lung endothelial, immune and mesenchymal cells.

Department URL:
https://med.stanford.edu/pediatrics.html

The Sellers Laboratory and Clinical Research Group are engaged in research spanning basic and translational laboratory science - clinical research - quality improvement initiatives.  Projects are focused on improving the health of children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis and digestive diseases.

Key areas of our research include:

-- Epithelial airway and intestinal ion transport, with specific focus on bicarbonate secretion

-- Pancreatitis and the bi-directional relationship between the pancreas and intestines

-- Cystic fibrosis-associated liver disease

-- Epidemiology of rare diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and concurrent pancreatitis with other childhood diseases

The main focus of Dr. Gomez-Ospina’s lab is to develop therapies for patients with genetic neurodgenerative diseases. The lab uses genome editing and stem cells to produce definitive treatments for childhood neurodegenerative diseases, many of which are lysosomal storage disorders.

Current projects in the lab include developing autologous transplantation of genome-edited hematopoietic stem cells for Mucopolysaccharidosis type I, Gaucher, Krabbe disease, Frontotemporal Dementia, and Friedreich's ataxia.

Although there is a strong translational focus to the lab, we are also pursuing basic science questions to understand and enhance our therapies including: 1) increasing the efficiency of genome editing tools, 2) understanding microglia turnover in response to conditioning before hematopoietic stem transplant, and 3) stablishing brain-specific conditioning regimens to neurometabolic diseases.

Despite high rates of initial response to frontline treatment in many human cancers, mortality largely results from relapse or metastasis. Diverse clinical responses are considered to be the result of intratumoral diversity: all cells within a given tumor do not possess the same behavior or response to therapy. Understanding tumor heterogeneity is key to improving outcomes for patients with cancer. Although debate remains as to whether cells with treatment resistance exist as part of the initial tumor at presentation versus develop under the pressure of therapy, many studies suggest it to be the former. Further, this intrinsic heterogeneity observed in primary tissues is not accurately represented or studied through genetic animal models or cell lines and does not lend itself to study of bulk tumor cells. Understanding the intrinsic heterogeneity of tumor populations will improve the ability for clinicians to make prognosis and treatment decisions for patients. This requires using single-cell studies to identify risk-associated individual cell populations across patients.

We apply high-dimensional, single-cell approaches to primary patient samples, primarily in the study of childhood leukemia and solid tumors, to identify treatment resistant cell populations. Further, we are developing newer and more accurate models of clinical risk by utilizing machine learning and neural network modeling of single-cell data in combination with patient level data to learn more about risk of treatment failure and relapse. Finally, by identifying cell populations associated or causative of relapse risk, we interrogate mechanisms of resistance and new therapeutic opportunities. 

Welcome to the Weinacht Lab, where we study hematopoiesis and immune system development in the context of specific, clinically relevant, genetic defects. A physician scientist with formal training in hematology/oncology/stem cell transplantation and never-ending fascination with the immune system, I have always been captivated by inborn errors in immunity and hematopoiesis. Our team focuses on solving the molecular puzzles that underly rare diseases to shed light on fundamental principles governing hematopoiesis and immune system development. Our goal is to find better therapies for patients. We are a young and dynamic group, driven by excitement for scientific discovery. Our lab is home to a mindset of growth and possibility. Curious? Come check us out...

My research group is currently focused on understanding brain function and inter-brain synchrony during naturalistic social interaction. We use ultra-portable near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to address specific scientific questions with an emphasis on multi-modal assessment (e.g., behavioral, physiological, environmental setting, and eye-tracking in addition to functional NIRS). This overall scientific apprach is called "interaction neuroscience:.

Giardino Lab: Circuits & Systems Neuroscience

Our research group aims to decipher the neural mechanisms underlying the interactions between psychiatric conditions of addiction, stress, and sleep disturbances. The Giardino Lab uses in vivo physiological tools for neural recording and neuromodulation in genetic mouse models to dissect the neuropeptide basis of extended amygdala circuit function in motivated behaviors with molecular and synaptic resolution. The lab, located in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences' Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, is currently accepting applicants for postdoctoral researchers.

Research Topics

• Stress & Reward
• Drug Addiction
• Sex Differences
• Wakefulness/Arousal
• Neuropeptide Release & Signaling
• Feeding & Metabolism

 Research Approaches

• Neuromodulation (optogenetics, chemogenetics)
• Neurophysiological recordings (fiber photometry, calcium imaging, EEG/EMG)
• Neurogenetics (CRISPR/Cas9 editing, Cre/loxP recombination, viral gene transfer, mouse genetics) 
• Neuroanatomy (circuit tracing, immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, confocal & light sheet microscopy)
• Neuropharmacology (alcohol & drug self-administration, receptor mechanisms)
• Computation (neural circuit modeling, machine learning analysis of behavioral & physiological datasets)
• Behavior and Evolution (rodent model organisms, cross-species comparisons)
• Translation (interdisciplinary and clinical collaborations, treatment development)

Required Qualifications:
Ph.D. in neuroscience/ psychology/ biology/ related field (or other doctoral degree with relevant research experience)
Excellent publication record (including first-author papers)
Enthusiasm for making new discoveries on the neural basis of behavior (stress, addiction, sleep/wake arousal states)
Computational expertise / programming skills (strongly encouraged but not required)
Commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion at Stanford (non-negotiable)

Required Application Materials:
Curriculum Vitae
Cover letter describing your interest in the position (1-2 brief paragraphs)
Contact info for 2+ references (name & email address)

Contact: willgiar at stanford dot edu

My laboratory develops and implements ultrasonic beamforming methods, ultrasonic imaging modalities, and ultrasonic systems and devices. Our current focus is on beamforming methods that are capable of generating high-quality images in the difficult-to-image patient population. These methods include coherence beamforming techniques and neural network beamformers for general B-mode and Doppler imaging, sound speed estimation for quantification of liver steatosis and image correction, and molecular imaging techniques for early cancer detection. We attempt to build these imaging methods into real-time imaging systems in order to apply them to clinical applications for the difficult-to-image patient population. Other projects in our laboratory include the development of novel ultrasonic imaging devices, such as small, intravascular ultrasound arrays that are capable of generating high acoustic output to elucidate the mechanical properties and structure of vascular plaques, and the development of ultrasound-guided drug delivery and therapy systems for cancer and diabetes applications.

My work focuses on understanding the genomic and proteomic profiles of different sources of MSCs and their derived EVs, developing novel strategies to deliver and home these MSC-based therapies to target tissues, using focused ultrasound to optimize the injured tissue microenvironment for these therapies and then imaging the biodistribution of MSCs with novel imaging probes. By translating stem cell therapies into patients using minimally invasive strategies, his team is leading the efforts in a new emerging field called “Interventional Regenerative Medicine (IRM)”. In addition, his team has been developing multi-functional bioscaffolds and nanoplatforms to facilitate the clinical translation of different cellular therapies.

Department URL:
https://med.stanford.edu/radiology.html

The research interests of the molecular imaging instrumentation lab are to create novel instrumentation and software algorithms for in vivo imaging of molecular signatures of disease in humans and small laboratory animals. These new cameras efficiently image radiation emissions in the form of positrons, annihilation photons, gamma rays, and/or light emitted from molecular contrast agents that were introduced into the body and distributed in the subject tissues. These contrast agents are designed to target molecular pathways of disease biology and enable imaging of these biological signatures in tissues residing deep within the body using measurements made from outside the body.

The goals of the instrumentation projects are to advance the sensitivity and spatial, spectral, and/or temporal resolutions, and to create new camera geometries for special biomedical applications. The computational modeling and algorithm goals are to understand the physical system comprising the subject tissues, radiation transport, and imaging system, and to provide the best available image quality and quantitative accuracy.

The work involves designing and building instrumentation, including arrays of position sensitive sensors, readout electronics, and data acquisition electronics, signal processing research, including creation of computer models, and image reconstruction, image processing, and data/image analysis algorithms, and incorporating these innovations into practical imaging devices.

The ultimate goal is to introduce these new imaging tools into studies of molecular mechanisms and treatments of disease within living subjects.