I have focused my clinical research in the field of type 2 diabetes and obesity and have developed a three-pronged research program that is unified under this theme. The first arm consists of using existing cohort studies to test novel biomarkers that predict diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The second arm is to create a South Asian cohort to study these risk factors in a very high risk group. The final arm is to test behavioral interventions to prevent the onset of diabetes.
Dr. Kearns is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco with a joint appointment in the Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences, Division of Oral Epidemiology and Dental Public Health and the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies.
We study the connection between physiology and behavior. Our goal is to understand how the brain senses the needs of the body – such as the need for food or water or warmth – and then generates specific behavioral responses that restore physiologic balance. To address this question, we use a diverse set of experimental strategies including systems neuroscience approaches such as optogenetics, electrophysiology, and calcium imaging; molecular approaches such as RNA sequencing and mouse genetics; and classical approaches such as surgical and pharmacologic manipulations.
Dr. Suneil Koliwad is an Endocrinologist and an Expert in Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism. His lab focuses on the intersection of nutrition, inflammation, and metabolic tissue function in the context of normal physiology, and diseases such as obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease, and in the course of aging. His group strives to link basic mechanisms of metabolic regulation to causality in clinical patients, and has developed a highly innovative and deeply curated multiethnic obesity cohort at UCSF to assist in achieving this goal.
Dr. Krauss' research program focuses on plasma lipoprotein metabolism and related traits that influence risk for coronary artery disease. His laboratory developed and applied methodology that led to the discovery of a common genetically-influenced atherogenic lipoprotein phenotype that underlies cardiovascular disease risk in patients with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. A major current research emphasis has been the identification of genetic determinants of the wide range of inter-individual variability in phenotypic and clinical response to statin treatment.
Dr. Krystal is the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology, Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry, Director of the Dolby Family Center for Mood Disorders, Director of the UCSF Interventional Psychiatry Program and Co-Director of the TMS & Neuromodulation Clinic. He is Board Certified in Clinical Neurophysiology by the American Board of Clinical Neurophysiology and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and Board Certified in Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Dr. Krystal is the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology, Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry, Director of the Dolby Family Center for Mood Disorders, Director of the UCSF Interventional Psychiatry Program and Co-Director of the TMS & Neuromodulation Clinic. He is Board Certified in Clinical Neurophysiology by the American Board of Clinical Neurophysiology and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and Board Certified in Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Dr. Carter Lebares is a gastrointestinal and bariatric surgeon at UCSF Medical Center who specializes treating gastrointestinal disease, particularly of the esophagus and stomach, using minimally invasive surgery, robotics and surgical endoscopy. This includes treatments for reflux disease, hiatal hernia, obesity, early esophageal or gastric cancer, esophageal motility disorders hernias, gallbladder disease and some biliary disease.
Dr. Jue Lin is a molecular biologist and Director of the Telomere Biology Core Lab in Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn’s laboratory. Her research focuses on telomere maintenance in health and disease, using a variety of approaches, including in vitro and ex vivo cell culture models, animal models, as well as clinical studies.
Robert H. Lustig, M.D. is Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at University of California, San Francisco, and Director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program at UCSF.
