Stem Cell Hub, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine CESCG at UC Santa Cruz

People and Labs of the CIRM CESCG

The CESCG funds projects at universities and research institutes across California. These projects were intended to interrogate a few different broad subjects such as neurobiology, cardiac biology, blood stem cells and therapeutics, and the molecular regulators of stem cells.

A list of publications funded by the CESCG and written by participating labs can be found on our CESCG Publications page.

Co-Directors

Joseph Ecker, PhD

Professor and Director of Salk Genomic Analysis Laboratory
Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator
Salk International Council Chair in Genetics

Michael Snyder, PhD

Professor & Chair of Genetics at Stanford University
Director of the Stanford Center for Genomics & Personalized Medicine

Labs and Principal Investigators

Kristin Baldwin, PhD

Scripps Research Institute, San Diego
The Baldwin lab is studying a matched set of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines from patients with cardiovascular disease.

Benoit Bruneau, PhD

University of California, San Francisco
The Bruneau lab is investigating the transcriptomicr and epigenetic landscape of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes at four stages of differentiation.

Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, PhD

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla
The Belmonte lab is working to characterize the molecular dynamics of cells undergoing 4F-induced reprogramming in vivo in the mouse.

Neil Chi, MD, PhD

University of California, San Diego
The Chi lab is generating human cardiac stem cells and functional cardiomyocytes for cardiac and vascular regenerative repairs.

Michael F. Clarke, MD

Stanford University, Palo Alto
The Clarke lab is collaborating with the Quake lab in exploring chromatin landscapes.

Jacob Corn, PhD

University of California, Berkeley
The Corn lab is investigating fixing sickle cell anemia with CRISPR. Aim 1 of the Corn lab is to use RNA-seq to explore erythroid (red blood cell) maturation. Aim 2 is using boutique DNA-seq methods to investigate effects of CRISPR.

Gay Crooks, MD

University of California, Los Angeles
The Crooks Lab is working to create a comprehensive transcriptome and epigenome map of human hematopoetic stem cell (HSC) ontogeny by comparing human hematopoietic tissues and cells derived from embryonic stem cells (ESCs).

Guoping Fan, PhD

University of California, Los Angeles
The Fan lab is working on identifying convergent target genes and signaling pathways perturbed in human overgrowth syndrome.

Kelly Frazer, PhD

University of California, San Diego
The Frazer lab is focused on performing high-throughput phenotypic characterization of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes from a diverse set of ethnicities to enable further genetic studies investigating the segregation of traits.

Daniel Geschwind, MD

University of California, Los Angeles
The Crooks Lab is working to create a comprehensive transcriptome and epigenome map of human hematopoetic stem cell (HSC) ontogeny by comparing human hematopoietic tissues and cells derived from embryonic stem cells (ESCs).

Kathy Jones, PhD

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla
The Jones lab is investigating the role of transcriptional regulators Yap1 and P-TEFb in human embryonic stem cell differentiation towards cardiomyocytes.

Arnold Kriegstein, PhD

University of California, San Francisco
The Kriegstein lab is using single-cell RNA profiling to learn about the diverse population of cortical neurons.

Jeanne Loring, PhD

Scripps Research Institute, San Diego
The Loring lab is carrying out preclinical studies to develop an autologous cell therapy for Parkinson's disease.

Sergiu Pasca, MD

Stanford University, Palo Alto
The Pasca lab is growing brain organoids with neurological disorders including deletions, duplications and triplications of 16p11.2, Timothy syndrome, epilepsy and mental retardation limited to female (EFMR).

Stephen Quake, DPhil

Stanford University, Palo Alto
The Quake lab is working on characterizing cell subpopulations of healthy and pathological tissues of the brain and pancreas. He is also looking at gene and epigenetic properties of organ lineages to compare stem cell differentiation hierarchy to normal tissues to elucidate mechanisms of pathogenesis.

Jeremy Sanford, PhD

University of California, Santa Cruz
The Sanford lab is studying how alternative pre-mRNA splicing contributes to the regulation of gene expression and protein diversity.

Michael Snyder, PhD

Stanford University, Palo Alto
The Snyder lab is investigating drug response of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), dialated cardiomyopathy (DCM), and healthy (control) donors with a comprehensive survey combining iPSC-cardiac differentiation, drug treatment and genomic and transcriptomic analysis.

Irv Weissman, MD, PhD

Stanford University, Palo Alto
The Weissman lab is working on identifying and characterizing the progression of discrete changes, genetic and epigenetic, that leads to the generation of cancer stem cells (CSCs) from a variety of blood and solid tissue cancers. They have found a single molecular event present in all cancers studied to date that protects them from macrophages of the innate immune system.

Gene Yeo, PhD

University of California, San Deigo
The Yeo lab is exploring how RNA localizes in certain parts of the cell, effecting differentiation, stress and neurodegeneration, particularly with regards to ALS (amytrophic lateral sclerosis).

Data Coordination and Management Group

Josh Stuart, PhD

University of California, Santa Cruz
Head of of the Data Coordination and Management Group at UCSC.

Jim Kent, PhD

University of California, Santa Cruz
In charge of creating and maintaining the CESCG Stem Cell Hub at UCSC.

Galt Barber

University of California, Santa Cruz
Software Engineer

Jonathan Casper

University of California, Santa Cruz
Software Engineer

Max Haeussler

University of California, Santa Cruz
Software Engineer

Clay Fischer

University of California, Santa Cruz
Project Manager, Data Wrangler

Parisa Nejad

University of California, Santa Cruz
Project Manager

Matthew Speir

University of California, Santa Cruz
Software quality assurance, Web design

William Sullivan

University of California, Santa Cruz
Data Wrangler

Chris Villarreal

University of California, Santa Cruz
Data Wrangler

Kamron Mojabe

University of California, Santa Cruz
Data Wrangling Intern

Pranav Muthuraman

University of California, Santa Cruz
Data Wrangling Intern

Beagan Nguy

University of California, Santa Cruz
Data Wrangling Intern

Tiana Pereira

University of California, Santa Cruz
Data Wrangling Intern

Other CESCG Staff at Salk and Stanford

Cesar Barragan

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla
Research Assistant

Rosa G. Gomez Castanon

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla
Research Assistant

Manoj Hariharan, PhD

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla
Staff Scientist

Hassan Chaib, PhD

Stanford University, Palo Alto
Director of Laboratory Operations at SCGPM and GSSC

Yupeng He

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla
Graduate Student

Ramesh Nair, PhD

Stanford University, Palo Alto
Acting Associate Director of Bioinformatics at SCGPM

Joseph Nery

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla
Research Assistant