Principal Investigator

My laboratory studies radiation carcinogenesis and biologically augmented radiotherapy. I received my  undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and earned a doctoral degree in experimental pathology from the University of California, San Francisco. I conducted postdoctoral research on extracellular matrix and mammary epithelial functional differentiation with Mina Bissell at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). I then joined LBNL as a staff scientist, where I rose from postdoctoral fellow to Senior Scientist and Associate Director of the Life Sciences Division.  My research focused on low dose and heavy ion radiation carcinogenesis using a novel mammary chimera model and defining the biology of TGFβ in the irradiated tissue.   I joined New York University School of Medicine in 2008 as Director of Radiation Biology in the Department of Radiation Oncology, where I begin a program of translational radiation biology to understand the contribution of TGFβ to the response to therapy.  I  moved to UCSF as Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Radiation Oncology in 2015.  The lab consists of two arms: further exploration of radiation as a carcinogen that mediates immune response and breast cancer diversity and molecular and immune mechanisms by which TGFβ impacts tumor response to therapy.