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San Diego Digestive Diseases Research Center SDDRC
  1. San Diego Digestive Diseases Research Center (SDDRC)
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  3. Advisory Boards

Advisory Boards

Internal Advisory Board Members

Susan Ackerman, PhD
Dr. Ackerman is a distinguished professor in the Department of Cellular & Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego and has been an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2005. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine. She also served as the vice dean for research at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Dr. Ackerman’s research focuses on defining molecular pathways necessary to maintain homeostasis in both the developing and aging nervous system.

Susan Kaech, PhD
Dr. Kaech is a professor and the director of the NOMIS Center for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis and the NOMIS chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on the formation of memory T cells, T cell metabolism, and cancer immunotherapy.

Robert T. Schooley, MD
Dr. Schooley is a distinguished professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine. He is the co-director of the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics and senior director of International Initiatives at UC San Diego. His expertise spans viral prevention, pathogenesis, diagnosis, therapy, and rapid diagnostics. He is an expert in HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) infection and treatment.

Pandurangan Vijayanand, MD, PhD
Dr. Vijayanand is the William K. Bowes Distinguished Professor at the Center for Autoimmunity and Inflammation, Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, and Center for Sex-based Differences in the Immune System at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. His lab uses genomics tools to understand, diagnose, and treat pulmonary diseases such as asthma, lung cancer, and infectious diseases, including COVID-19.

External Advisory Board Members

Christian Jobin, PhD
Dr. Jobin is a Professor of Medicine and Program Leader of the Cancer Microbiota & Host Response at the University of Florida Health Cancer Center, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition. He studies the differential contribution of bacteria in protecting or exacerbating the development of colitis and colorectal cancer. Dr. Jobin has contributed to the understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanism regulating host response to bacterial colonization, and has published numerous papers on innate signaling events taking place in the intestine and how these impact intestinal homeostasis. He has served on several study sections including the ​American Cancer Society, CCFA Fellowship and Career Awards, NIH tumor microenvironment and he is currently serving on the Gastrointestinal Mucosal Pathobiology study section (GMPB-permanent member).​

Jacquelyn Maher, MD
Dr. Maher is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at San Francisco General Hospital, and Director of the P30-funded UCSF Liver Center. Research in her laboratory focuses on the pathogenesis of fatty liver disease. Special emphasis is placed on the effects of individual dietary macronutrients on liver injury. Her studies in mice implicate dietary sugar as an important inducer of fatty liver disease, through conversion to toxic saturated fatty acids. Ongoing work in her group concentrates on the synergistic toxicity of carbohydrates and saturated fats, and explores how adipose tissue in obesity adversely affects the liver. She uses stem cells from patients with fatty liver disease to study what makes their livers susceptible to injury.

Anil K. Rustgi, MD
Dr. Rustgi is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He is a world-renowned leader in the field of gastrointestinal oncology. His interdisciplinary research focuses on tumor initiation, the tumor microenvironment and tumor metastasis in the context of gastrointestinal cancers, including cancer of the esophagus, pancreas, and colon. Dr. Rustgi's lab works to translate their discoveries into improving molecular diagnostics and finding new experimental therapeutics for patients and is funded through several NIH-funded grants and an American Cancer Society Research Professorship. He served for many years as the Director of the Center for Molecular Studies in Digestive and Liver Diseases at the University of Pennsylvania until 2018.

Hidekazu Tsukamoto, PhD
Dr. Tsukamoto is a Professor of Pathology and Director at the Southern California Research Center for ALPD & Cirrhosis, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC). His research program has uninterruptedly been funded by both NIH and VA since 1983, supporting his pursuit for elucidation of molecular mechanisms underlying cell fate regulation of hepatic macrophages (HMs), hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), and hepatocytes in the genesis of liver inflammation, fibrosis, and cancer. Since joining USC in 1994, he has mentored many postdoctoral fellows and faculty members. He served as a member of the National Advisory Council for NIAAA/NIH from 2004 to 2009. Dr. Tsukamoto served as the Associate Director of the University of Southern California Research Center for Liver Diseases from 1995 to 2003. He has been the founding Director of the NIH/NIAAA P50 Center on Alcoholic Liver and Pancreatic Diseases (ALPD) and Cirrhosis since 1999.