Pollard Lab

We combined massively parallel reporter assays with stem cell technology to show that nearly half of all Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) function as gene regulatory enhancers in human and chimpanzee neurons. We also detected differences in enhancer activity between human and chimpanzee HAR sequences, including interactions between nearby mutations. Check out the pre-print, story in Scientific American, and press release.

Postdoc Geoff Fudenberg is awarded a travel grant to attend the 2018 Keystone Chromatin Meeting.

Postdoc Josh Ladau is a major contributor to the Earth Microbiome Project manuscript. Read the Press Release.

Katie Pollard speaks about microbiome-aware precision medicine at the World Conference of Science Journalists.

Postdoc Amber Paasch is awarded the IRACDA Fellowship from UCSF.

Katie Pollard talks about strain level analysis of the human microbiome in a Science Webinar.

Our study of temporal dynamics in the microbiome through inflammatory bowel disease onset and progression was published in mSystems. This was an interdisciplinary collaboration with the labs of Shomi Sanjabi and Tom Sharpton. Press release and more info here.

Graduate student Kathleen Keough is named a UCSF Discovery Fellow!

The lab’s paper showing that there is no simple microbiome signature for obesity was covered in an interesting Atlantic article about the Anna Karenina hypothesis.

Graduate student Kathleen Keough presents her work on CRISPR genome surgery for dominent negative disease at the Pro Retina meeting in Potsdam.

Graduate student Hane Ryu and postdoc Nandita Garud gave lightning talks at a California Academy of Sciences NightLife with the theme Women in Science.

Katie Pollard speaks out about proposed cuts to federal science funding in The Atlantic.

Graduate student Hane Ryu is a finalist in the UCSF Grad Slam.

Katie Pollard is named a Biohub Investigator. Read the press releases from Gladstone and UCSF.

Lab alumnus Tony Capra was featured in the New York Times for his phenome-wide association study of Neanderthal variants in patients at Vanderbilt.

Scientific American interviewed Katie about Peter Dorrestein’s meta-metabolomics work.

Katie Pollard was promoted to Director at Gladstone Institutes. She is leading a new group focused on emerging technologies and informatics. Read the press release.

We published MIDAS, open source software and a genomic database for quantifying strain-level genetic variation in microbiome samples using shotgun metagenomics data. Our analyses of mother-infant microbiome transmission and global ocean population structure revealed striking patterns missed at the species level. Read the paper and press release.

We published a perspective on comparative metagenomics, focused on the challenges associated with accurate quantification of taxa and genes. Read the paper.

Our review of research about Human Accelerated Regions was published in The Scientist.