Current Lab Members
Nadia Roan, PhD
Position:
Associate Professor, UCSF
Email:
Visiting Investigator, The J. David Gladstone Institutes
Co-Chair of UCSF’s Junior Faculty AIDS Researchers (JFAR)
Member of UCSF’s AIDS Research Institute (ARI) Executive Committee
Member of UCSF's Center for Reproductive Sciences (CRS)
Nadia obtained a B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from U.C. Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School where she characterized T cell responses to the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis in a mouse infection model. She then conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at the J. David Gladstone Institutes, where she identified factors in human seminal plasma that potently enhance HIV infection and studied their mechanism of action. Currently, her lab uses ex vivo tissue models and multi-parameter single-cell phenotyping approaches to study the cellular and soluble components in mucosal tissues influencing HIV transmission and pathogenesis, and the impact of mucosal factors on reproductive health. Nadia is a member of the BMS and Immunology programs at UCSF. Outside the lab, Nadia enjoys the arts, being active, and traveling to faraway places.
Julie Frouard
Position:
Postdoctoral fellow
Julie obtained a M.S in Cellular biology from University of Rennes. This was followed by an internship in the lab of Dr. Riteau at the University of Lyon 1 in France, where she studied how the Annexin-1 protein helps spreading Influenza virus infection. To deepen her background in virology, she started conducted a PhD at the IRSET Institute, in Rennes, under the supervision of Dr. Nathalie Dejucq-Rainsford. Her research focused on deciphering the mechanisms of transmigration of infected seminal leukocytes across the colorectal mucosa, and the modulatory effect of the seminal plasma on this transmission. She also worked on the phenotypical characterization of seminal leukocytes. In 2019, she joined the Roan lab where she will be working on using single-cell approaches to characterize cells productively- and latently-infected with HIV in different tissues. Outside the lab, Julie enjoys travelling around the world and discovering new places, spending some time with friends and family, and sports to clear her mind!
Ashley George, PhD
Position:
Postdoctoral fellow
Ashley obtained a B.S. from Humboldt State University, where she majored in Biology with an emphasis in Cellular and Molecular Biology. This was followed by an internship sponsored by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) in the lab of Dr. Linda Giudice at UCSF, studying human endometrial mesenchymal stem cells and endometriosis. She then obtained a Ph.D. from Rutgers University where she tested the lactocrine hypothesis for maternal programming of postnatal uterine development and adult endometrial function in pigs. In 2018, she joined the Roan lab, where she is using mass cytometry to characterize the molecular basis of intrinsic cellular permissivity of CD4+ T cells to HIV in the context of the restrictive or permissive environment of the female reproductive tract. Outside the lab, Ashley enjoys reading and spending time with friends and family.
Tongcui (Cathy) Ma, PhD
Position:
Postdoctoral fellow
Tongcui obtained a M.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Shantou University in China, and a Ph.D. from Wuhan University in China where she identified several naturally occurring anti-HIV products, including Soybean-derived Bowman-Birk Inhibitor and Kunitz Inhibitor. She then conducted a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Jianxin You at University of Pennsylvania, where she studied host immune responses to the tumorigenic DNA virus, Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV), and how DNA viruses modulate host immune response to achieve latent infection. She then joined the Roan lab, where she is identifying biomarkers of HIV reservoir size and time-to-rebound during analytical treatment interruption (ATI). Outside of the lab, Tongcui enjoys traveling, being active and spending time with family.
Matthew McGregor
Position:
Staff Research Associate I
Email:
Matthew obtained a B.S in Biology from the University of San Francisco. During his time there, he interned and then worked within the lab of Dr. Juliet Spencer where he helped conduct research on human cytomegalovirus (CMV). This work included using both wet-lab and bioinformatics approaches to investigate how interactions between viral proteins and the JAK/STAT immune pathway may contribute to a higher risk of cancer and promote the ability of the virus to maintain a latent reservoir in the host. After college, Matthew joined the Roan Lab where he is creating scripts to analyze high-dimensional single-cell datasets, and participating in projects to investigate HIV persistence in different cellular subsets. Outside of the lab, Matthew enjoys playing online/board games with his friends & family, cooking, and hunting down good pastries throughout San Francisco.
Jason Neidleman
Position:
Senior Research Associate
Email:
Jason obtained a B.A. from U.C. Santa Barbara, where he majored in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He conducted research in the Vaccines Department at Chiron, corp. (now Novartis, Inc) from 1990 to 2000, studying adjuvant formulations and vaccine candidates for herpesvirus. He then joined the lab of Dr. Warner Greene at the J. David Gladstone Institutes where he studied the viral determinants of HIV transmission. Since joining the Roan lab, he has been characterizing the phenotypic properties of genital mucosal cells and is using CyTOF to characterize the phenotypic properties of latent cells from the blood and tissues of HIV-infected individuals. Outside of the lab, Jason enjoys his wife's cooking. He also takes long, mushroom hunting walks with his son and appreciates the antics of Peppa Pig with his daughter.
Guorui (Grace) Xie, PhD
Position:
Postdoctoral fellow
Guorui obtained a B.S. in Biotechnology from Shandong Normal University in China, and a Ph.D. from University of Texas Medical Branch where she determined the role of MyD88-mediated signaling in the host response against a West Nile virus NS4B-P38G mutant strain. She then conducted a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Warner Greene at the J. David Gladstone Institutes, where she compared various “shock and kill” strategies to try to purge the latent reservoir from cells isolated from HIV-infected subjects. In 2017, she joined the Roan lab, where she is using global gene expression analysis and mass cytometry to characterize the mechanisms regulating CD4+ T cell susceptibility to productive HIV infection, and how HIV accessory genes affect the subsets of infected cells. Outside of the lab, Guorui enjoys swimming, hiking and skiing. She also takes Karate classes for fun.
Former Lab Members
Johanne Hovgaard Egedal
Position:
PhD student
Email:
Johanne obtained her M.A. in Medicine from Aarhus University in Denmark. During those studies, she conducted a Research Year at the Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, where she investigated how co-infection with CMV affects T-cell recovery in HIV-infected individuals receiving ART treatment. After graduation, she started as a PhD fellow at Aarhus University, studying the molecular basis of mucosal HIV transmission in men. As part of her PhD studies, she conducted an internship in the Roan Lab from 2017 - 2018, during which she used investigated the role of the extracellular matrix in mucosal fibroblast-mediated enhancement of HIV infection. Outside of the lab, Johanne enjoys travelling around the world, being active and spending time with family and friends.
Feng Hsiao
Position:
Staff Research Associate I
Email:
Feng obtained a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley, where he majored in Molecular and Cellular Biology. He then conducted research in the lab of Dr. John Park at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, where he profiled tumor cells in the blood and bone marrow of patient samples to identify targets for cancer intervention strategies. He then joined the Roan Lab as an SRA, where he characterized HIV latency in tissue cells. He is currently a medical student at SUNY Upstate in Syracuse.
Karen Jang
Position:
Staff Research Associate I
Karen obtained a B.S. from University of Washington, where she majored in Molecular, Cellular, and Development Biology. She then conducted research at Stanford University studying drug resistance mutations in HIV-infected individuals receiving ART treatment. In the Roan Lab, she examined how seminal plasma components affect reproductive health, and how HIV infection and ART treatment can affect the composition of seminal plasma and how this in turn may affect viral transmissibility.
Nargis Kohgadai
Nargis obtained her B.S. from U.C. Davis, where she majored in Genetics. She then worked at Genentech, followed by an internship sponsored by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) in the lab of Dr. Linda Giudice at UCSF. She then joined the Roan lab, where she characterized how seminal plasma components signal to spermatozoa and cells of the female reproductive tract.