Aaron Diaz, PhD

Assistant Professor
Department of Neurological Surgery
+1 415 514-0408
Research Description: 

The Diaz Lab is interested in developing targeted therapeutics for the treatment of glioma. We apply molecular and computational approaches to elucidate targets and pathways mediating cancer progression. To date, some of the most effective cancer therapies have been those that hone in on molecular defects associated with specific driver genes. However, in highly diverse tumors, such as gliomas, clinical trials of promising targeted therapeutics often produce mixed results. This is at least partially due to intra-tumor regional heterogeneity in response to treatment. To address this pressing challenge, we combine high-throughput single-cell sequencing with state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithms, to produce quantitative models of tumor heterogeneity and micro-environment interaction. Moreover, brain tumor cells can exhibit phenotypes, and molecular signatures, of cell types found in the developing brain. We are also interested in the role of early-brain developmental programs in brain tumor growth.

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Developmental & Stem Cell Biology
Research Summary: 
The Diaz Lab is interested in developing targeted therapeutics for the treatment of glioma.

Websites

Featured Publications: 

SCell: integrated analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data.

Bioinformatics (Oxford, England)

Diaz A, Liu SJ, Sandoval C, Pollen A, Nowakowski TJ, Lim DA, Kriegstein A

Single-cell analysis of long non-coding RNAs in the developing human neocortex.

Genome biology

Liu SJ, Nowakowski TJ, Pollen AA, Lui JH, Horlbeck MA, Attenello FJ, He D, Weissman JS, Kriegstein AR, Diaz AA, Lim DA

Molecular Identity of Human Outer Radial Glia during Cortical Development.

Cell

Pollen AA, Nowakowski TJ, Chen J, Retallack H, Sandoval-Espinosa C, Nicholas CR, Shuga J, Liu SJ, Oldham MC, Diaz A, Lim DA, Leyrat AA, West JA, Kriegstein AR

HiTSelect: a comprehensive tool for high-complexity-pooled screen analysis.

Nucleic acids research

Diaz AA, Qin H, Ramalho-Santos M, Song JS

Systematic identification of barriers to human iPSC generation.

Cell

Qin H, Diaz A, Blouin L, Lebbink RJ, Patena W, Tanbun P, LeProust EM, McManus MT, Song JS, Ramalho-Santos M