Charles Chiu, MD, PhD

Director, UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center (VDDC)
Associate Director, UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory
Professor
Department of Laboratory Medicine
Department of Medicine - Infectious Disease
+1 415 514-8219
Research Overview: 

I am an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist and lead a translational research laboratory focusing on (i) metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) assay development for infectious disease diagnostics, (ii) discovery and characterization of emerging viral pathogens, and (iii) development of new bioinformatic tools and cutting-edge genomic technologies for clinical and public health applications. Current projects in my laboratory include (i) pathogen discovery in tickborne infections, acute febrile illness, and blood screening, (ii) investigating links between enterovirus infection and acute flaccid myelitis, and (iii) cell culture, human, and animal studies of Zika virus infection in acutely infected patients and pregnant women. We are also actively leveraging nanopore sequencing for diagnosis and surveillance of febrile illnesses in remote locations, including point-of-care outbreak settings and aboard the International Space Station, and developing bioinformatic pipelines for pathogen identification and host response characterization. Finally, we are investigating the use of machine-learning based methods for generation of models that can predict the cause of infection on the basis of RNA-Seq transcriptomic data.

Primary Thematic Area: 
Virology & Microbial Pathogenesis
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Immunology
Research Summary: 
Metagenomics-Based Technologies for Virus Detection and Discovery

Websites

Publications: 

Longitudinal comparison of the developing gut virome in infants and their mothers.

Cell host & microbe

Walters WA, Granados AC, Ley C, Federman S, Stryke D, Santos Y, Haggerty T, Sotomayor-Gonzalez A, Servellita V, Ley RE, Parsonnet J, Chiu CY

Transfusion-Transmitted Cache Valley Virus Infection in a Kidney Transplant Recipient with Meningoencephalitis.

Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America

Al-Heeti O, Wu EL, Ison MG, Saluja RK, Ramsey G, Matkovic E, Ha K, Hall S, Banach B, Wilson MR, Miller S, Chiu CY, McCabe M, Bari C, Zimler RA, Babiker H, Freeman D, Popovitch J, Annambhotla P, Lehman JA, Fitzpatrick K, Velez JO, Davis EH, Hughes HR, Panella A, Brault A, Erin Staples J, Gould CV, Tanna S

Association of culturable-virus detection and household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 - California and Tennessee, 2020-2022.

The Journal of infectious diseases

Deyoe JE, Kelly JD, Grijalva CG, Bonenfant G, Lu S, Anglin K, Garcia-Knight M, Pineda-Ramirez J, Briggs Hagen M, Saydah S, Abedi GR, Goldberg SA, Tassetto M, Zhang A, Donohue KC, Davidson MC, Diaz Sanchez R, Djomaleu M, Mathur S, Shak JR, Deeks SG, Peluso MJ, Chiu CY, Zhu Y, Halasa NB, Chappell JD, Mellis A, Reed C, Andino R, Martin JN, Zhou B, Talbot HK, Midgley CM, Rolfes MA

Successful Treatment of Balamuthia mandrillaris Granulomatous Amebic Encephalitis with Nitroxoline.

Emerging infectious diseases

Spottiswoode N, Pet D, Kim A, Gruenberg K, Shah M, Ramachandran A, Laurie MT, Zia M, Fouassier C, Boutros CL, Lu R, Zhang Y, Servellita V, Bollen A, Chiu CY, Wilson MR, Valdivia L, DeRisi JL

SARS-CoV-2 Spike triggers barrier dysfunction and vascular leak via integrins and TGF-� signaling.

Nature communications

Biering SB, Gomes de Sousa FT, Tjang LV, Pahmeier F, Zhu C, Ruan R, Blanc SF, Patel TS, Worthington CM, Glasner DR, Castillo-Rojas B, Servellita V, Lo NTN, Wong MP, Warnes CM, Sandoval DR, Clausen TM, Santos YA, Fox DM, Ortega V, N??r AM, Baric RS, Stanley SA, Aguilar HC, Esko JD, Chiu CY, Pak JE, Beatty PR, Harris E