The Bodansky Lab brings together expertise in immunology, bioinformatics, and clinical research, working closely with colleagues across UCSF and at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub San Francisco.
Principal Investigator
Aaron Bodansky, MD
Assistant Professor · Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
Aaron Bodansky, MD, is a pediatric critical care physician-scientist whose research focuses on uncovering the immune mechanisms that drive severe and unexplained diseases in children. His laboratory combines advanced immune profiling, single-cell technologies, antigen discovery, and computational biology to identify the specific antibodies, B cells, and T cells responsible for disease. By linking observations at the bedside to mechanistic studies in the laboratory, his work aims to transform difficult-to-diagnose pediatric immune disorders into biologically defined and ultimately treatable conditions.
Lab Members
Mikkel Nagorsen
Assistant Specialist
Mikkel is an Assistant Specialist in the Bodansky Lab. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Molecular/Cell Biology and Public Health and an MPH in Epidemiology/Biostatistics.
Sam Klauer
Computational Biologist
Sam is a Computational Biologist in the Bodansky Lab. He graduated from the University of Queensland with a Master of Science in Bioinformatics after earning his Bachelor of Science in Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology.
Daniela Wild
Staff Research Associate II
Daniela is a Staff Research Associate (SRA II) in the Bodansky Lab. She holds a Master’s degree in Biotechnology with a focus on biomedical science and technology, and brings a background in industry drug discovery to her role.
Kasturi Sinha
Clinical Research Coordinator
Kasturi is a Clinical Research Coordinator working in the Bodansky Lab. She received her BA in Molecular & Cell Biology (emphasis in Neurobiology) and Public Health from UC Berkeley, where she researched how age-related changes in circadian rhythms affect blood-brain barrier function and cognitive aging. At UCSF, she is also involved in the Neuroinflammatory Disease study between the DeRisi and Wilson labs.
Administration
Brooke Van Dusen
Administrative Officer
Brooke Van Dusen serves as Administrative Officer for the Bodansky Lab, overseeing its operational, financial, and compliance infrastructure while managing grant administration and external communications.
Collaborators
The Bodansky Lab is embedded in a highly collaborative research environment that brings together expertise in immunology, infectious disease, neuroscience, genomics, structural biology, computational biology, and pediatric critical care.
At UCSF, the laboratory works closely with the DeRisi Lab on molecular diagnostics, pathogen discovery, and large-scale immune profiling; the Anderson Lab on immune tolerance and autoimmunity; the Wilson Lab on neuroimmunology and antibody-mediated neurologic disease; and additional collaborators across Pediatric Critical Care, Neurology, Infectious Diseases, Rheumatology, Endocrinology, Transplantation, and the Diabetes Center. The lab also partners with investigators at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub San Francisco, national pediatric research networks, and institutions across the United States and internationally.
These collaborations allow the group to connect deeply characterized patient cohorts and clinical biospecimens with advanced antigen discovery, single-cell immune-receptor analysis, epitope mapping, structural modeling, functional validation, and computational methods.
This team-based approach is central to the lab’s mission: to move rapidly from an unexplained clinical phenotype to a defined biological mechanism and, ultimately, to a more precise diagnostic or therapeutic strategy for children with severe immune-mediated disease.