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Majithia Lab

About the Lab

Insulin resistance causes the epidemic diseases of our era...but it is invisible even to trained clinical eyes.

The Majithia Lab applies the tools of functional genomics, bioinformatics, and human genetics in a collaborative, multi-disciplinary research environment. We participate in several research centers including the UCSD-UCLA Diabetes Research Center, Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, and the Institute for Genomic Medicine as well as the Center for Engineering in Diabetes (CED) in the Institute of Engineering in Medicine.

Our Mission

Develop new ways to detect and treat insulin resistance.

About Our Mission

Our Approach

Genotype-Function-Phenotype

We apply a multi-disciplinary approach to investigation — grounded in human genetics, clarified through systematic, high throughput cellular experimentation, and calibrated by its relevance to disease.

  1. Genotype: human genetic/genomic variation; genome engineering
  2. Function: massively parallel, disease-calibrated cellular assays; serum/tissue biomarkers
  3. Phenotype: clinical trial outcomes and real-world patient health data

Our Research Programs

Therapeutic Target Identification

Identify genes that protect from insulin resistance

Individually Tailored Therapy

Massively parallel assay to predict drug response

Next-generation Phenotyping

Distinguishing the many diseases that are called type 2 diabetes

Join Our Team

The Majithia Lab is recruiting talented and enthusiastic scientists at all levels to join our group!

Available Positions

Lab News & Announcements

  • September 2024: Our work on the identification of novel insulin resistance genes has been published, check it out:
    • "Genome-wide discovery and integrative genomic characterization of insulin resistance loci using serum triglycerides to HDL-cholesterol ratio as a proxy." Nature Communications 2024
  • July 2024: Welcome Scientist Alexandra Blee to the lab!
  • June 2024: Graduate student Emily Kobayashi presented her research at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) conference in Orlando, Florida.
    • Session: Metabolic Pathways to Protection—Innovative Approaches in Diabetes-Induced Kidney Disease
  • April 2024: Welcome Undergraduate Researcher Aanika Desai to the lab!
  • November 2023: Congratulations to the Majithia lab's first PhD graduate, Dr. Natalie DeForest, & best of luck at FaunaBio!
  • June 2023: Postdoctoral fellows Karen Mendez and Siqi Hu present their research at American Diabetes Association (ADA) conference in San Diego.
    • Session: Functional Characterization of Type 2 Diabetes Genetic Loci (Karen)
    • Session: The Molecular Consequences of Obesity across Human Tissues (Siqi)
  • May 2023: Our work on the identification and characterization of gain-of-function HNF1A genetic variants has been published, check it out!
    • "Human gain-of-function variants in HNF1A confer protection from diabetes but independently increase hepatic secretion of atherogenic lipoproteins." Cell Genomics 2023
  • January 2023: Welcome Postdoctoral Fellow Guru Bhavimani to the lab!
  • September 2022: Welcome Postdoctoral Fellows Rizaldy Zapata, Masters student Zhiyi Zhu, and Biomedical Sciences PhD student Rachel Diao to the lab!
  • August 2022: Natalie DeForest and Xiaomi Du present their research at the NASH Keystone Conference in Whistler, BC, Canada (photos).
  • July 2022: Our work on the accuracy of continuous glucose monitors has been published, check it out!
    • Boeder et. al. "Accuracy and Glycemic Efficacy of Continuous Glucose Monitors in Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients: a Retrospective Study." JDST 2022