Our People

The Roybal Lab is a dedicated group of students, post-docs, physicians, and staff scientists with diverse backgrounds ranging from basic science to cellular engineering and synthetic immunology. Each member brings expertise in their field to our unique and highly collaborative research environment. We are now hiring, all positions! More info below.

Kole T. Roybal, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco, Investigator – Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Investigator – Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center

Dr. Roybal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his doctorate in Immunology from UT Southwestern Medical Center and was a Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Wendell A. Lim at UCSF and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is currently a member of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and an inaugural Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. He is also the Deputy Director of the UCSF Center for Synthetic Immunology recently funded by the Cancer Moonshot Initiative. He was awarded the Sartorius and Science Magazine Prize for Regenerative Medicine and Cell Therapy and the NIH New Innovator Award in 2018.

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Postdoctoral Fellows

PanosChristopoulos
Panagiotis “Panos” Christopoulos, Ph.D.

Visiting Scholar

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Jay Daniels, P.h.D

Postdoctoral Fellow

DanielGoodman
Daniel B. Goodman, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

RaymondLiu
Raymond Liu, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

JoeMuldoon
Joseph Muldoon, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

DanPiraner
Dan I. Piraner, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

JaehoonShin
Jaehoon Shin, M.D., Ph.D.

Resident

Staff Scientists

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Clarity Chua

Junior Specialist

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Maria Jose Duran

Junior Specialist

GarrettMontgomery
Garrett Montgomery, M.S.

Lab Manager, Assistant Specialist III

NatePerry
Nate Perry, M.S.

Staff Research Associate II

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Chloe Thienpont

Asistant Specialist

Students

CaseyBurnett
Casey Burnett

PhD Student

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Max Foisey

PhD Student

JulieGarcia
Julie Garcia

PhD Student

AlyssaIndart
Alyssa Indart

PhD Student

Alumni

JosefAlavi
Josef Alavi

Staff Research Associate

CamilliaAzimi
Camillia Azimi

PhD Student

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Maria Chirinos

Summer Intern

KiavashGarakani
Kiavash Garakani

Staff Scientist

AxelHyreniusWittsten
Axel Hyrenius-Wittsten, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

KendallKearns
Kendall Kearns

Staff Scientist

EmilyPark
Emily Park

Staff Scientist

PavithranRavindran
Pavithran Ravindran

Staff Scientist

IowisZhu
Iowis Zhu Ph.D.

MD/PhD Student

Interested in joining the Roybal Lab?

The Roybal Lab is always seeking highly motivated graduate students, postdocs, and staff scientists to work on engineering the immune cell therapies of the future. Please email your CV including references and a brief statement of your interest to the email address below.

Potential Projects
  • Engineering next generation T cell therapies for treatment of Glioblastoma.
  • Engineering new Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CARs) with novel signaling capabilities.
  • Engineering cell therapies for autoimmunity: boosting the functional capacity of regulatory T cells and generation of synthetic regulatory T cells.
  • Systematic modulation of tumor microenvironments with engineered immune cells to find the Achilles’ heels of solid tumors.
  • Engineering synthetic immune cell interactions to develop new cellular communication systems to improve cell therapies.
Job Openings

The Roybal lab is looking for Postdocs and Staff Scientist to join our team!   We are starting a number of new and exciting synthetic biology and cell therapy projects that you can be a part of.  Things are moving fast, please get in touch with us by emailing your CV, including references and a brief statement of interest.  

Graduate Programs

Contact

University of California, San Francisco
Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
513 Parnassus Avenue HSE-301
San Francisco, CA 94143 (Box 0519)
Lab Phone: 415-502-7803