Genetics

Claire Clelland, MD, PhD, is a clinician-scientist in the UCSF Department of Neurology at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences, where she leads the Clelland Laboratory at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center.

Valerie joined the Yokoyama Lab in 2023 as a staff scientist with a career-long interest in evaluating genetic factors involved in neurological diseases. She earned a PhD degree in Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, where she identified transcriptional regulation sequences for a gene involved in epilepsy and movement disorders. During her postdoctoral fellowship at NHGRI and UCSF, she studied the role of alpha-synuclein in Parkinson’s disease.

Taru received a bachelor of science degree in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego and completed a PhD degree in psychology in the Self-Regulation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin in 2016. She joined the Dementia Imaging Genetics Lab in 2017 to support neuroimaging methods for understanding the underlying biology of genetic variants of frontotemporal dementia.

Jamie Fong is a genetic counselor at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, part of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, and an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine.

She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Science in genetic counseling from Sarah Lawrence College in 2008.

Rowan graduated from Middlebury College in May 2024 with a major in Sociology and a minor in Global Health. She joined the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center in June 2024 as a clinical research coordinator in the Dementia Imaging Genetics Lab led by Dr.

San-Hae is a postdoctoral researcher at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center under the mentorship of Dr. Claire Clelland. His research focuses on developing delivery systems for CRISPR-based therapies to treat neurodegenerative diseases.

Jana has continuously explored new passions and interests throughout her life. Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, her love for the outdoors and adventure was evident from an early age. Between camping and fishing with her family, she competed at a high level in the junior tennis circuit, eventually becoming a recruited athlete at Cornell University. It was there that she discovered her passion for genetics and its impact on people’s lives.

Argentina Lario Lago is the Biospecimen & Genetics Programs Manager at the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center. 

Suzee Lee, MD, is a professor of neurology and a behavioral neurologist at the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center within the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. She serves as the director of the Dementia Imaging Genetics Lab and the Visiting Scholars Program. In these roles, she advances research on neurodegenerative diseases and mentors emerging leaders in the field.

Greg received his bachelor's degree in Microbiology from Brigham Young University, where he developed a new class of influenza inhibitors. He completed his PhD degree at UCSF in Martin Kampmann's Lab. In the Kampmann lab, he studied how the V337M tau mutation perturbs the differentiation of iPSC-derived neurons. Greg works with the Clelland Lab at the Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center to develop new methods for screening nanoparticle-delivery systems for gene-editing therapies.