Charles Chiu, MD, PhD
Charles Chiu, M.D./Ph.D. is Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at University of California, San Francisco and Director of the UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory. Chiu currently leads a translational research laboratory focused on the development and clinical validation of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and host response profiling assays for diagnosis of infections, outbreak investigation, and pathogen discovery. He is a principal developer of a CRISPR-Cas12a based assay for the diagnosis of COVID-19, for which FDA Emergency Use Authorization was obtained in July of 2020, and has achieved FDA breakthrough device designation for mNGS assays for pathogen identification from cerebrospinal and respiratory fluids. Chiu also leverages machine learning based approaches to develop host response classification models based on RNA gene expression for differential diagnosis of central nervous system infections, infection-associated chronic illnesses (Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, and long COVID), and hyperinflammatory syndromes such as sepsis and multi-systm inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). Chiu’s work is supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Abbott Laboratories, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub, the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation, and the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine. Dr. Chiu has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, holds over 15 patents and patent applications, is a co-founder of Delve Bio, and serves on the scientific advisory board of Delve Bio, Biomeme, Mammoth Biosciences, Flightpath Biosciences, Biomesense, and Poppy Health.