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 Ronald S.
Swerdloff, M.D.
Dr. Swerdloff is the Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine and the Director of a World Health Organization Collaborative Center in Reproduction, a Mellon Foundation Center for Contraceptive Development and a NIH Contraceptive Clinical Trial Center. His research interests involve many aspects of basic male reproductive physiology and clinical reproductive investigation. Ongoing work includes the regulation of spermatogenesis, regulation of the androgen receptor gene, neuroregulation of gonadotropin secretion, development of male contraceptive agents, pharmacology of androgen hormones, regulation of apoptosis in the testis, ethnic differences in the reproductive endocrine system, role of 5-alpha reduced androgens in the prevention and treatment of cognitive dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, impaired vitality, osteoporosis and frailty in elderly men, factors influencing male fertility, molecular basis and neurobiology of cognitive dysfunction in Klinefelter's Syndrome, sex steroid effects on cognition and neurodegenerative disorders, and mutant mouse models in reproductive biology, and stem cell transplantation in the testes. Techniques include tissue culture, light, confocal and electron microscopy, morphometry, immunoassays, bioassays, transillumination for staging of spermatogenesis, laser dissection microsurgery, sperm function assessment and a broad spectrum of molecular biologic methods, including microarrays.
 W.N. Paul Lee, M.D.
Dr. Lee is a Pediatric Endocrinologist who joined the faculty in 1986. He is Acting Division Chief of Pediatric Endocrinology and Director of the BioMedical Mass Spectrometry Facility. His primary research area is the application of stable isotopes and mass spectrometry to nutrition and metabolic studies. In the past few years, his laboratory has developed methods of interpreting distribution of mass isotopomers through the Krebs cycle. Such methods are now being applied to study lactate metabolism and gluconeogenesis in man, including glucoregulatory disturbances in children and infants. Recently, he has developed methods to study lipogenesis using deuterated water and mass isotopomer analysis. Such methods are being used in studies of abnormal lipid metabolism in diabetes. In the coming years, he plans to study the effect of nutrients on gene-expression using tracer-based metabolomics and LC/MS methods in animal models of diabetes and obesity.
 Laszlo Boros, M.D.
Dr. Boros joined the Harbor UCLA faculty in September, 1998. Dr. Boros' research involves laboratory techniques to study in vitro and in vivo cell physiology, endocrinology of tumor cell growth and proliferation, in vitro stable isotope studies of tumor cell regulation of glucose, nucleic acid, fatty acid and amino acid synthesis using specifically labeled glucose isotopes as precursors. Dr. Boros also studies organ specific damage in long term ethanol toxicity as well as metabolic response to targeted anti-caner drugs. The research methodology includes gas/liquid chromatography and mass spectral analyses using quadruple or ion trap technologies. Dr. Boros is currently the Co-Director of the BioMedical Mass Spectrometry Facility.
 Andrew Gianoukakis, M.D.
Dr. Gianoukakis is the newest member of our group; he joined the Internal Medicine faculty in 2002. His special interest focuses on autoimmune thyroid disease and thyroid cancer. His research concerns the pathogenesis of Graves’ disease. Dr. Gianoukakis has developed a primary thyroid epithelial cell culture model and has used this to identify important mediators of the inflammatory responses seen in Graves’ disease. The clinical significance of these findings is currently being examined in a clinical research study. The ultimate goal for this line of investigation is to identify molecular targets through which the disease process can be interrupted, as well as clinically useful markers of disease activity.
 Eli Ipp, M.D.
Dr. Ipp is Professor of Medicine and Head of the Section of Diabetes and Metabolism. His primary research interest has been the physiology of hormone secretion in the islets of Langerhans. Current goals of the lab are studies of early beta cell dysfunction. This involves clinical research evaluating oscillatory phenomena involved in the secretion of insulin and the regulation of carbohydrate metabolism. Another is the study of islet dysfunction in subjects at-risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus, including the application of genetic approaches to identify these individuals. Also patients representing unique clinical subtypes of type 2 diabetes are phenotyped in detail and candidate genes explored. Using genetic approaches to understanding diabetes and its complications, Dr Ipp’s laboratory is also studying the genetics of diabetic retinopathy. Other clinical studies include the development of improved methods for the evaluation of insulinomas and other hypoglycemic disorders.
 YanHe
Lue, M.D.
Dr. Lue was trained as an urologist in China and a basic researcher in Harbor-UCLA and joined faculty in 2001. The major focus of his research has been the genetic and hormonal regulation of spermatogenesis. He has demonstrated that testicular hyperthermia enhances the suppression of spermatogenesis induced by testosterone implants in both rats and monkeys. He has been studying the functional roles of progesterone receptors in the testes and hypothesizes that progestins mediated through the progesterone receptors may have direct inhibitory actions on sperm production. He has characterized the XXY mouse model for investigating the most common sex chromosome aneuploidy in men–Klinefelter’s syndrome. He has been studying the cellular and molecular mechanisms of gonadal and neurobehavioral defects in XXY mice. He also has an interest in spermatogonial stem cell research. Techniques include PCR, real time RT-PCR, Southern blot, Northern blot, Western blot, 2D gel electrophoresis, MALDI-TOF, in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry, gene microarray, karyotype, laser microdissection, confocal microscopy, and germ cell transplantation.
 Catherine S. Mao, M.D.
Dr. Mao is a Pediatric Endocrinologist who joined the faculty at Harbor-UCLA in 1998 after completing her fellowship training in Pediatric Endocrinology here. Her research has focused on the study of various aspects of glucose metabolism using stable isotopes and acetaminophen conjugates as a noninvasive probe of liver glucose metabolism in subjects with diabetes and the use of plasma insulin oscillations to evaluate pancreatic beta cell dysfunction in new onset type 1 and type 2 diabetes. As a Clinical Associate Physician (CAP), Dr. Mao has investigated the biochemical processes of urea synthesis and renal ammonium excretion to include the interrelationships of ammonium excretion and renal gluconeogenesis in Type I diabetes, utilizing the common intermediates of gluconeogenesis. Dr. Mao also has a particular interest in the identification of children at risk for the onset of Type 2 diabetes among Latino children and adolescents and in the development of intervention techniques to delay its onset, if not its outright prevention.
 Amiya P. Sinha Hikim, Ph.D.
Dr. Sinha Hikim is a cell biologist widely recognized as an authority on male reproductive system cellular and subcellular morphology. He co-authored a major book entitled "Histological and Histopathological Evaluation of the Testis". This book becomes a "gold standard" for evaluation of spermatogenesis in laboratory animals. Dr. Sinha Hikim directs the high-resolution light and electron microscopy unit and the confocal imaging facility. His research involves studying the key molecular components of the effector pathways leading to caspase activation and increased testicular germ cell apoptosis triggered by a variety of stimuli. His research also focuses on a new signal transduction pathway involving p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase and nitric oxide in hypothalamic neurons in aging that leads to decreased GnRH secretion, LH pulse amplitude, Leydig cell steroidogenesis, reduced serum T levels, and hypospermatogenesis. He uses pharmacologic and transgenic approaches to study the basic control mechanisms of spermatogenesis in normal and pathological states and regulation of programmed germ cell and neuronal death associated with aging.
 Terry J. Smith, M.D.
Dr. Smith is the chief of the Division of Molecular Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Smith is an endocrinologist who is interested in diseases of the thyroid. His research involves examining the role of orbital fibroblasts in the pathogenesis of Graves’ ophthalmopathy. He is exploring the fibroblasts genes that are regulated in response to pro-inflammatory cytokines and other potential disease mediators. Another focus of his program is the organization and regulation of the extracellular matrix. Hyaluronan, a glycosaminoglycan that accumulates in ophthalmopathy, is an important component of the extracellular matrix. The regulation of the hyaluronan synthase genes in orbital fibroblast is being studied presently.
 Christina Wang, M.D.
Dr. Wang joined the faculty in 1993 as a Professor of Medicine and is the Program Director of the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC). Since she has been director, the GCRC has developed a number of research training courses including introduction to clinical research, responsible conduct of research, biostatistics, genomics and proteomics for clinical research, and conducting clinical trials. She is an endocrinologist with a special interest in male reproductive medicine. Her current research includes hormonal methods of male contraception; biological effects of androgen replacement on bone, muscle, fat, prostate, mood and cognitive function in hypogonadal and aging men; ethnic and nutritional influences on androgen metabolism with implications for benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer; the mechanisms of male reproductive aging using animal models; assessment and treatment of male infertility; effects of environment on sperm function and quality, and regulation of germ cell proliferation and death. Dr. Wang supervises an Andrology laboratory for specialized semen analyses. Techniques also include: hormone measurements, semen analyses, tissue culture, pharmacokinetics, stable isotopic methods for evaluation of androgen metabolism and reproductive steroids, assessment of parameters of bone turnover, assessment of hormone effects on cognitive function and behavior, animal models of male contraception and reproductive aging.
 Jennifer K. Yee, M.D.
Dr. Yee completed her pediatric endocrinology fellowship training here at Harbor-UCLA and became a faculty member in 2007. Her main research interest is in the mechanisms of the development of obesity. She is currently using stable isotope techniques to study the fatty acid metabolic pathways in a rat model of prenatal nutritional programming of adult obesity. In parallel, she is also studying the plasma fatty acid composition of infants exposed to in utero nutritional imbalance. The goal of these projects is to evaluate fatty acid pathways as potential targets for obesity prevention. Dr. Yee is also studying the timing of development of cardiovascular disease in young adults with Type 2 Diabetes.
 Elizabeth Batcher, M.D.
Dr. Batcher joined the Harbor-UCLA adult Endocrinology faculty in 2008. She has worked within the LA County Diabetes Disease Management Program as an Assistant Professor of Medicine for the past two years before coming to Harbor. She has been involved in the development and implementation of county-wide guidelines for the care of patients with type 2 diabetes. She is currently developing a new diabetes disease management program at the Long Beach Comprehensive Care Center. Her research interest is in the field of health services, creating and examining the effects of novel programs to improve the care of patients with diabetes in poor, urban areas. |
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