Maya Kotas, MD, PhD

Principle Investigator (she/her)
Pulmonary Critical Care Allergy and Sleep Medicine

I'm an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy and Sleep Medicine, where I attend in the intensive care units at UCSF and run a lab that studies how the immune system and epithelial cells of the airway and lung interact to orchestrate defense and homeostasis. Our overarching goal is to understand the central principles of immune activation in the airway; understand how those go awry in diseases like asthma, nasal polyps, or COPD; and generate new ideas for how we might therefore treat disease. To address these goals, my lab uses flow cytometry and sorting, gene expression analysis (scRNAseq and RNAseq), microscopy, cell culture, and mouse physiologic measurements on human respiratory specimens and mouse models. Aside from my clinical and research aims, I aspire to support and advance women and minorities in science and medicine.

Publications

Innate type 2 immunity controls hair follicle commensalism by Demodex mites.

The Journal of Immunology

Roberto R Ricardo-Gonzalez, Maya E Kotas, Claire O’Leary, Iliana Tenvooren, Diana Marquez, Katelyn Singh, William Damsky, Chang Liao, Andrew Schroeder, Jarish Cohen, Marlys S Fassett, Jinwoo Lee, Scott G Daniel, Kyle Bittinger, Roberto Efrain Diaz, James Fraser, Karl Mark Ansel, Matthew Spitzer, Hong-Erh Liang, Richard M Locksley

SirT1 regulates adipose tissue inflammation.

Diabetes

Gillum MP, Kotas ME, Erion DM, Kursawe R, Chatterjee P, Nead KT, Muise ES, Hsiao JJ, Frederick DW, Yonemitsu S, Banks AS, Qiang L, Bhanot S, Olefsky JM, Sears DD, Caprio S, Shulman GI