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FEB 2025

Belinda, Chloe, and Presley present posters of their work at the 2024 Bay Area Autism Consortium's Annual Research Symposium.

Belinda Wang, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the State Lab, was selected to present her poster titled "Defining molecularly convergent subgroups of autism risk genes".

Chloe Han, a Staff Research Associate at the State Lab, was selected to present her poster titled "Defining the protein interaction landscape of autism risk genes".

​Presley Phan, an undergraduate researcher at the State Lab, was selected to present his poster titled "Autism risk genes implicate cortical and cerebellar neurons", winning second place for Best Poster Award.

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DEC 2024

Belinda Wang, MD, PhD, presents a special seminar at the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Congratulations to Belinda Wang, MD, PhD for giving an amazing special seminar on her research and vision to a packed audience at the UCSF DPBS.

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DEC 2024

The State lab participates in the Bay Area Glass Institute's glass layering workshop.

​The State lab members take a break from their lab benches to enjoy a meal at Pho Ha Noi and learn a new set of safety protocols to create layered glass artwork.
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NOV 2024

Sami joins the lab!

Sami Ridi recently joined the lab as an undergraduate research assistant. Welcome!

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OCT 2024

L. Lopez presents at the 2024 Adhesion GPCR Workshop

​L. Lopez, attends the three-day AGPCR Workshop in Mexico City to present and learn more on the subject of CELSR genes in neural development.

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JUL 2024

Chloe joins the lab!

Chloe Han recently joined the lab as a research assistant. Welcome!

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JUN 2024

Farewell celebration for Shawn
​
The lab wished Shawn Liu a farewell as he departs for his next endeavor in the medical field. We wish him all the success in his future studies!

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JUN 2024

The State and Willsey labs attend the San Francisco Giants home game facing the Houston Astros

​The State and Willsey lab members hop over to catch a game at Oracle Park.

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MAY 2024

George joins the lab!

George Wang recently joined the lab as a research assistant. Welcome!

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APR 2024

Farewell celebration for Niat
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The lab wished Niat Yohannes a farewell as she departs for her new role as a dental assistant. We wish her all the success in her future endeavors!

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APR 2024

Nawei attends the 2024 Stanford Brain Organogenesis Workshop

Nawei Sun, PhD, attends the one week-long Stanford Brain Organogenesis Workshop to learn about 3D in vitro modeling of human brain development and disorders. 

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APR 2024

Belinda Wang, MD, PhD, receives the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (DPBS) Research Trainee Award

Congratulations to Belinda Wang, MD, PhD on receiving the DPBS research award! Belinda gave an amazing talk at the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds to celebrate her work.

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MAR 2024

The State and Willsey labs attend the Molecular Psychiatry Association conference

​The State and Willsey lab members attend the MPA 2024 conference in Big Island, HI. Thank you all for a memorable time - mahalo!

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MAR 2024

Presley, Shawn and Belinda presents at the Bay Area Autism Consortium (BAAC) conference

​Presley Pham, an undergraduate researcher in the lab, was selected to deliver a talk at the BAAC conference titled "ASD Risk Genes Demonstrate Molecular Convergence."

Shawn Liu, a Staff Research Associate II in the lab, was selected to present a poster at the BAAC conference titled "SYNGAP1 haploinsufficiency syndrome commonly includes ciliopathies."

Belinda Wang, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab, was selected to present a poster at the BAAC conference titled "A protein interaction landscape of autism spectrum disorder risk genes reveals convergent biology."

​All did an amazing job presenting their work at the conference - congratulations!

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FEB 2024

Farewell celebration for Sheng
​
The State and Willsey labs wished Sheng Wang, PhD, a farewell as he departs for his new role as a Data Scientist at Calico Life Sciences. Congratulations!

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JAN 2024

Nawei accepted to the 2024 Stanford Brain Organogenesis Workshop!

Nawei Sun, PhD, was selected for the 2024 Stanford Brain Organogenesis Workshop. Congratulations!

Link: https://med.stanford.edu/sprint/workshops/human-brain-organogenesis-workshops.html?tab=proxy

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JAN 2024

Matt joins the lab!

Matt Nguyen Tran recently joined the lab as a Bioinformatician. Welcome!

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DEC 2023

New paper published in Nature Communications

Sheng Wang, PhD, is first author of new paper, Rare X-linked variants carry predominately male risk in autism, Tourette syndrome, and ADHD.

Read the publication here

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DEC 2023

New BioRxiv preprint

A foundational atlas of autism protein interactions reveals molecular convergence
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Read the preprint here

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NOV 2023

Shawn and Luis joins the lab!

Shawn Liu and Luis Lopez recently joined the lab as a research assistant. Welcome!

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AUG 2023

Presley joins the lab!

Presley recently joined the lab as a student volunteer. Welcome!

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MAR 2023

Rani joins the lab!

Rani recently joined the lab as a student volunteer. Welcome!

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JAN 2023

Niat and Erich joins the lab!

Niat Yohannes and Erich Martinez both recently graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Molecular and Cellular Biology and joined the lab as a research assistant. Welcome!

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SEPT 2022

Octavio joins the lab!

Octavio Castillo recently graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BS in Cell and Developmental Biology and joined the lab as a research assistant. Welcome!

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MAY 2021

Matthew State Awarded 2021 Commonwealth Club Distinguished Citizens Award (link)

UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science's Matthew State, Edward Chang, and Lisa Fortuna join John Pritzker as 2021 Commonwealth Club Distinguished Citizen Awardees, discussing their commitment to the improvement of mental health in the Bay Area and the nation.

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JANUARY 2021

New paper published in Nature Neuropsychopharmacology

Excited to announce that our lab recently published Leveraging large genomic datasets to illuminate the pathobiology of autism spectrum disorders in Nature Neuropsychopharmacology. This review papers aims to underscore the potential large-scale impact of leveraging "big data" approaches to better understand the biology underlying autism spectrum disorders.

Read the publication here

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DECEMBER 2020

Matthew State Awarded Yale Wilbur Cross for Alumni Achievement (link)

The Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal is an honor presented each year by the Graduate School Alumni Association to a small number of outstanding alumni. The medal recognizes distinguished achievements in scholarship, teaching, academic administration, and public service–all areas in which the legendary Dean Cross excelled.  Dr. State was awarded the 2020 medal for the Yale Department of Genetics.

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JULY 2019

Susan and Bill Oberndorf Foundation makes $20 million commitment to Matthew State to advance UCSF Psychiatry's research efforts and public mission (Link)

The Susan and Bill Oberndorf Foundation has made a new commitment of $25 million to UC San Francisco. Twenty million dollars of the funds are unrestricted, to be used at the discretion of Matthew State, MD, PhD, chair and Oberndorf Family Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry.

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DECEMBER 2018

Matthew State named among most highly cited researchers in the world (Link)

Matthew State and three UCSF Psychiatry faculty members have been acknowledged for the high impact of their research work with inclusion on the 2018 Highly Cited Researchers List. This highly prestigious honor recognizes scientists who have demonstrated significant influence through the publication of multiple highly cited papers over the last decade.
The Highly Cited Researchers list from Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomas Reuters) is an annual compilation that identifies the most influential researchers in the sciences and social sciences from around the world.

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OCTOBER 2017

Matthew State awarded National Academy of Medicine’s Sarnat Prize for Mental Health Research (Link)

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) today awarded 2017 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health to Joseph Coyle, whose research laid the foundation for integrating neuroscience and clinical psychiatry and shifted psychiatry’s emphasis toward empirically based brain research; and to the team of Catherine Lord and Matthew State, whose work revolutionized the study of autism and related neuropsychiatric disorders.
“Through their pioneering research and clinical work, Joseph Coyle, Catherine Lord, and Matthew State have made profound contributions to the understanding of a range of serious neuropsychiatric disorders,” said National Academy of Medicine President Victor J. Dzau.

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AUGUST 2017

Matthew State’s iBiology Video Talk: From Genes to Pathology in Autism Spectrum Disorders (2017)

Matthew State overviews the hunt for genes associated with autism and explains how studying de-novo rare mutations in the germline has advanced the understanding of the genetics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Studying a cohort of families with one affected individual and one unaffected sibling, they were able to map multiple genes involved in ASD. Because of the complexity of the developing brain, the same gene could act upon different regions of the brain at different times during development. Therefore, after identifying genes associated with ASD, they characterized the region and time during development where these genes are expressed and more likely to have an effect that is associated with ASD.

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JULY 2017

 State Lab:  Winner of the 2017 UCSF Sustainability Award in the Team Category (Link) and recognized for sustainability efforts by UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood (Link)

The members of the Department of Psychiatry's State Lab were among the UC San Francisco faculty, students, and staff members recognized for their efforts in supporting and advocating for sustainability measures at the seventh annual Sustainability Awards on June 20.
The lab in Rock Hall was recognized for its efforts in becoming the first laboratory ever to achieve a platinum-level certification in the UCSF LivingGreen program.

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MARCH 2017

Matt highlighted in NIH news - Faster Sequencing, More Patients Boost Autism Research (Link)

A philanthropist’s largesse and faster sequencing technology are helping researchers gain footholds in understanding autism spectrum disorder, which affects between 1 and 2 percent of the population. But complex diseases of brain and behavior such as ASD will not yield soon to simple solutions, said Dr. Matthew State, chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.

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APRIL 2016

Podcast: CARRY THE ONE RADIO - Cracking The Autism Code With Matt State (Link)

Our ability to diagnose and treat disorders of the mind lags far behind other medical disciplines. For our latest episode, we talked to Dr. Matthew State about why this is the case, and discussed how his research into the genetics of autism is revealing promising paths to future treatments.

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DECEMBER 2015

Recent Progress in Autism Genetics at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT​

The lecture will provide an overview of what is now known about the genomic architecture and specific risk mutations associated with ASD, address the particular challenges posed by the discovery of mutations that have large biological effect but low population allele frequency, and consider the role that whole genome sequencing will play in the near future in enhancing the understanding of the developmental aspects of ASD risk.

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NOVEMBER 2015

Review in the Lancet Neurology - Gene hunting in autism spectrum disorder: on the path to precision medicine (Link)

Recent developments in gene-hunting technologies and methods, and the resulting plethora of genetic findings, promise to open new avenues to understanding of disease pathophysiology and to contribute to improved clinical management.

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NOVEMBER 2012

The Brain Series - Autism — Charlie Rose

In this episode of the Brain Series, a panel of psychiatrists including Dr. Matthew State tackle the difficult subject of autism, and Alison Singer describes what it's like to raise an autistic child.