Meet the Team

Guillaume is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at UC San Diego. He received his B.S. in Genetics from UC Davis and PhD in Molecular Biology from UCLA under the mentorship of Dr. Sriram Kosuri. Immersed in the swamps of Woods Hole, Guillaume became captivated by microbial communities and joined the laboratory of Dr. Harris Wang at Columbia University to study how microbial communities are assembled in the gut. He is now running a research group seeking to develop bacterial therapeutics, leveraging insights from high-throughput molecular technologies.  Beyond research, Guillaume is committed to advancing DEI and equal representation in STEM through mentoring trainees and community science education. 

Likes: Australian Shepherds

Dislikes: Eating Fish (exception: 🍣)  

Daniel is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab. He earned his B.S. in Biology from The College of New Jersey and completed his Ph.D. at UCLA in Dr. Wenyuan Shi’s lab, where he investigated interspecies interactions among native oral bacteria. Daniel then pursued postdoctoral research at the ADA Forsyth Institute under Dr. Xuesong He, focusing on how certain oral bacteria inhibit the acid production of Streptococcus mutans. In the Urtecho Lab, his research centers on mapping the distinct niches that bacteria occupy within the gut and developing strategies to promote engraftment of therapeutic microbiota.

Likes: Painting miniatures 

Dislikes: Standing on the left side of escalators

Marvic is a postdoctoral fellow in the Urtecho Lab. She earned her B.S. in Químico Farmacobiólogo from the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (Tijuana, México), where she also completed her M.Sc. in Health Sciences with a specialization in Clinical Microbiology. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Immunology at the University of California, San Diego, in the lab of Dr. Hiutung Chu. Her doctoral research focused on understanding the functional impact of strain variation on the immunomodulatory properties of the gut commensal Bacteroides fragilis.

In the Urtecho Lab, Marvic’s research focuses on integrating spatial metagenomics with host immune responses to better understand host–microbe interactions in both health and disease.

Likes: Chocolate

Dislikes: Runny Eggs

Ileana is the Lab Manager, bringing public health laboratory experience from her previous role at San Diego County Public Health. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry and Biology from Universidad Libre De Colombia and has specialized in bacterial pathogen analysis, focusing on disease surveillance. Her primary duties are to maintain an organized and productive lab environment, but she still finds time to explore interesting questions about microbiomes.

Likes: Reading and enjoying quiet beach/pool days

Dislikes: Disorganized spaces

Mark is a PhD student in the lab. He earned his B.S. in Bioinformatics from UC San Diego. Mark did his postbac at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT in the laboratory of Gad Getz researching how cancer tumors acquire resistance to therapy. In the Urtecho Lab, his research focuses on mapping the distinct niches that bacteria occupy within the gut and the role gut microbiome plays in inflammatory bowel disease.

Likes: Storytelling

Dislikes: Missing the bus by 1 minute

Martin is a laboratory research assistant in the lab. He earned his BS degree in Biology from Furman University and finished his MS degree in Biomedical Sciences from Northeastern University. In the Urtecho Lab, he focuses on finding bacterial homologs to human hormone and neurotransmitter receptors in the gut.

Likes: Table tennis

Dislikes: Traveling for hours on public transit

Sidd is a second-year undergraduate at UC San Diego majoring in Computer Science. He has experience with many programming languages, including Python for data science and machine learning applications, eager to apply his skills in biological research. In the Urtecho lab, he works on computational algorithms to identify optimal conditions for the cultivation and isolation of rare microbes.

Likes: Weightlifting

Dislikes: Eating vegetables

Rishab is a rising junior at UC San Diego majoring in Data Science. As a data science major he has a lot of experience coding in Python for Data Science and machine learning tasks across several domains including sports analytics, signal processing, and bioinformatics research. In the Urtecho Lab, he currently works on identifying metabolic signatures which distinguish healthy patients and patients with NAFLD.

Likes: Zero Sugar Baja Blasts

Dislikes: Fruits in desert 

Minshen is a first-year undergraduate student majoring in Bio: Bioinformatics at UC San Diego. She has experience in wet-lab research and is currently developing her computational biology skills. In the Urtecho Lab, she studies bacterial homologs of human hormone and neurotransmitter receptors within the gut microbiome.

Likes: French pastries and black coffee

Dislikes: Sweet coffee 

Karthik is a second-year Data Science student at UC San Diego. He has experience building data pipelines and machine learning models, specifically applying these skills to sports analytics and clinical research. Currently, he develops performance dashboards for the UCSD Men’s Soccer Team. In the lab, he applies statistical techniques to analyze the microbiomes of NAFLD cohorts and how they shift across disease stages 

Likes: Soccer

Dislikes: Spiders 

Sweekrit is a second year undergraduate at UC San Diego studying Data Science. He has experience spanning bioinformatics, applied data analytics and machine learning, software engineering, and robotics. In the Urtecho Lab, he works on using machine learning and statistical techniques to identify microbes and metabolites for HIV prediction.

Likes: playing video games, reading, running

Dislikes: horror movies, California traffic 

Nolan is a first-year undergraduate at UC San Diego majoring in Human Biology, on a pre-medical track. He has gained hands-on experience in wet lab environments, where he focuses on bench-side techniques to explore the gut microbiome. In the Urtecho Lab, he is working on the probiotics project, exploring how probiotics cultivate differently amongst unique gut microbiomes.

Likes: Clouds

Dislikes: Green Peppers