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

Ileana is a SRA1 in the lab, 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.

David is a Computational Research Assistant in the lab. He earned his Dual B.A. in Biology and German Studies from Grinnell College and a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University. In the Urtecho Lab, his research centers on developing metabolic models for predicting colonization outcomes of microbiome therapies.

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 hormones and neurotransmitter receptors in the gut.

Likes: Table tennis

Dislikes: Traveling for hours on public transit

Yingqian is an computational research assistant in the lab. She is currently earning her BS degree in Biology from LiaoNing Normal University. In the Urtecho Lab, she applies DNA language models to understand and predict bacterial gene regulation.

Likes: Latin Dance

Dislikes: Coconut

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