Mark Anderson, MD, PhD

Mark Anderson, MD, PhD, is Robert Friend and Michelle M. Friend Endowed Chair in Diabetes Research, Director of the Diabetes Center, and a leading expert in the understanding of autoimmune diseases and their underpinnings.  His major scientific contributions involve unraveling the mechanisms by which a key transcription factor called Aire promotes immune tolerance.  He continues to make significant contributions in this area of research and even has developed translational approaches to his findings that involve manipulating this key tolerance mechanism.

As a leader in the translation of Immunology to human health, Anderson is a co-founder of ImmunoX, a novel program to harness the immune system for human health at UCSF and he is also President of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS). He is a practicing Diabetologist and serves in an advisory capacity for the translation of immunology to autoimmunity including service as a mechanistic investigator/advisor to Trialnet, a NIH-sponsored multi-center clinical trial consortium whose focus is on preventing and reversing type 1 diabetes.  He has also served as chair of the Hypersensitivity, Autoimmune and Immune-mediated Disease (HAI) study section for the National Institutes of Health. Anderson also serves as Director of the UCSF MD/PhD training program. In 2020, he was elected into the National Academy of Medicine.