Avi Samelson received his PhD from the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley. There, he was a graduate student in the lab of Professor Susan Marqusee, studying how translation modulates protein energy landscapes.

Here at UCSF, Dr. Samelson is interested in understanding how cells regulate protein folding especially in the context of neurodegenerative disease. He is also interested in studying the molecular basis for selective vulnerability in the context of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and ALS.  Both FTD and ALS are neurodegenerative diseases, but they are caused by different proteins and different areas of the brain are first affected by disease. Dr. Samelson is using both a deep mutation scanning approach as well as a CRISPRi/a based genome-wide screen to understand the molecular basis for selective vulnerability.