Annika Mittelhauser

I’m a graduate student in the UCSF Biomedical Sciences program, co-mentored by Dr. Hideho Okada and Dr. Zach Steinhart. Prior to UCSF, I attended UCLA for my undergraduate degree, and while there, joined the lab of Dr. Donald Kohn. I worked to develop a hematopoietic gene therapy for X-Linked Agammaglobulinemia and separately, to maximize the titer and fidelity of lentiviral vectors. Today, I’m fascinated by the fields of genetic engineering, immunology, and immunotherapy. In my graduate work, I aim to utilize CRISPRia screening to study the differentiation and activity of tissue resident memory T cells, primarily in the context of synNotch CAR T therapy for glioblastoma. I’m a recipient of the Biomedical Sciences T32 training grant. Outside of lab, I enjoy visiting new coffeeshops and restaurants, reading fantasy (Brandon Sanderson!), and solving variant sudoku puzzles.