Pierce Hadley

Pierce is an MD-PhD candidate at UCSF, jointly mentored by Drs. Qizhi Tang and Tejal Desai. He earned his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There, he worked in the lab of Dr. Rohit Bhargava to develop computational tools for classifying tumor cells from Raman spectroscopic data and also ventured into 3D-printing/bioprinting for manufacturing tissue models. Additionally, Pierce worked in the lab Dr. Rashid Bashir, investigating the effect of cryopreservation on engineered muscle-tissue.

Now, as a Bioengineering student in the UCSF MD-PhD program, Pierce has continued his research in both tissue-and-materials engineering, designing an array of biomaterials to investigate human regulatory T cell (Treg) activation and phenotypic modulation. The knowledge gained from his research aims to improve Treg manufacturing and enhance their efficacy as a therapy for organ transplant rejection and autoimmunity. In the outside world, Pierce has numerous hobbies which include 3D-printing, reading, playing videogames, and playing/composing music for French horn.