Aaron Diaz, PhD
Principal Investigator
Research Interests: Brain-tumor evolution, single-cell and spatial genomics, lineage tracing, computational biology, tumor immunity, translational therapeutics.
Aaron Diaz leads the laboratory’s research on brain-tumor evolution, cellular lineage, and therapeutic response. The group combines computational methods with single-cell and spatial genomics.
Diaz Lab Publications
- Jain et al. Longitudinal single-cell and spatial profiling of sonic hedgehog medulloblastoma identifies novel therapeutic targets. Genome Medicine. Accepted. No DOI assigned.
- Hashemi et al. MAPK-driven glioma progression and reprogramming of the tumor-associated immune response. Neuro Oncol. 2026.
- Okada et al. Single-nucleus profiling of postmortem diffuse midline gliomas identifies mitochondrial biogenesis as a resistance mechanism to imipridone therapy. Neuro Oncol. 2026.
- Kuwahara et al. AAV immuno-gene therapy platform delivering vectorized cytokines defines a new modality for high-grade glioma treatment. Mol Ther Oncol. 2026.
- Osorio et al. Developmental Plasticity and Stromal Co-option Shape a Pituitary Neuroendocrine Tumor Transcriptional Continuum. bioRxiv. 2025. [Preprint]
- Veith et al. CLONEID: A Framework for Longitudinal Integration of Phenotypic and Genotypic Data to Monitor and Steer Subclonal Dynamics. bioRxiv. 2025. [Preprint]
- Yu et al. Measles Oncolytic Virus as an Immunotherapy for Recurrent/Refractory Pediatric Medulloblastoma and Atypical Teratoid/Rhabdoid Tumor: Results from PNOC005. Clin Cancer Res. 2025.
- Raphael et al. The T cell receptor landscape of childhood brain tumors. Sci Transl Med. 2025.
- Kwok et al. Tumour-wide RNA splicing aberrations generate actionable public neoantigens. Nature. 2025.
- Lucas et al. Longitudinal multimodal profiling of IDH-wildtype glioblastoma reveals the molecular evolution and cellular phenotypes underlying prognostically different treatment responses. Neuro Oncol. 2025.
- Lad et al. Glioblastoma induces the recruitment and differentiation of dendritic-like "hybrid" neutrophils from skull bone marrow. Cancer Cell. 2024.
- Pichol-Thievend et al. VC-resist glioblastoma cell state: vessel co-option as a key driver of chemoradiation resistance. Nat Commun. 2024.
- Nejo et al. Challenges in the discovery of tumor-specific alternative splicing-derived cell-surface antigens in glioma. Sci Rep. 2024.
- Mondal et al. PP2Ac Deficiency Enhances Tumor Immunogenicity by Activating STING-Type I Interferon Signaling in Glioblastoma. Cancer Res. 2023.
- Jain et al. Single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics reveal cancer-associated fibroblasts in glioblastoma with protumoral effects. J Clin Invest. 2023.
- Wang et al. A single-cell atlas of glioblastoma evolution under therapy reveals cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic therapeutic targets. Nat Cancer. 2022.
- Liu et al. The landscape of tumor cell states and spatial organization in H3-K27M mutant diffuse midline glioma across age and location. Nat Genet. 2022.
- Diaz et al. Loss of ATRX suppresses anti-tumor immunity. Neuro Oncol. 2022.
- Combes et al. Discovering dominant tumor immune archetypes in a pan-cancer census. Cell. 2022.
- Babikir et al. ATRX regulates glial identity and the tumor microenvironment in IDH-mutant glioma. Genome Biol. 2021.
- Raphael et al. TIGIT and PD-1 Immune Checkpoint Pathways Are Associated With Patient Outcome and Anti-Tumor Immunity in Glioblastoma. Front Immunol. 2021.
- He et al. miRNA-independent function of long noncoding pri-miRNA loci. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021.
- Wang et al. The evolution of alternative splicing in glioblastoma under therapy. Genome Biol. 2021.
- Chuntova et al. Unique challenges for glioblastoma immunotherapy-discussions across neuro-oncology and non-neuro-oncology experts in cancer immunology. Meeting Report from the 2019 SNO Immuno-Oncology Think Tank. Neuro Oncol. 2021.
- Diaz et al. Exosomal PD-L1 induces immunosuppressive nonclassical monocytes. Neuro Oncol. 2020.
- Wang et al. Ensemble learning for classifying single-cell data and projection across reference atlases. Bioinformatics. 2020.
- Chandra et al. Clonal ZEB1-Driven Mesenchymal Transition Promotes Targetable Oncologic Antiangiogenic Therapy Resistance. Cancer Res. 2020.
- Bhaduri et al. Outer Radial Glia-like Cancer Stem Cells Contribute to Heterogeneity of Glioblastoma. Cell Stem Cell. 2020.
- Wang et al. The Phenotypes of Proliferating Glioblastoma Cells Reside on a Single Axis of Variation. Cancer Discov. 2019.
- Wang et al. Thermoregulation via Temperature-Dependent PGD2 Production in Mouse Preoptic Area. Neuron. 2019.
- Pinton et al. The immune suppressive microenvironment of human gliomas depends on the accumulation of bone marrow-derived macrophages in the center of the lesion. J Immunother Cancer. 2019.
- Müller et al. CONICS integrates scRNA-seq with DNA sequencing to map gene expression to tumor sub-clones. Bioinformatics. 2018.
- Müller et al. Peptide vaccine immunotherapy biomarkers and response patterns in pediatric gliomas. JCI Insight. 2018.
- Bulut-Karslioglu et al. The Transcriptionally Permissive Chromatin State of Embryonic Stem Cells Is Acutely Tuned to Translational Output. Cell Stem Cell. 2018.
- Müller et al. Single-cell profiling of human gliomas reveals macrophage ontogeny as a basis for regional differences in macrophage activation in the tumor microenvironment. Genome Biol. 2017.
- Bartlett et al. Single-cell Co-expression Subnetwork Analysis. Sci Rep. 2017.
- Müller et al. Single-Cell mRNA Sequencing in Cancer Research: Integrating the Genomic Fingerprint. Front Genet. 2017.
- Müller et al. Single-cell sequencing maps gene expression to mutational phylogenies in PDGF- and EGF-driven gliomas. Mol Syst Biol. 2016.
- Diaz et al. SCell: integrated analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data. Bioinformatics. 2016.
- Liu et al. Single-cell analysis of long non-coding RNAs in the developing human neocortex. Genome Biol. 2016.
- Suzawa et al. A gene-expression screen identifies a non-toxic sumoylation inhibitor that mimics SUMO-less human LRH-1 in liver. Elife. 2015.
- Pollen et al. Molecular identity of human outer radial glia during cortical development. Cell. 2015.
- Diaz et al. HiTSelect: a comprehensive tool for high-complexity-pooled screen analysis. Nucleic Acids Res. 2015.
- Qin et al. Systematic identification of barriers to human iPSC generation. Cell. 2014.
- Nagarajan et al. Recurrent epimutations activate gene body promoters in primary glioblastoma. Genome Res. 2014.
- Ramos et al. Integration of genome-wide approaches identifies lncRNAs of adult neural stem cells and their progeny in vivo. Cell Stem Cell. 2013.
- Nellore et al. NSeq: a multithreaded Java application for finding positioned nucleosomes from sequencing data. Front Genet. 2012.
- Diaz et al. CHANCE: comprehensive software for quality control and validation of ChIP-seq data. Genome Biol. 2012.
- Diaz et al. Normalization, bias correction, and peak calling for ChIP-seq. Stat Appl Genet Mol Biol. 2012.
- Hunkapiller et al. Polycomb-like 3 promotes polycomb repressive complex 2 binding to CpG islands and embryonic stem cell self-renewal. PLoS Genet. 2012.
Education and Training
1997: BS, Mathematics, New York University
2003: MS, Computer Science, Cornell University
2003: PhD, Applied Mathematics, Cornell University
2010-2014: Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Human Genetics, UCSF
Academic Positions
2003-2010: Assistant Professor, Dept. of Mathematics, Santa Clara University
2014-Present: Assistant Professor, Dept. of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, UCSF
2015-2020: Assistant Professor, Dept. of Neurological Surgery, UCSF
2020-present: Associate Professor, Dept. of Neurological Surgery, UCSF
2020-present: Editorial board, Neuro-Oncology
2020-present: Editorial board, Genome Medicine
Selected Awards
2020: Society for Neuro-Oncology Adult Basic Research Award
2016: Society for Neuro-Oncology Adult Basic Research Award
2015: Brain Tumor SPORE Career Development Award
2010: BCATS Plenary Talk Award
2008: Santa Clara University Dean's Award
2003: Santa Clara University Technology Innovation Award
1997: Cornell University Sage Fellowship
1997: Institute for Advanced Study Research Fellowship
Selected Current Research Support
National Library of Medicine R01: An informatics framework for single-cell multi-omics from clinical specimens.
Sandler Foundation: The co-evolution of glioblastoma and the local immune response under therapy
Dabbiere Family Foundation/UCSF project: Optimization of mutant-IDH inhibitor therapy in IDH-mutant glioma
Selected Collaborations
- Longitudinal glioblastoma and tumor-microenvironment studies with investigators across the UCSF Brain
Tumor Center, neuropathology, neuro-oncology, neurosurgery, radiation oncology, and computational
programs - Pediatric and young-adult high-grade glioma atlases through Project HOPE and related national networks
- Pediatric medulloblastoma oncolytic-virus studies through PNOC005 and associated laboratory
collaborations - Diffuse midline glioma therapy-resistance studies with Javad Nazarian and international pediatric neuro-
oncology collaborators - Tumor-wide RNA-splicing neoantigen studies with Hideho Okada, Joseph Costello, Arun Wiita,
Christopher Klebanoff, and colleagues - AAV immuno-gene therapy studies with Nicole Paulk, Lauren Kelly, Nathalie Clément, Joanna Phillips,
and collaborators - International brain-metastasis and atlas development with Lin Wang and participating institutions; publish
final initiative names only after confirmation