Professor Charles Chiu
Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine
Division of Infectious Diseases, University of California
biography
Charles Chiu, M.D./Ph.D. is Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at University of California, San Francisco, Co-Director of the UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, and a Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. Chiu currently leads a translational research laboratory focused on the development and clinical validation of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and host response profiling assays for diagnosis of infections, outbreak investigation, and pathogen discovery. He is a principal developer of clinical mNGS assays for pathogen detection from cerebrospinal fluid, plasma, and respiratory fluids that have achieved breakthrough device designation from the FDA. Chiu also leverages machine learning based approaches to develop host response classification models based on RNA gene expression for differential diagnosis of acute infectious syndromes (meningitis / encephalitis and sepsis) and infection-associated chronic illnesses (Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, and long COVID).
Chiu’s work is supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Department of Defense (DoD), Abbott Laboratories, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub, and the Bay Area Lyme Disease Foundation. Dr. Chiu has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and holds over 15 patents and patent applications. He has mentored 10 visiting faculty, 17 post-doctoral fellows and 8 graduate students. He has been awarded the American Society for Microbiology Award for Research or Leadership in Clinical Microbiology, European Society for Clinical Virology Gardner Lectureship Award, Pan-American Soecity for Clinical Virology Ed Nowakowski Senior Memorial Clinical Virology Award, Luminary Award from the Precision Medicine World Conference, and was the sole inaugural Orbital Launch Winner for the 3rd Annual Humans in Space Challenge sponsored by Boryung, Inc. Chiu is a co-founder of Delve Bio, and serves on the scientific advisory board of Delve Bio, Biomeme, BiomeSense, and Flightpath Biosciences.
Title
Illuminating the Unknown: Clinical Metagenomics for Precision Infectious Disease Diagnosis and Pathogen Discovery
abstract
Clinical metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) has transformed infectious disease diagnosis by enabling unbiased, comprehensive detection of viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites from a single patient specimen. Increasingly adopted for routine clinical diagnosis, mNGS also provides a powerful platform for the discovery and characterization of previously unrecognized pathogens. Advances in computational genomics and artificial intelligence are further enhancing diagnostic accuracy, facilitating rapid outbreak investigation, and accelerating the development of next-generation precision diagnostics.
This keynote will highlight real-world applications of clinical metagenomics, from routine diagnosis of challenging infections to novel pathogen discovery, including emerging neuroinvasive bunyaviruses causing fatal encephalitis, characterization of a neuroinvasive infection from trichodysplasia spinulosa-associated polyomavirus (TSPyV), investigation of pediatric hepatitis associated with adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2), and phylogenetic analysis of a multinational Fusarium solani fungal meningitis outbreak using metagenomic multiple extended locus typing (metaMELT). The presentation will also showcase emerging AI-enabled approaches that complement metagenomic sequencing, including RNA host response profiling to distinguish infectious from noninfectious disease and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANS) to improve diagnosis of Lyme disease and other emerging tick-borne infections. Together, these technologies form an integrated platform for pathogen discovery, outbreak investigation, and precision infectious disease diagnosis, while strengthening preparedness for future emerging infectious disease threats.