Our mission is to foster a dynamic, productive, and collaborative environment that advances research, training, and clinical translation in human genetics.
Our faculty span all four schools—Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy—as well as numerous departments within them. This breadth reflects the central role of human genetics in both foundational biomedical research and modern health care. With the sequencing of the human genome and the rapid decline in the cost of individual genome sequencing in recent years, we are entering a transformative era in translational human genetics. These advances are reshaping our understanding of not only rare Mendelian disorders, but essentially all human diseases. The IHG and its members are committed to remaining at the forefront of these groundbreaking developments.
Director: Nadav Ahituv
Nadav Ahituv, PhD, assumed the role of Director of the IHG on January 23, 2023. An accomplished researcher at UCSF and a member of the institute since its founding in 2006, Dr. Ahituv leads the Ahituv Lab, where his team studies gene regulatory elements and their influence on human diversity and disease.
Twitter: @NadavAhituv
Featured Event: IHG Seminar Series
Join the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics for the IHG Seminar Series, featuring leading scientists in human genetics and related fields.
Our upcoming seminar will explore “Detecting Adaptive and Ghost Introgression in Human Populations Using Machine Learning,” highlighting how machine learning can help researchers investigate human evolutionary history and identify genetic contributions from archaic and other ancestral populations.
Our featured speaker is Xinjun Zhang, PhD, Assistant Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Michigan. Dr. Zhang will discuss how machine learning approaches can help identify adaptive introgression from Neanderthals and Denisovans, as well as genetic contributions from previously unsampled archaic human populations.
📅 Tuesday, December 8, 2026
📍 UCSF Mission Hall, Room 1407
🕐 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PT
🎟️ Free to join; virtual attendance also available
We hope you can join us for this exciting seminar and scientific discussion!
