Andrew A. Grimm, M.D., Ph.D.
- Medical Director, Shire
Biography
Andrew A. Grimm M.D., Ph.D. is a clinical fellow in pediatric gastroenterology at the UCSF Benioff and a post-doctoral fellow in the Willenbring Lab. Dr. Grimm is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics in General Pediatrics and is a Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) Provider. Dr. Grimm grew up in Minnesota, where he learned to appreciate cold, modesty, and extreme politeness.
At MIT, Dr. Grimm studied cell cycle regulation in ES cells in the laboratory of Robert Weinberg. Instead of becoming a productive member of society, he then decided instead to spend 8 more years in school, obtaining an MD and PhD at Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied the regulation of aging in the laboratory of Shin-ichiro Imai. He then trained in pediatrics at Children's Hospital Boston and St. Louis Children's Hospital. His hobbies include hiking, triathlons, rock climbing, and learning Russian.
Research Overview
Metabolic liver diseases, are a group of genetic disorders that lead to progressive liver injury and/or damage to other organs due to impaired functions in metabolism. Examples include alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, Wilson's disease, liver disease in cystic fibrosis, galactosemia, glycogen storage diseases, Crigler-Najjar, and hereditary hypercholesterolemia. Therapies for most of these diseases are limited, and together they account for about 10% of pediatric liver transplants. An alternative to liver transplant would be transplantation of genetically modified hepatocytes that could be created from a patient's stem cells. Hepatocyte transplantation has encountered significant technical obstacles, including poor engraftment and poor proliferation after transplant. Through genetic and bioinformatic screens, I seek to identify factors that promote hepatocyte engraftment, differentiation, and proliferation. The ultimate goal of my research is to make hepatocyte transplantation a viable therapy for metabolic liver disease.