Adult Endocrinology Faculty

Dr. Gianoukakis is a Professor of Medicine; he joined the Internal Medicine faculty in 2002. Dr. Gianoukakis is the Program Director of The Harbor-UCLA Endocrinology Fellowship Program and current Chief of the Division of Endocrinology as well as APDEM past president (Association of Program Directors in Endocrinology and Metabolism). His special interest focuses on autoimmune thyroid disease, thyroid dysfunction and thyroid cancer. Dr. Gianoukakis is investigating molecular markers as a diagnostic tool in the Thyroid cancer. Dr. Gianoukakis is a member of ITOG (International Thyroid Oncology Group) and SCThyCC (Southern California Thyroid Cancer Consortium) and a Principal Investigator of clinical trials investigating the utility of small molecule kinase inhibitors for the treatment of advanced thyroid cancer.

Dr. Wang is the Associate Director, UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at The Lundquist Institute and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and a faculty of the Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. She is an endocrinologist with a special interest in male reproductive medicine. She is internationally recognized expert in male reproduction and received national awards for her research and contributions to the field of Andrology. Her current research includes basic and translational studies on hormonal methods of male contraception; androgen replacement in hypogonadal and aging men; androgen metabolism; assessment and treatment of male infertility; effects of environment on sperm function and quality, regulation of germ cell proliferation and death, mitochondrial derived peptides in protecting germ cell damage, and effect of lifestyle changes on male reproductive epigenetics. Dr. Wang is the medical director of the Endocrine and Metabolic Research laboratory which includes an Andrology laboratory for specialized semen analyses. Her laboratory provides research training in hormone measurements by liquid chromatograph tandem mass spectrometry and immunoassays, semen analyses, tissue culture, pharmacokinetics of steroids, stable isotopic methods for evaluation of androgen metabolism and reproductive steroids, assessment of parameters of bone turnover, assessment of sexual function and behavior, animal models of male contraception, reproductive aging, and germ cell death and survival.

Dr. Rajesh Garg is a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine and the Head of Diabetes Section at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He was previously an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, and then a Professor of Medicine and Director of Clinical Diabetes at the University of Miami. His research interests include diabetes, obesity, insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease. In addition, Dr. Garg has completed an immense amount of research work to improve the clinical care of patients with diabetes. He has published more than a hundred articles on issues related to diabetes and edited two books on the management of diabetes and endocrinology. He was instrumental in creating standards of clinical care for preoperative management of diabetes for elective surgery patients. He led the comprehensive diabetes center at the University of Miami and designed the clinical diabetes program for Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami before moving to LA where he is focused on improving diabetes care of the under-resourced populations. He is a nationally recognized expert on diabetes and serves on many national and international professional committees.

Dr. Hae Seung Lee is an Endocrinologist and junior faculty at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. She was born and raised in Korea and received her medical degree from Soonchunhyang University where she also completed her Internal Medicine residency. She moved to the US and completed Internal Medicine residency training at Metropolitan Hospital-New York Medical College program followed by an Endocrinology fellowship at Harbor-UCLA. After graduation in 2023, she joined our faculty. In her free time, she does yoga and spend time with her children at the park.

Dr. Swerdloff is the Former Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, He is a Project PI in the P50 National Epigenomic Center (Wei Yan overall PI). Center Director of the Harbor-UCLA NICHD, NIH Contraceptive Clinical Trial Center, and co-director with Dr Christina Wang of the Lundquist Research Institute’s Metabolism, Endocrine, Cardiology, Nephrology and Reproduction Institute withing the Institute (IWI). He was the site PI and member of the advisory committee for the widely quoted outcomes of the T Trial for testosterone efficacy in older hypogonadal men as well as the site PI for the recently reported Traverse Trial that assessed the effects of testosterone on cardiovascular disease. His research interests involve many aspects of basic male reproductive physiology and clinical reproductive investigation. Ongoing work includes: the regulation of spermatogenesis; regulation of the androgen receptor gene; neuro-regulation of gonadotropin secretion; development of male contraceptive agents; pharmacology of androgen hormones; regulation of apoptosis in the testis; ethnic differences in the reproductive endocrine system; factors influencing male fertility; molecular basis and neurobiology of cognitive dysfunction and germ cell loss in Klinefelter’s Syndrome; sex steroid effects on cognition and neurodegenerative disorders; mutant mouse models in reproductive biology; and stem cell transplantation in the testes. He and his colleagues are studying the use of laser technology to easily detect occult testicular sperm in infertile men with azoospermia. Other studies include pituitary dysfunction after head trauma and novel treatments of pituitary tumors with Cushing’s Disease or acromegaly. He and Dr Christina Wang have multiple studies on novel androgen/progestogen agents on sperm suppression and an international study on efficacy of androgen-androgen combinations on contraception in men. The Epigenetic Center is studying the epigenome of somatic and germline DNA in obese Latino men at risk for diabetes mellitus and metabolic dysfunction. The hypothesis is that these men have acquired epigenomic differences in their DNA compared to lean and fit Latino men of similar age. The 4 arm study includes intervention with a healthy diet, intervention with a physical training program, intervention with both healthy diet and exercise training and a control group left to their prior state. Sperm DNA epigenome is modified by the different arms of the study and could be a source of inherited susceptibility in future generations. The latter will be assessed in the sperm of the men and in the offspring of similar interventions in obese mice. Techniques include tissue culture, light, confocal and electron microscopy, morphometry, immunoassays, bioassays, LC/MS/MS assays, transillumination for staging of spermatogenesis, sperm function assessment and a broad spectrum of molecular biologic methods, including genetic and epigenomic Lundquist centers. Dr. Swerdloff is the 2008 recipient of the Distinguished Educator Award of the Endocrine Society, Outstanding Andrologist Award of the American Society of Andrology award, and the Mellinkoff Award from the UCLA school of Medicine (highest recognition).

Dr. Ipp is Professor of Medicine, former Head of the Section of Diabetes and Metabolism. Dr Ipp created the inpatient and outpatient diabetes programs at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and set up an exemplary diabetes case management program to assist patients in self-management. His primary research interest has been the physiology of hormone secretion in the islets of Langerhans and its relationship to the development of diabetes and its complications. This includes clinical studies of prediabetes and diabetes, using methods to study insulin secretion and mathematical modeling of insulin sensitivity in vivo and genetic approaches to identify risk for diabetes. Recent studies have focused on diabetic retinopathy and the role of beta cell dysfunction and inflammation in this common complication of diabetes. Another area of interest is the development of methods for improving health care delivery in the area of diabetes management, including the use of artificial intelligence approaches in screening for diabetic retinopathy.

Dr. Lue is a reproductive biologist and a researcher at Harbor-UCLA Lundquist Research Institute and joined the faculty in 2001. The major focus of his research has been the genetic and hormonal regulation of spermatogenesis, and testicular stem cell biology. He has demonstrated that testicular hyperthermia enhances the suppression of spermatogenesis induced by testosterone implants in both rats and monkeys, and progestin mediated through the progesterone receptors have direct inhibitory actions on spermatogenesis. He has characterized the XXY mouse model for investigating the most common sex chromosome aneuploidy in men–Klinefelter’s syndrome. He has been studying 1) the cellular and molecular mechanisms of gonadal and neurobehavioral defects in XXY mice; 2) the effects of microenvironment on stem cell plasticity in testes and spermatogonial stem cell biology; and the role of mitochondrial peptide humanin in testes. Techniques include semen analysis, PCR, real time RT-PCR, Southern blot, Northern blot, Western blot and Simple Wes, 2D gel electrophoresis, MALDI-TOF, in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry, gene microarray, karyotype, laser microdissection, confocal microscopy, bone marrow and spermatogonial stem cell culture and germ cell transplantation.

Dr. Yoshihara is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Lundquist Institute/Harbor-UCLA, having joined the faculty in 2020. He earned his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in Japan and subsequently held positions as a postdoc and staff scientist at the Salk Institute. Dr. Yoshihara’s research is primarily focused on three areas: 1) Exploring the role of spatiotemporal transcriptome and epigenetic regulation in human organogenesis, modeled using human pluripotent stem cells; 2) Understanding environmental adaptation during prenatal and postnatal development and its implications for metabolic homeostasis; 3) Engineering cellular products for regeneration and cell replacement therapies, specifically for diabetes. He possesses expertise in pancreatic islets physiology, genomics, bioinformatics, and stem cell biology/tissue engineering, with notable contributions to the generation of immune-evasive functional human islet-like organoids. Dr. Yoshihara’s laboratory provides research training in genomics, animal physiology, stem cell biology, and molecular biology, equipping scientists and physicians to explore the mechanism of disease progression and to develop potential therapeutic strategies.

Dr. Peter Liu is Professor of Medicine in Residence, and a NIH funded researcher. He obtained his medical degree in 1993 from the University of Sydney where he graduated with first class honors and completed endocrine fellowship in 1999 at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, which was the first hospital established in Australia. He became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1999 and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Sydney for work examining the use of reproductive hormones in young and older men in 2003. He then completed two postdoctoral fellowships at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN in 2003-2004 and then at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in 2004-2006. His current research manipulates sleep and its circadian timing in humans to see the impact on insulin sensitivity, appetite and weight, and reproductive function. He is also an expert in male reproductive aging. He has expertise in chronobiological study design, use of statistical methods including time to event analyses and resampling methods, and mathematical modelling of endocrine networks. He is president of the International Society of Andrology (2021-25) and has held leadership roles with the Endocrine Society and the American Society of Andrology. He has won many prestigious awards including the Young Andrologist award from the American Society of Andrology and the Outstanding Reviewer award from the Endocrine Society. He served on NIH and Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs grant review panels. He is an editorial board member of 3 impactful journals relevant to his expertise: Clinical Endocrinology, Sleep, and Basic and Clinical Andrology.

Dr. Wei Yan is Investigator at The Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Professor of Medicine at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Yan received his MD from China Medical University in 1990 and PhD from the University of Turku in Finland in 2000. After finishing his post-doc training at Baylor College of Medicine, he started his own lab at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, where he rose through the ranks and eventually became the University Foundation Professor, the highest honor the University bestows upon its faculty. In 2020, Dr. Yan joined The Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA to direct the newly established National Center for Male Reproductive Epigenomics. Dr. Yan works on genetic and epigenetic control of fertility, as well as the epigenetic contribution of gametes to fertilization, early embryonic development, and adulthood health. Dr. Yan has so far received grants of $17 million in direct cost from NIH and other funding agencies and published >160 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters with >12,200 citations. Dr. Yan received numerous academic awards, including the 2009 Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR) Young Investigator Award, the 2012 American Society of Andrology (ASA) Young Andrologist Award, the 2013 Nevada Healthcare Hero Award for Research and Technology, the 2017 University of Nevada, Reno Outstanding Researcher Award, the 2018 SSR Research Award and the 2020 Nevada System of Higher Education Research Award. Dr. Yan was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2017 and Distinguished Fellow of SSR in 2023. Dr. Yan served as editor-in-chief of Biology of Reproduction (2017-2021), the official journal of SSR. He is currently a senior editor of eLife and the incoming editor-in-chief of Andrology (2024-2028), the official journal of the American Society of Andrology and the European Academy of Andrology. For more information, please visit the Yan lab website: www.weiyanlab.com.

Dr. Pak is an affiliated Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the Department of Medicine at UCLA. She also served as Co-Leader of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design (BERD) at UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Her primary roles are conducting collaborative clinical research, and education emphasizing statistical/quantitative methods. She has specific expertise in designing and analyzing clinical studies and has participated in many aspects of clinical and non-clinical research. She has served as the lead biostatistician on numerous biomedical and clinical research.