Jacquelyn Maher

Jacquelyn Maher, MD, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, where she serves as Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at San Francisco General Hospital and Director of the UCSF Liver Center.

• Education: Duke University (B.A. Chemistry 1976, M.D. 1979, Internal Medicine Residency 1983), UCSF (Gastroenterology Fellowship 1987)

Her research focuses on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), using mice models and patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to investigate dietary sugar-induced lipotoxicity and metabolic stress mechanisms. Recent work demonstrates that NAFLD iPSC-derived hepatocytes exhibit disease-specific features across diverse ethnic populations.

Key research themes include:

• Pathogenesis: Dietary sugar conversion to toxic fatty acids, unfolded protein response in liver cell death
• Translational Tools: iPSC hepatocytes, machine perfusion models
• Clinical Relevance: Ethnic risk factors, adipose-liver metabolic crosstalk

Her funded projects include NIDDK grants (P30DK026743, RC2DK136052) and a Larry L. Hillblom Foundation grant targeting obesity-associated diabetes.

Labs and collaborations center around the UCSF Liver Center, with co-authors like Aras Mattis, Holger Willenbring, and Mandana Khalili. Her 2025 Nature Biotechnology study reveals AAV capsid interactions in steatotic livers.