People | Waterfield Lab

Sloan Phillips

Staff Research Associate

Sloan graduated from Bates College in 2025 with a Bachelor's of Science in Biochemistry and Human Rights and Social Justice. They are interested in understanding how different transcription factors effect the development of the thymus and consequently effect central tolerance. Outside of lab, you can find them running, playing frisbee, and doing sewing projects.

Jun Sin

BMS Graduate Student

M_PEDS-RHEUMATOLOGY

Jun received his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology. He then worked at a pharmaceutical company before joining UCSF as a Staff Research Associate. In 2021, he started graduate school in the Biomedical Sciences Program at UCSF in the Waterfield Lab. His research interests include looking at the epigenetics of mTEC and T cell development. In his free time, Jun enjoys playing tennis, exploring new restaurants, and traveling.

Michael Waterfield, MD, PhD

Assoc Professor In Residence

M_PEDS-RHEUMATOLOGY

Autoimmune disease affects up to 5% of the population and can cause significant morbidity and mortality. Our labs main focus is to understand the basic mechanisms by which immune tolerance is broken in order to identify novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. We utilize a variety of mouse models to study both central tolerance and peripheral tolerance. Central tolerance is the process by which autoreactive T cells are deleted in the thymus through negative selection.