Dr. Tranah is the executive director of precision medicine at Sutter Health and an adjunct professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.
In his position at Sutter Health, Dr. Tranah leads a research program dedicated to accelerating the translation of research discoveries related to health and aging to clinical settings across Sutter Health. The program focuses on novel treatments, diagnostic tests, wearable devices and other interventions that improve patient health and functioning.
As part of this effort he leads a team building a Sutter-wide biobank of 100,000 patients. This work has led to the launch of a large study of multiple sclerosis genomics to identify molecular predictors of disease progression and treatment response in patients from 10 Sutter clinics.
Dr. Tranah also leads the genomics core of a personalized medicine program at California Pacific Medical Center. The genomics core focuses on sequencing tumors to identify genomic predictors of treatment response for several highly malignant cancers. Dr. Tranah’s current research program focuses on identifying inherited and acquired genetic factors that impact aging and disease. The research program aims to revolutionize risk assessment by identifying widely applicable and inexpensive genomic tests that find those who would benefit from specific pharmacologic and behavioral treatments to prevent disability and disease.
Dr. Tranah also leads research teams engaged in genetic studies of aging and age-related traits, and he is discovering genes and variants associated with dementia, longevity, macular degeneration, depression, cancer, sleep and circadian rhythms. This involves researching mitochondrial DNA sequence variations that impact neurodegeneration, disability, vision and hearing.
Dr. Tranah examines how those with an mtDNA sequence variation respond to exercise. Dr. Tranah holds many positions, including senior scientist for the CPMC Research Institute, review editor of Frontiers in Genetics of Aging, academic editor of PLOS One and associate editor of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr. Tranah is also a panel member at both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) special emphasis panel and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Provocative Questions program.
He is an author on more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a bachelor’s degree in biology, Dr. Tranah completed his master’s in biology at the same institution. Dr. Tranah received his Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California, Davis in 2001, and completed postdoctoral work in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts in 2005.
Sutter Health Research Enterprise
185 Berry Street Lobby 5, Suite 5700
San Francisco, CA, 94107
(415) 600-7432
tranahg@cpmcri.org