Medical Students, Residents & Fellows

Numerous students, residents and fellows have worked with Dr. Loomba since 2007 on many papers and research projects. Dr. Loomba has many ongoing clinical research projects spanning a variety of areas including epidemiology, genetics, imaging and patient-oriented research in the field of fatty liver disease. This spectrum of research allows trainees ample opportunities to explore and choose a particular area that fits their level of training and research interests.

Please see below to learn more about some of the students, residents and fellows who have worked with Dr. Loomba. Dr. Loomba is also a faculty advisor for selected undergraduate students and volunteers.

Charlie Park

Charlie is a medical student at UC San Diego pursuing a combined MD/MAS degree (class of 2018). Under the mentorship of Dr. Loomba, he has pursued clinical research on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), noninvasive imaging modalities and liver fibrosis.

Charlie is the lead author of a recent publication in Gastroenterology that assessed the comparative efficacy of MRE and Transient Elastography for the noninvasive diagnosis of steatosis and fibrosis in NAFLD patients. He is keenly interested in applying his clinical and translational research skills and utilizing evidence-based medicine to improve patient outcomes in clinical practice.

Michael Chang

Michael started his GI fellowship at UCSD in 2013 and had the opportunity to work with Dr. Loomba. He completed his internal medicine training at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center in 2012. He then spent a year working as a hospitalist at UCLA in the Department of Internal Medicine from 2012 to 2013, where he was involved in medical student and resident teaching and was nominated for an excellence in teaching award.

Iliana Doycheva

Illiana completed Internal Medicine residency at University of Florida and did Hepatology Fellowship at University of Miami. In collaboration with Dr. Loomba she designed a prospective study investigating the association between NAFLD and coronary heart disease in type 2 diabetes patients. She published a review article entitled “Prognostic implication of liver histology in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in diabetes” at the Journal of Diabetes and was a coauthor of an original research paper investigating the role of gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase on mortality.

Mazen Noureddin

Mazen completed his residency at the University of Southern California and hepatology fellowship at the Liver Diseases Branch at the National Institutes of Health prior to arriving to UC San Diego. Mazen joined Dr. Loomba's group due to the high quality and productivity of the fatty liver disease research center at UC San Diego. He has a few areas of research that he focuses on including: the role of MRI and non-invasive biomarkers in the diagnosis of NAFLD, studying the heritability of fatty liver disease using twins cohort, and a new randomized control trial for treatment of NASH.

Niraj Patel

Niraj Patel is currently a 3rd-year gastroenterology fellow at UC San Diego. As a member of Dr. Loomba's research team, he is involved in analyzing pancreatic fat and its relationship to the progression of NAFLD. He additionally assisted on other projects reviewing liver biopsies of patients with NASH and worked on a review of liver histology in diabetic patients with NAFLD. Niraj has several publications in collaboration with Dr. Loomba and other faculty members at UC San Diego.

Thuy Anh Le

Thuy Anh Le started working in Dr. Loomba's NAFLD Research Center in July 2011. She was involved in many of the patient-oriented research projects including the Database 2 and FLINT study, and helped initiate a genetic study of fatty liver disease.

Undergraduate Students/Volunteers

As a faculty advisor, Dr. Loomba accepts applicants for undergraduate students under FPMU-199 Research whose focus is in public health. These selective applicants develop a research plan and work with Dr. Loomba and his team.