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Esteban G. Burchard, M.D., M.P.H. (born 24 May 1966) is the Harry Wm. and Diana V. Distinguished Professor in Pharmaceutical Science in the Departments of Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences and Medicine within the Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is a physician scientist trained in pulmonary and critical care medicine, genetic epidemiology, and pharmacogenetics. Currently, he heads the Asthma Collaboratory at UCSF's Mission Bay campus and in a faculty member in the pulmonary division at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. In 2015, Burchard served on the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director as part of President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative now called All of Us.

Early Life and Wrestling
Burchard grew up in San Francisco's Mission District and Chinatown, where he spoke Spanish and learned basic Cantonese. He was one of four children raised by a single-mother and a Chinese family he was close to as a child. His parents divorced when he was young, which led him down the path towards becoming a troubled youth. In high school, a wrestling coach, Mike DeNatale, mentored Burchard and saved him from "'the perils of growing up in a single parent household in the inner city.'" Wrestling became a cornerstone in Burchard's life, he joined the wrestling team at San Francisco State University (SFSU) from 1987-1989 where he became a two-time NCAA Academic All-American. In 2011, he was inducted into the SFSU Athletics Hall of Fame, and on November 9, 2018, he was inducted to the University Hall of Fame, which honors SFSU alumni who have distinguished themselves through extraordinary achievements in their professional and civic endeavors.

Career and Research
After graduating from SFSU in 1990, Burchard enrolled at Stanford University School of Medicine. Burchard received his M.D. degree and genetic training from Stanford University School of Medicine in 1995. He completed clinical training in internal medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and received a certificate from the Program in Clinical Effectiveness from the Harvard School of Public Health. Burchard completed his Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine training at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and joined the UCSF faculty in 2001. Burchard completed additional training in genetic epidemiology with Dr. Neil Risch of Stanford University. In 2006 he received his master’s in public health in epidemiology from University of California, Berkeley. Burchard’s major academic interest centers on identifying genetic, social and environmental risk factors for asthma and drug response in children.

UCSF Asthma Collaboratory
Burchard founded the UCSF Asthma Collaboratory in 2001. The Collaboratory, located at Mission Bay within the UCSF Lung Biology Center and affiliated with the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics, applies state-of-the-art advances in genetics toward large, racially/ethnically diverse populations of children to understand the root causes of asthma disparities, with the goal of creating novel therapies and identifying targets for public health interventions. Asthma is the most disparate disease of children across all racial/ethnic groups. Asthma prevalence is highest among Puerto Ricans (36.5%), intermediate among Blacks (13.0%) and Whites (12.1%), and lowest among Mexicans (7.5%). Asthma mortality follows a similar pattern, which is 5.5-fold higher in Puerto Ricans compared to Mexican Americans. Despite these striking disparities in the face of increasing asthma prevalence, less than 4.5% of NIH-funded pulmonary studies in the last 20 years have included minority populations (Burchard et al., AJRCCM 2015).

The members of the Collaboratory have a wide breadth of expertise in medicine, genetics, epidemiology, and statistics. The lab is cross-functional at its core; statisticians, epidemiologists, physicians, and biologists work together to foster cross-fertilization of ideas in approaching asthma research. The unique melding of backgrounds among the Collaboratory Lab team members results in a place where research integrates expertise from all fields of science and medicine. “Science is a team sport and we need to make certain that our research group operates like a team,” explains Burchard. “On any team, there is a head coach and there are specialty coaches. Each athlete has his or her specific expertise for the game. All athletes have to work together, and athletes are only as good as their best workout partners. Although there are some athletes who are superstars, much of their success is usually dependent on the rest of the team.”

Burcard has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and currently is principal investigator on a large pharmacogenetic grant of bronchodilator drug response in minority children with asthma. In 2018, Burchard was awarded a $10M NIH grant to create the nation’s first birth cohort study of asthma in minority children.

Representation in Science
Burchard is Latino. He grew up in poverty, raised by a single mother, and has faced discrimination all of his life. Burchard is a role model for underrepresented and disadvantaged trainees. For the last twenty-nine years, he has been extremely active in the recruitment of minority and disadvantaged persons at all levels of medical, pharmacy and graduate education. In 2018, iBiology featured Burchard as the inaugural profile in their new "Background to Breakthrough" series. The profile explored Burchard’s contributions to science, the role of race in medicine, and how his own ethnic and cultural background has contributed to his successful career.

Awards and honors

 * NCAA Div. II Academic All-American, Wrestling (1988, 1989)
 * Robert Wood Johnson Amos Medical Faculty Development award (2005-2010)
 * NIH Study Section Member, Genetics of Health and Disease (2008-2014)
 * American Society of Clinical Investigation, Elected Member (2009)
 * Athletic Hall of Fame, San Francisco State University (2011)
 * Biographical documentary featured at the American Museum of Natural History (2013-2015)
 * UCSF Medal (2014)
 * National Academcy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Committee on Incorporating 21st Century Science into Risk-Based Evaluations (2015)
 * President Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative, Adviser to the Director (2015)
 * Lifetime Achievement Award, American Thoracic Society, Innovations in Health Equality (2016)
 * Robert Wood Johnson Amos Medical Faculty Development Program, National Advisory Committee (2017)
 * University Hall of Fame, San Francisco State University (2018)
 * National Medical Association, Lifetime Achievement Award (2018)

Professional Experience

 * Intern in Medicine, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (1995-1996)
 * Junior/Senior Resident in Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (1996-1998)
 * Fellow, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, UCSF (1998-2001)
 * Director, UCSF Asthma Collaboratory (2001-present)
 * Director, UCSF Center on Genes, Environments & Health (2008-present)
 * Director, UCSF Clinical Pharmacology Training Program (2009-present)
 * Vice Chair, Department of Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences, UCSF (2010-2014)
 * Hind Distinguished Tenured Professor, Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine, UCSF (2011-present)