Nadav Ahituv, PhD, was appointed director of the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics (IHG), an organized research unit in the School of Medicine, effective January 23, 2023. Ahituv is a faculty member in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, a joint department of the UCSF Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine.

Since joining the IHG in 2006, Ahituv has played an integral role in promoting the institute through improving genetics and genomics education, mentoring future geneticists, and increasing the number of students from underrepresented groups to complete doctorates in biomedical research.

Ahituv is an expert in gene regulation and its relationship to human diversity and diseases, including limb malformations, autism, epilepsy, and obesity. His lab is one of the developers of massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs)—a technique for capturing large amounts of data on gene regulators—leading to pioneering therapies and diagnostics that use gene regulatory elements as targets.