John Chorba, MD
Associate Professor
Medicine
School of Medicine

My interests lie in using chemical tools to probe biological mechanisms of disease, with the ultimate goal of developing a better understanding of heart disease to develop novel therapeutics. Currently, my work focuses on the processing mechanisms of PCSK9, a protein that causes elevated cholesterol levels, so as to develop new drug targets against atherosclerosis.

Awards

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• Harrington Scholar Innovator Award, Harrington Discovery Institute, 2021
• Young Physician Scientist Award, American Society for Clinical Investigation, 2020
• Jeremiah Stamler Distinguished Young Investigator Research Award, Northwestern Young Cardiovascular Investigators Forum, 2019
• K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award, NIH/NHLBI, 2015-2020
• ASPIRE Cardiovascular Award, Pfizer, 2015-2018
• Hellman Fellowship, Hellman Fellows Fund, 2015-2017
• Pilot Investigator Award, UCSF Academic Senate, 2015-2017
• Catalyst Award, UCSF CTSI, 2015-2016
• Loan Repayment Program, NIH/NHLBI, 2013-2017
• Research Scholar in Cardiovascular Disease Award, Gilead Sciences, 2013-2016
• Ruth L. Kirschstein F32 National Research Service Award, NIH/NHLBI, 2012-2014
• Laennec Young Clinician Award, American Heart Association, 2011

Education & Training

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• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training University of California, San Francisco 2022
• Cardiology Fellowship University of California, San Francisco 2014
• Internal Medicine Residency Massachusetts General Hospital 2010
• M.D. Harvard Medical School 2007

Websites

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• Clinician hones research skills through collaboration (youtube.com)
• The Chorba Lab (chorbalab.ucsf.edu)

Videos

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• Clinician Leverages Research Skills to Address Unmet Need (youtube.com)

Grants and Projects

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• Chemical Biology to Modulate PCSK9 and Treat Atherosclerosis, NIH, 2021-2026
• CSDE1 as a Post Transcriptional Regulator of the LDLR, NIH, 2021-2025
• Sequence Specific Inhibition of Protein Translation, NIH, 2021-2023
• Mediators of PCSK9 Secretion as Targets Against Atherosclerosis, NIH, 2018-2021
• Probing the multiple roles of the PCSK9 active site using chemical biology, NIH, 2015-2021
• Deep Learning for Automated Aortic Stenosis and Valvular Heart Disease Detection Using a Digital Stethoscope, NIH, 2018-2019
• Targeting the serine protease PCSK9 via covalent complementarity, NIH, 2012-2015

Publications (20)

Top publication keywords:
Bartonella quintanaProteolysisHeart MurmursHeart AuscultationEndocarditisReceptors, LDLDiagnosis, Computer-AssistedStethoscopesProprotein ConvertasesSerine EndopeptidasesHeparinLuciferasesProprotein Convertase 9Endocarditis, BacterialCold-Shock Response

• Aligning public and institutional incentives to advance biomedical research.
  Nature cardiovascular research 2024 Chorba JS
• The Silent Threat: Bartonella quintana Endocarditis Unveiling Heart Failure and Severe Pulmonary Hypertension.
  The American journal of case reports 2023 Boctor D, Bakke B, Chorba JS
• Deep Learning Algorithms to Detect Murmurs Associated With Structural Heart Disease.
  Journal of the American Heart Association 2023 Prince J, Maidens J, Kieu S, Currie C, Barbosa D, Hitchcock C, Saltman A, Norozi K, Wiesner P, Slamon N, Del Grippo E, Padmanabhan D, Subramanian A, Manjunath C, Chorba J, Venkatraman S
• Rapid Multiplexed Flow Cytometric Validation of CRISPRi sgRNAs in Tissue Culture.
  Bio-protocol 2023 Chorba JS, Xia VQ, Smith GA, Padmanabhan A
• Heparin Does Not Regulate Circulating Human PCSK9 (Proprotein Convertase Subtilisin-Kexin Type 9) in a General Population-Brief Report.
  Arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, and vascular biology 2022 Xia VQ, Ong CM, Zier LS, MacGregor JS, Wu AHB, Chorba JS

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• Cold shock domain-containing protein E1 is a posttranscriptional regulator of the LDL receptor.
  Science translational medicine 2022 Smith GA, Padmanabhan A, Lau BH, Pampana A, Li L, Lee CY, Pelonero A, Nishino T, Sadagopan N, Xia VQ, Jain R, Natarajan P, Wu RS, Black BL, Srivastava D, Shokat KM, Chorba JS
• Physical Maneuvers and Recent Tools to Break the Silence of Clinically Undetectable Heart Sounds.
  JAMA internal medicine 2022 Maidens J, Chorba JS, Thomas JD
• Deep Learning Algorithm for Automated Cardiac Murmur Detection via a Digital Stethoscope Platform.
  Journal of the American Heart Association 2021 Chorba JS, Shapiro AM, Le L, Maidens J, Prince J, Pham S, Kanzawa MM, Barbosa DN, Currie C, Brooks C, White BE, Huskin A, Paek J, Geocaris J, Elnathan D, Ronquillo R, Kim R, Alam ZH, Mahadevan VS, …
• A SARS-CoV-2 protein interaction map reveals targets for drug repurposing.
  Nature 2020 Gordon DE, Jang GM, Bouhaddou M, Xu J, Obernier K, White KM, O'Meara MJ, Rezelj VV, Guo JZ, Swaney DL, Tummino TA, Hüttenhain R, Kaake RM, Richards AL, Tutuncuoglu B, Foussard H, Batra J, Haas K, …
• Cell-associated heparin-like molecules modulate the ability of LDL to regulate PCSK9 uptake.
  Journal of lipid research 2018 Galvan AM, Chorba JS
• A High-Throughput Luciferase Assay to Evaluate Proteolysis of the Single-Turnover Protease PCSK9.
  Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE 2018 Chorba JS, Galvan AM, Shokat KM
• Stepwise processing analyses of the single-turnover PCSK9 protease reveal its substrate sequence specificity and link clinical genotype to lipid phenotype.
  The Journal of biological chemistry 2018 Chorba JS, Galvan AM, Shokat KM
• Stepwise processing analyses of the single-turnover PCSK9 protease reveal its substrate sequence specificity and link clinical genotype to lipid phenotype.
  The Journal of biological chemistry 2017 Chorba JS, Galvan AM, Shokat KM
• An Educational and Administrative Intervention to Promote Rational Laboratory Test Ordering on an Academic General Medicine Service.
  The American journal of medicine 2016 Wertheim BM, Aguirre AJ, Bhattacharyya RP, Chorba J, Jadhav AP, Kerry VB, Macklin EA, Motyckova G, Raju S, Lewandrowski K, Hunt DP, Wright DE
• The proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) active site and cleavage sequence differentially regulate protein secretion from proteolysis.
  The Journal of biological chemistry 2014 Chorba JS, Shokat KM
• Brain natriuretic peptide predicts functional outcome in ischemic stroke.
  Stroke 2011 Rost NS, Biffi A, Cloonan L, Chorba J, Kelly P, Greer D, Ellinor P, Furie KL
• Sustained ventricular fibrillation in a conscious patient.
  Archives of internal medicine 2011 Dewland TA, Chorba JS, Goldschlager N, Marcus GM
• Vesicular stomatitis viruses resistant to the methylase inhibitor sinefungin upregulate RNA synthesis and reveal mutations that affect mRNA cap methylation.
  Journal of virology 2007 Li J, Chorba JS, Whelan SP
• Novel inhibitors of IMPDH: a highly potent and selective quinolone-based series.
  Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters 2003 Watterson SH, Carlsen M, Dhar TG, Shen Z, Pitts WJ, Guo J, Gu HH, Norris D, Chorba J, Chen P, Cheney D, Witmer M, Fleener CA, Rouleau K, Townsend R, Hollenbaugh DL, Iwanowicz EJ
• Quinolone-based IMPDH inhibitors: introduction of basic residues on ring D and SAR of the corresponding mono, di and benzofused analogues.
  Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters 2003 Dhar TG, Watterson SH, Chen P, Shen Z, Gu HH, Norris D, Carlsen M, Haslow KD, Pitts WJ, Guo J, Chorba J, Fleener CA, Rouleau KA, Townsend R, Hollenbaugh D, Iwanowicz EJ