Midori Kato-Maeda, MD, MA
Professor
Medicine
School of Medicine

midori.kato-maeda@ucs.eu

Research Interests

Dr. Kato-Maeda’s research activities focuses on 1) transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), 2) drug- resistant tuberculosis, and 3) tuberculosis diagnosis.

Dr. Kato-Maeda, along with her U.S. and international collaborators, established community-based studies in San Francisco, Tanzania, and Uganda to study the transmission dynamics of MTB, using molecular epidemiology tools to identify patient and environmental factors that can be modified to decrease transmission of MTB, and to identify populations that have a high risk of infection. These studies have resulted in guided tuberculosis control interventions.

Another goal of her research is to determine the impact of bacterial characteristics on the transmission dynamics of MTB. Dr. Kato-Maeda and her collaborators developed the method to classify MTB in phylogenetic sound groups. This classification revolutionized the study of the impact of bacterial factors on the clinical and epidemiological phenotypes of this disease. They identified lineages of MTB that cause more secondary cases of tuberculosis, suggesting that bacterial factors contribute to the pathogenicity of MTB. Importantly, based on these studies, they created and published a collection of well-characterized clinical MTB strains representing different lineages which will be used by the global TB research community for in vitro and in animal studies. These research projects have resulted in a biobank with more than 3,000 clinical isolates of MTB and MTB DNA and the associated metadata, which they have used for new projects with collaborators inside and outside of UCSF.

Dr. Kato-Maeda’s studies in drug-resistant tuberculosis are focused on identifying novel genomic factors that govern drug-resistant tuberculosis and the impact of the introduction of novel drugs on the epidemiology of drug-resistant tuberculosis. These studies are being performed in collaboration with a strong team of multidisciplinary researchers from the Philippines and Japan. As a result of this project, they have created a research-specific biobank with more than 900 isolates of drug resistant MTB.

Dr. Kato-Maeda is a member of the Rapid Research for Diagnostics Development in TB Network (R2D2 TB Network), an initiative led by Drs. Adithya Cattamanchi and Payam Nahid at UCSF. The network involves clinical sites in the Philippines, Vietnam, Uganda, South Africa, and India. Dr. Kato-Maeda leads the specimen acquisition, processing, storage, shipping, and distribution as well as the quality assurance and quality control activities to ensure procedures are followed and performed to standard to ensure good quality specimens and contribute to the discussions with the developers about their assays.

Dr. Kato-Maeda’s unique expertise in mycobacteriology and MTB genomics has also enabled her to be an integral part of projects led by other members of the UCSF Center for Tuberculosis (https://tb.ucsf.edu/), and her laboratory serves as their core lab.

Dr. Kato-Maeda’s research projects have always been conducive to training, transfer of technology, and capacity building for our international collaborators.

Education & Training

  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training University of California 2022
  • Masters Medical Sciences Instituto Nacional de la Nutricion, Mexico 1998
  • Infectious Diseases Infectious Diseases Instituto Nacional de la Nutricion, Mexico 1996
  • Internal Medicine Internal Medicine Instituto Nacional de la Nutricion, Mexico 1994
  • M.D. Medicine Escuela Mexicana de Medicina, Universidad La Salle, Mexico City 1990

Grants and Projects

Publications (83)

Top publication keywords:
Antitubercular AgentsTuberculosis, PulmonaryTuberculosis, Multidrug-ResistantSputumDNA, BacterialMycobacterium tuberculosisPolymorphism, GeneticInterferon-gamma Release TestsDNA Transposable ElementsBacterial Typing TechniquesMolecular EpidemiologyTuberculosisSan FranciscoTuberculin TestContact Tracing