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Hersh Bhargava

Hersh Bhargava

Biophysics PhD Candidate, Co-Founder of Skolay and H2 Micro

hersh
San Francisco, California
Joined January 2026
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Summary

Hersh Bhargava is a computational and synthetic biologist focused on engineering living therapies, particularly for cancer, at the UCSF Cell Design Institute. His Ph.D. research involves reprogramming human cells and designing synthetic cytokine circuits to enhance T-cell effectiveness against challenging tumor microenvironments. hershbhargava+3
He is a recognized academic talent, having received multiple prestigious awards including the DoD NDSEG Fellowship, UCSF Discovery Fellowship, and HHMI Janelia Undergraduate Scholars Fellowship. His scientific contributions are evidenced by publications in high-impact journals such as Science, PNAS, and Clinical Cancer Research. ucsf+2
Beyond academia, Hersh is an entrepreneur, co-founding two technology companies: Skolay and H2 Micro. Skolay facilitates direct communication between creators and their audiences, while H2 Micro provides technical consulting and software development, showcasing his blend of scientific research and practical application of technology. hershbhargava+4
His expertise bridges quantitative biology and computer science, applying machine intelligence, computer vision, and computational pathology to solve complex biomedical problems, as demonstrated by his research on prostate cancer recurrence prediction. hershbhargava+2

Work

Education

Projects

Writing

A degron-based bioPROTAC for controlling signaling in CAR-T cells

January 1, 2024

Published in ACS Synthetic Biology, describes a method for controlling CAR-T cell signaling using a degron-based bioPROTAC.

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Insider Information: Applying to Quantitative Biology PhD Programs

November 1, 2022

A written guide by Hersh K. Bhargava offering insights for prospective PhD students in quantitative biology.

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Synthetic cytokine circuits that drive T cells into immune-excluded tumors

January 1, 2022

Published in Science, this paper describes a synthetic circuit to enhance T-cell cytokine production for overcoming immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments.

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Decoding CAR T cell phenotype using combinatorial signaling motif libraries and machine learning

January 1, 2022

Published in Science, this paper focuses on understanding CAR T-cell phenotype through advanced signaling analysis and machine learning.

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The HaloTag as a general scaffold for far-red tunable chemigenetic indicators

January 1, 2021

Published in Nature Chemical Biology, introduces a new platform for chemigenetic fluorescent indicators using the HaloTag protein.

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Computationally derived image signature of stromal morphology is prognostic of prostate cancer recurrence following prostatectomy in African American patients

January 1, 2020

Published in Clinical Cancer Research, this work utilizes computer vision and machine learning to predict prostate cancer recurrence risk from histological images.

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Structural basis for autophagy inhibition by the human Rubicon-Rab7 complex

January 1, 2020

Published in PNAS, this research elucidates the structural mechanism of autophagy inhibition by the Rubicon-Rab7 complex.

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PD-L1 Expression Reveals Significant Association with Squamous Differentiation in Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma

January 1, 2019

Published in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology, this study explores the association of PD-L1 expression with squamous differentiation in UTUC.

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