Elena Flowers

Day in the Life: Researcher Elena Flowers

Elena Flowers, PhD, RN, Physiological Nursing, came to UCSF as a research assistant at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFGH) after her undergraduate education at UC Davis. After completing her Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in the School of Nursing, she transitioned into her current role as a member of the faculty. Dr. Flowers is now coming up on five years at UCSF. “While I am a ‘newer’ faculty member, my familiarity with UCSF began as a student,” Flowers said. “This is an advantage, but also an adjustment. It is a process to recreate my identity from student to faculty member.”

In addition to being a researcher and Assistant Professor, Dr. Flowers

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, she is usually at the Parnassus campus. On Monday and alternating Fridays, she works from home. On the Fridays that she works on-campus, she is at the Mission Bay Campus where she attends the K Scholars Program in the morning and then stays at Mission Bay until 4 p.m., and she occasionally goes to Parnassus. Her typical on-campus schedule is as follows:

• 6:30 a.m.: Wakes up and wakes up her children

• 7-8:30 a.m.: Gets ready for work, eats breakfast, and makes her children’s lunches

• 8:30 a.m.: Drops off children at school

• 9-10 a.m.: Commutes to work via Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency (Muni), while checking and responding to emails

• 9/10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.: Conducts research and Attends a variety of meetings, including: o Lab meetings every other week for two hours, with some time spent in the lab o Alternating Department or Funding meetings every other Thursday for 1-2 hours o Meetings with Teacher Assistants or Students for about one hour o One-on-one meetings with lab managers for about one hour o Individual and collaborative research, which is an ongoing time commitment

• 4:30 p.m.-6 p.m.: Commutes home and checks and responds to emails

• 8 p.m.-10 p.m.: Works again at

“I also look at how to optimize risk prediction and prevent type 2 diabetes in high risk racial groups.” Flowers lab is a mixture of dry and wet labs and she collaborates with other faculty members, including Assistant Professor Kord Kober, PhD, Ladder Rank, another UCSF genomic laboratory lead. They manage and oversee the Nursing Genomic Lab together. Their lab functions as a resource to faculty and Flowers and Kober manage faculty activities and facilitate faculty research.

Two other faculty members who collaborate and mentor Flowers are Associate Professor Yoshimi Fukuoka, RN, PhD, FAAN, Ladder Rank, and Professor Alka Kanaya, MD, In Residence. Currently, all three are working on a pilot randomized clinical trial (RCT) examining behavioral intervention weight loss for those that are Filipino with type 2 diabetes. Next, they will study gene expression associated with insulin sensitivity and responses to intervention.

A previous study Flowers did with Kanaya looked at the effect of yoga on type 2 diabetes risk factors. For this study, they modeled trajectories for fasting blood glucose and microRNAs. Then, they evaluated whether microRNAs predicted risks for type 2