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Our Team of Experts Surgeons

These physicians will speak with you at length about your fetus’s condition, the procedure, risks, possible benefits, and possible complications of fetal surgery. They will perform your surgery and manage your postoperative care together with other members of our fetal therapy team.

Michael R. Harrison, M.D.

Director Emeritus, Fetal Treatment Center

Professor of Surgery & Pediatrics

Specialties: Fetal and pediatric surgery

Interests: Birth defects diagnosis and treatment

Dr. Michael Harrison is Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics and the Director of the Fetal Treatment Center at UCSF. He graduated cum laude from Yale University and magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School. He completed his surgical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and his pediatric surgery fellowship at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. He is board certified in Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, and Critical Care.

Dr. Harrison and his surgery associates, Diana Farmer, Hanmin Lee and Kerilyn Nobuhara confine their surgical practice exclusively to children with special interest in fetal surgery, in repair of complex birth defects involving the chest, lung, abdomen, bowel, and bladder, and surgical care of children from birth through adolescence. Dr. Harrison and his associates, The Bay Area Pediatric Surgeons, do consultations and provide surgical care at Moffitt/Long Hospitals UCSF, California Pacific Medical Center, and Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco.

Dr. Harrison has a special interest in fetal surgery which he has pioneered with his colleagues at UCSF. For the past 18 years Dr. Harrison has studied the pathophysiology and natural history of a number of life-threatening fetal abnormalities including congenital diaphragmatic hernia, congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation of the lung, sacrococcygeal teratoma, fetal obstructive uropathy, and myelomeningocele. He has developed techniques for both in-utero open fetal surgery and endoscopic surgical repair (FETENDO Fetal Surgery)of many fetal abnormalities. In addition, Dr. Harrison's team has developed in-utero stem cell transplantation to treat immunodeficiencies, enzyme deficiencies, and hemoglobinopathies. Dr. Harrison leads the multidisciplinary UCSF Fetal Treatment Center Team that has developed an international reputation for treating complex birth defects before and after birth. (Referrals can be made to 1-800-RX-FETUS.)

Dr. Harrison, his wife Gretchen, and four children have lived in San Francisco for the past 20 years.

Read Dr. Harrison - The Full Story

Hanmin Lee, M.D.

Director, Fetal Treatment Center

Associate Professor of Surgery

Specialties: Fetal and pediatric surgery

Interests: Birth defects, biliary tract disorders

Dr. Hanmin Lee is Associate Professor of Surgery, and Director of the Fetal Treatment Center at UCSF. He is the second director in the 25+ year history of the Fetal Treatment Center, replacing Dr. Michael Harrison who continues to add his creative energies as Director Emeritus. Dr. Lee was an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University who completed both medical school and general surgery residency at New York University. He did two years of postdoctoral research training under the mentorship of Dr. Jay Vacanti at Harvard Medical School, and two years of pediatric surgery fellowship at Emory University Medical Center before being recruited to a tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Surgery at UCSF in 2000.

Dr. Lee and his surgery associates confine their surgical practice exclusively to children. The group has a special interest in fetal surgery, in repair of complex defects involving the chest, lung, abdomen, bowel, and bladder, and surgical care of children from birth through adolescence. Dr. Lee and his associates, The Bay Area Pediatric Surgeons, do consultations and provide surgical care at Moffitt/Long Hospitals UCSF, California Pacific Medical Center, and Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco and Oakland.  They see patients regularly in their office hours and provide multidisciplinary clinics for fetal anomalies in their fetal treatment center. Additionally, they see patients with complex congenital anomalies that have been corrected by surgery in their Long-term Infant-to-adult Followup and Evaluation clinic (LIFE Clinic).

Dr. Lee's clinical interests include neonatal surgery, fetal surgery, minimally invasive surgery and biliary surgery. His basic science research interests include tissue engineering, proteomic assessment of fetal-maternal diseases, and integration of emerging technologies into clinical surgery. He has published numerous clinical and basic science articles in these fields. He is well-recognized as a leader in fetal surgery and pediatric minimally invasive surgery , having given numerous national and international talk. Additionally, he is on  the editorial board of the pediatric endoscopic journal and in teaching fetal surgery and  advanced pediatric laparoscopic courses. He has been a principal investigator or co-investigator on a number of fetal surgery and minimally invasive surgical trials, and is currently a co-investigator on a number of clinical trials including fetal surgery for myelomeningocele (spina bifida) and is leading a multi-instiutional effort to investigate the role of maternal steroid administration for fetuses with large congenital cystic adenomatoid malformations.

Dr. Lee, his wife Barbara and their children, live in San Francisco and enjoy the multitude of outdoor activities and restaurants available in the Bay Area.

Diana Farmer, M.D.

Professor of Clinical Surgery, Pediatrics, OB-Gyn and Reproductive Sciences

Fetal Treatment Center

Division Chief, Pediatric Surgery

Surgeon–in–Chief, UCSF Children's Hospital

Specialties: Fetal and pediatric surgery

Dr. Diana Farmer is Professor of Clinical Surgery, Pediatrics, OB-Gyn & Reproductive Sciences, the Division Chief of Pediatric Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Surgeon-in-Chief of UCSF Childrens Hospital. She completed her undergraduate studies at Wellesley College, and received her MD from the University of Washington in Seattle where she subsequently did internship. Her general surgery training was completed at the University of California, San Francisco, and her Pediatric Surgical training was completed at the Children's Hospital of Michigan where she was a member of their Fetal Treatment team. Dr. Farmer has had an interesting career which includes being on faculty at the National University of Singapore as the Luce Scholar, and holding a position as Assistant Medical Director for Cancer Immunology for DuPont Pharmaceuticals at its main headquarters. Dr. Farmer is board certified in general and pediatric surgery. She and her husband, a pediatric anesthesiologist, live in Marin County.

Dr. Farmer's research interests include fetal therapy interventions for myelomeningocele (spina bifida) and gastroschisis. She is well recognized for her expertise in complex surgical repair of thoracic, airway, and intestinal anomalies as well as for cancer surgery in neonatal, pediatric, and adolescent patients. In addition, Dr. Farmer is an integral member of the Fetal Treatment Center team, skilled in the surgical care of fetal patients with life-threatening congenital anomalies. In particular, she spearheads the research to evaluate the safety and efficacy of in utero endoscopic repair of myelomeningocele (spina bifida), and is Co-Investigator on a number of  fetal surgical clinical trials.

Dr. Farmer practices pediatric surgery at UCSF, California Pacific Medical Center, and Kaiser Permanente San Francisco. She and her pediatric surgery colleagues, Drs. Michael Harrison, Hanmin Lee and Kerilyn Nobuhara of UCSF provide consultation and follow up care of surgical patients at the UCSF Childrens Hospital on Parnassus site of UCSF.

Kerilyn Nobuhara, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Surgery

Director of the Fetal Treatment Center Laboratory

Fetal Treatment Center

Pediatric Surgery

Dr. Kerilyn Nobuhara is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the UCSF Division of Pediatric Surgery and Fetal Treatment Center. Dr. Nobuhara completed her undergraduate studies at Pomona College in Claremont, California. She graduated from medical school at the University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine and completed surgical training at the University of Hawaii. Dr. Nobuhara completed her surgical research fellowship at Children's Hospital in Boston, Harvard Medical School and her pediatric surgery fellowship at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.. She is board certified in Surgery and Pediatric Surgery.

Dr. Nobuhara was appointed to the position of Assistant Professor of Surgery at Kosair Children's Hospital, University of Kentucky in Louisville prior to joining the Pediatric Surgery Faculty at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California.

Dr. Kerilyn Nobuhara and her surgery associates, Drs. Michael Harrison, Diana Farmer and Hanmin Lee confine their surgical practice exclusively to children. The group has a special interest in fetal surgery, in repair of complex defects involving the chest, lung, abdomen, bowel, and bladder, and surgical care of children from birth through adolescence. Dr. Nobuhara and her associates, The Bay Area Pediatric Surgeons, do consultations and provide surgical care at Moffitt/Long Hospitals UCSF, California Pacific Medical Center, and Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco and Oakland. Dr. Nobuhara also runs the follow-up clinic which attends to the needs of CDH patients and there families after they have had treatment at FTC.

Doug Miniati, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Surgery

UCSF Division of Pediatric Surgery

Fetal Treatment Center

Dr. Doug Miniati is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the UCSF Division of Pediatric Surgery and Fetal Treatment Center. Doug completed his undergraduate education in 1992, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he received a BA in Biochemistry. He went on to obtain a medical degree from New York University School of Medicine in 1996, and then completed the first two years of general surgery residency at the University of Maryland. Initially interested in pursuing a career in cardiothoracic surgery, Doug extended his clinical training to accept a two-year appointment as a postdoctoral research fellow in the cardiac transplantation biology laboratory of Robert Robbins at Stanford University. Following his research fellowship, Doug decided to stay at Stanford for the remainder of general surgery residency. It was during this time that Doug rotated through the pediatric surgery service, and realized where his clinical interests and enthusiasm lay.

With the support and encouragement of his Stanford mentors, Doug embarked on pediatric surgery fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children's Hospital in 2004. There, he developed a clinical interest in congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), particularly with respect to the development of treatment strategies to improve outcomes. Other areas of clinical interest for him are congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation (CCAM), pulmonary sequestration and pediatric renal, non-Wilms', tumors—topics on which he has published in peer-reviewed journals. Now at UCSF, Doug continues his clinical and basic science research pursuits, focused on the underlying biology and pathophysiology of pulmonary development, growth, and function.

Shinjiro Hirose, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Surgery

UCSF Division of Pediatric Surgery

Fetal Treatment Center

Tippi MacKenzie, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Surgery

UCSF Division of Pediatric Surgery

Fetal Treatment Center

Dr Tippi MacKenzie is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the UCSF Division of Pediatric Surgery and the Fetal Treatment Center. Dr. MacKenzie obtained her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Harvard, then came to the Bay Area for medical school at Stanford. She did her surgical residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. During this time, she took three years to do research on fetal surgery and in utero stem cell transplantation at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Following residency, she returned to CHOP for her clinical pediatric surgery fellowship.

Dr MacKenzie's clinical interests include fetal surgery, advanced laparoscopy, and endocrine and biliary surgery. She has an active laboratory and is a member of the Biomedical Sciences Program and the Institute for Regeneration Medicine. Her research focus is on mechanisms of tolerance induction following in utero stem cell transplantation.

Nalin Gupta, M.D., Ph.D.

Director of Pediatric Neurological Surgery

Dr. Nalin Gupta, director of Pediatric Neurological Surgery at UCSF Children's Hospital, is a specialist in the surgical management of neurological disorders in children of all ages. He is an expert in the evaluation and surgical management of neurological disorders in children, including conditions such as brain tumors, hydrocephalus, cranial and spinal congenital anomalies and epilepsy. His primary research focus is the biological effect of therapeutic intervention on brain tumor progression and defining the biological response of tumors to various treatment strategies.

Gupta is an assistant professor of neurological surgery and principal investigator of the Brain Tumor Research Center at UCSF. He completed residency training in neurological surgery at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada and fellowship training in pediatric neurosurgery at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He completed an internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and residency training at the University of Toronto. He earned an undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal, medical degree from the School of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a doctorate in Biophysics at UCSF. He also served as an attending neurosurgeon at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Tom R. Karl, M.S., M.D.

Director of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery

Specialties:Pediatric Cardiac Surgery

Interests: Neonatal Cardiac Surgery, Pediatric Transplantation, Pediatric Cardiac Surgery

Dr. Tom R. Karl has extensive experience in virtually all areas of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, having worked in some of the world's leading institutions in neonatal cardiac surgery, cardiopulmonary transplantation, circulatory support and hypoplastic left heart management. At UCSF Children's Hospital, Karl is director of pediatric cardiac surgery, a part of the UCSF Pediatric Heart Center.

Karl trained in heart surgery at Yale New Haven Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children in London. He was a staff surgeon at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, from 1989 to 1999, and directed the cardiac surgical service there for the final six years. Prior to joining UCSF in November 2001, he was senior cardiac surgeon and the Tabas Professor of Surgery at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Anthony Azakie, M.D.

Chief the Division of Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery

Specialty: Fetal Cardiac Disease, Pediatric Cardiac Surgery

Dr. Azakie got his medical eduation at the McGill University School of Medicine and he trained in pediatric heart surgery at University of Toronto Hospital.

Laurence S. Baskin , M.D.

Chief of Pediatric Urology

Dr. Laurence S. Baskin is chief of Pediatric Urology and an expert in genital development and reconstructive surgery. He specializes in treating a variety of urological conditions in children including hypospadias, urinary tract reconstruction, adolescent varicoceles and genitourinary malignancies. He is the founder of the Center for the Treatment and Study of Hypospadias, a center that focuses on a congenital defect of the penis that results in incomplete development of the penile urethra.

He earned a medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, followed by general surgery training and residency at UCSF Medical Center. He completed a fellowship in pediatric urology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Baskin has participated in humanitarian surgical trips to San Pedro Sula, Honduras and Saigon, Vietnam. He is the primary author on more than 150 research articles and is editor of the Handbook of Pediatric Urology. He is a member the American Academy of Pediatrics, Society of Pediatric Urology and American Urological Association; a fellow of the American College of Surgeons; and past president of the Society of Fetal Urology.