University of California San Francisco
<p>Erik Lium has been named assistant vice chancellor of UCSF's newly created Office of Innovation, Technology and Alliances to provide the strategic leadership to both support innovation on campus and foster external alliances to advance biomedical research.</p>
UCSF Medical Center today became the only institution in the United States to receive a perfect score on the LGBT Healthcare Equality Index (HEI) for five consecutive years.
A team of researchers led by scientists at UCSF has developed a way to uncover the evolution of human cancer cells, determining the order in which mutations emerge in them as they wend their way from a normal, healthy state into invasive, malignant masses.
<p>UCSF gynecologic oncologist John K. Chan, MD, is leading a nationwide endeavor to evaluate a new strategy called “dose-dense” chemotherapy to improve treatment outcomes for women with ovarian cancer.</p>
<p>UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann was among six distinguished individuals to receive an honorary degree from Princeton University during commencement exercises on May 31.</p>
<p>The UCSF Diabetes Family Fund for Innovative Patient Care, Education and Scientific Discovery, created by one anonymous donor who is committed to diabetes research, is financing 11 projects that support creative, collaborative and imaginative innovations in diabetes clinical care, patient education, medical training and clinical and basic research. </p>
<p>Swallowing pills means medication must face the challenge of surviving the harsh environment of the digestive tract. As a result, people must take larger doses than they need. Using micro and nano-fabrication techniques developed by the computer chip industry, Desai’s lab is creating tiny devices that take multiple drugs directly to where they are needed, using less medication, minimizing side effects and making the process safer for the patient. </p>
<p>Many researchers are finding that by the time a patient seeks treatment for symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, it’s often too late for the available drugs to have an effect. Boxer’s lab is studying very precise eye tracking methods to gauge mental fitness and identify cognitive decline decades before the first symptoms appear.</p>
<p>With years of sleep research under her belt, Lee has recently focused on helping parents — especially new and expecting mothers — get enough sleep. From these studies, Lee has found worrisome correlations between sleep deprivation during pregnancy and increased instances of Cesarean operations and length of labor. By educating families about proper sleep hygiene, she hopes to promote healthier home environments for mothers and babies.</p>
<p>By understanding the underlying biological processes that allow teeth to continuously grow in rodents and other mammals, Klein’s research aims to apply those principles to regenerative medicine in humans. Klein predicts that one day patients will be able to replace their own lost teeth with living, biological replicas instead of the prosthetics oral surgeons implant today.</p>
<p>By mapping neurons and neuron circuitry during movement, Sabes’ lab hopes to one day to be able to print this information back into the brain. If feasible, such therapy could offer new hope to stroke victims whose brains are unable to recover on their own.</p>
<p>Each year, scores of soldiers wounded by explosives suffer from debilitating nerve injuries that render their arms and legs useless. Kim’s research, performed at the UCSF-affiliated San Francisco Veterans Affairs hospital, has led to development of artificial nerve grafts to accelerate healing of these injuries.</p>
<p>In the era of prostate cancer screening, mortality rates have fallen 40 percent. The price of that has been over-diagnosis and over-treatment, something the current health care system cannot sustain. One of the major goals of Cooperberg’s research is to develop better risk assessment tools and instruments that can give the patient and doctor more confidence that the patient’s cancer will not progress.</p>
<p>Having developed an algorithm that discovered a large quantity of drug-producing bacteria in and on humans, Fischbach has turned his lab’s attention to studying their populations and interactions with each other. This, he posits, can greatly influence a person’s overall health and disease.</p>