University of California San Francisco
Donald Kishi, a health sciences clinical professor of pharmacy, has been named associate dean of student and curricular affairs in the UCSF School of Pharmacy by Dean Mary Anne Koda-Kimble. <a href="http://pharmacy.ucsf.edu/news/2009/09/08/1/">Read story on pharmacy school website</a>.
UCSF researchers have identified collections of tiny molecules known as microRNAs that affect distinct processes critical for the progression of cancer. The findings, they say, expand researchers’ understanding of the important regulatory function of microRNAs in tumor biology and point to new directions for future study and potential treatments.
Telomeres — which are the DNA repeats that form the tips of chromosomes and are produced by the telomerase enzyme — play a crucial, and curious, role in the life of the cell.
Lord Naren Patel, who led the British government’s recent inquiry into the potential challenges and benefits of genomic medicine, discussed his findings at UCSF on Sept. 10.
Christopher Jones, director of emergency management at UCSF, will host the first in a series of emergency preparedness town hall meetings today (Sept. 15) at Rock Hall on the Mission Bay campus.
Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, of the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease and Kyoto University, has won the 2009 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for his discovery of a method of reprogramming adult skin cells to become embryonic-like stem cells. Yamanaka, who is the L.K. Whittier Investigator in Stem Cell Biology at Gladstone and professor of anatomy at UCSF, is one of the youngest recipients of the award, which is one of the highest scientific honors bestowed in the United States.
As UCSF launches a 10-week campaign to promote organ donation, medical center staff and former patients reflect on their own life-changing transplant experiences.
UCSF researchers have genetically encoded mouse cells to respond to light, creating cells that can be trained to follow a light beam or stop on command like microscopic robots.
A joint UCSF-SFSU program for postdocs has received nearly $300,000 in economic stimulus funds, allowing administrators to extend four current fellowships and add one more.
The UCSF School of Dentistry is projecting a 20 percent cut in state funding or more than $2.6 million of almost $14 million in state funding, according to Dean John Featherstone.
UCSF researchers are set to begin a Phase I clinical trial in collaboration with StemCells, Inc. to test the safety and preliminary effectiveness of using neural stem cells to treat children with a rare, fatal form of a brain disorder known as Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD). Currently, there are no effective treatments for the fatal forms of the disease, which affects males that inherit a single defective gene.
UCSF leaders, a patient advocate who is a member of the board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and construction workers will gather for a “topping off” ceremony to celebrate the placement of the last structural steel beam on the building that will be the headquarters for The Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF.
New UCSF Faculty, September 2009
New UCSF Faculty, September 2009
A 13-member team has raised $80,000 that will help UCSF’s AIDS Research Institute fund cutting-edge, early-stage research.
New UCSF Faculty, September 2009
The campus will close from December 24 through January 3, 2010, as part of the UC-mandated furlough plan.
Scientists have discovered that deer asymptomatic for a fatal brain condition known as chronic wasting disease excrete the infectious prions that cause the disease in their feces. The finding, they say, suggests a plausible explanation for transmission of the disease among deer and, possibly, elk and moose in the environment.
New UCSF Faculty, September 2009
New UCSF Faculty, September 2009
As United States legislators discuss health care reform, two UCSF experts will offer insights into one public health care system that they think works on September 17.
UCSF researchers have successfully used protease inhibitors to restore to normal levels a key protein involved in early brain development. Reduced levels of that protein have been shown to cause the rare brain disorder lissencephaly, which is characterized by brain malformations, seizures, severe mental retardation and very early death in human infants.
Zina Mirsky, associate dean of administration in the UCSF School of Nursing, is among those credited for leading the cause of Japanese-Americans, who were forced into internment camps in 1942, to earn honorary UC degrees. Read the full story on the <a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/21748">University of California website</a>.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reaffirmed her belief in a public option to “lower costs, improve quality, expand coverage and retain choice” in health care coverage at a summit at UCSF on Sept. 2.