A recent two-day symposium at UCSF offered leading stem cell experts a chance to talk shop and form new alliances in the fight against neurological disorders.

From anxiety to exhilaration to burgers with the boss, the 14 members of Elizabeth Blackburn's lab share the exciting hours surrounding the Oct. 5 Nobel Prize announcement.

Dean Schillinger, director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations (CVP) at San Francisco General Hospital, received a national award for research leading to better communication in health care.

The University of California, San Francisco has been designated to lead a new consortium that will study a group of severe immune disorders known as primary immunodeficiencies and aims to improve treatment for these often life-threatening diseases. The Primary Immune Deficiency Treatment Consortium comprises 13 centers throughout the United States and has a $6.25 million funding commitment over five years from the National Institutes of Health.

Symbolizing a major triumph for UCSF, the University of California and the scientific community at large, molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, became UCSF's fourth scientist to be tapped to receive the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Actress Kathleen Turner will visit the research labs of the Rosalind Russell Arthritis Center at UCSF to gain a better understanding of the impact of autoimmune diseases and to learn firsthand about ongoing UCSF research for potential therapies.

A collaboration between scientists at Vanderbilt University and the University of California, San Francisco has led to the first direct information about the molecular structure of prions. In addition, the study has revealed surprisingly large structural differences between natural prions and the closest synthetic analogs that scientists have created in the lab.