Summer 2018

Streets of Pain: A public health researcher’s quest to understand the opioid crisis. PLUS: Why some kids find everyday stimuli unbearable; scientists as the next startup stars; and the epic journey to better drugs.

About this Issue:

Vol. 7, No. 1
Editorial Team

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Features

Illustration of a mother reaching for a crying baby in a crib; the baby is a silhouette with black lines and red arrows surging through its body; there is a mobile with an eye, a target, and bell hanging above the child.

Health Summer 2018

The Unbearable Sensation of Being: Living With Sensory Processing Disorder

Why some kids find everyday stimuli excruciating.

Illustration of a beakers, test tubes, and a hypodermic needle; from the needle flows a large droplet shape made of lines and colored circles; amorphous plumes come in from the edges.

Science Summer 2018

2018: A Drug Odyssey

Human Interest Summer 2018

Startup Science

Daniel Ciccarone stands on a city street.

Human Interest Summer 2018

Streets of Pain

Health

After a Stroke, Quick Action Matters

Emergency room physician Debbie Yi Madhok designed a rapid-response protocol for strokes that is improving the odds for patients.

Debbie Yi Madhok wears her doctor’s white coat and stands in front of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.

Insights & Voices

Perspectives

Poem: Empty Plate

Teens like Anthony Orosco are using their creative juices to change the conversation about Type 2 diabetes, thanks to a partnership between UCSF and arts nonprofit Youth Speaks.
Ask the Expert

The Crisis in Our City: Tackling San Francisco’s Dire Homelessness Problem

Matthew State, chair of UCSF’s Department of Psychiatry, is playing a key role in an ambitious effort to tackle San Francisco’s dire homelessness problem. He answers some tough questions about the challenge.
Ask the Expert

Staying Safe in the Sun

Sun exposure can boost your mood, but it can also significantly boost your risk of skin cancer. Sarah Arron dispels myths around UV rays and gives you her best advice on skin protection.

Portrait of Catherine Gilliss in front of a blank white background.

Alumni Stories
Summer 2018

Returning Home as Dean

Former department chair Catherine Gilliss, RN, PhD ’83, returned to UCSF last fall as dean, her third deanship at a top U.S. nursing school.

Books

Life After the Diagnosis: Expert Advice on Living Well with Serious Illness for Patients and Caregivers

This new book by international palliative care expert and UCSF physician Steven Pantilat, MD ’89, serves as a guide for those who don’t know where to start at a difficult time. Pantilat makes sense of what doctors may say, what they actually mean, and how to get the information you need to make the best medical decisions.

Videos

Grad Slam: “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart … Again”

This UC San Francisco competition challenges PhD students to use engaging “nonspecialist” language to describe their intricate research – in three minutes or less. Bioengineering student Yiqi Cao won the top prize this year for her talk about how to improve stents to reduce scar tissue. “Grad Slam was an incredible opportunity to challenge myself,” Cao says. “It’s definitely not easy to distill … many years of research down to a meaningful three minutes.”

Podcasts

NPR’s Nerdette: “I Have A Rare Genetic Disease. CRISPR Might Fix It.”

As a kindergartener, Nerdette co-host Greta Johnsen was diagnosed with an eye condition that is among the best diseases for experimenting with the gene editing tool CRISPR. This episode follows Greta, her father, and UCSF geneticist and Gladstone Institutes investigator Bruce Conklin, MD, as he tries to develop the perfect CRISPR system to remove the faulty DNA from Johnsen’s eye cells.