Blog Hiatus

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UCSF in Tanzania

UCSF Global Health Sciences strive to address the poverty, health disparities and the scourge of chronic diseases and pandemics in developing nation's communities. Nowhere is this more evident than in Tanzania, where UCSF has very close partnerships with the Muhimbili University of Health, Allied Sciences (MUHAS) and its Ministry of Health. Together they are developing infrastructure and programs that address its severe healthcare workforce shortage, and train practitioners to address major illnesses affecting its population..

View a new video about UCSF's work in Tanzania on Global Health TV.

Epilepsy Work is a ‘National Treasure’

The San Francisco Business Times recently highlighted the work of Dan Lowenstein, MD, who heads the Epilepsy Phenome/Genome Project which is based at UCSF. Working with 22 other epilepsy centers in the United States and one each in Australia, Canada and Argentina, researchers are gathering blood samples from 1,500 pairs of patients — siblings or parent-child pairs, for example — with unexplained epilepsy. The blood samples are banked for future research.

“We have described this as a national treasure of genetic material for experiments we haven’t thought of yet,” Lowenstein said.

In the United States, epileptic seizures affect 2.75 million people.

Photo: Spencer Brown

Worn

In a moving essay in JAMA, UCSF graduate Sunita Puri, MD, MS, charts some of her experiences as a medical student during her clinical rotations, using the traces on her white coat as landmarks. "Amidst the passage of months and seasons and holidays, my coat was the odd constant and the constant witness. It grew on me as I grew into my role as a student of my patients. To outside observers, its length reflected my inexperience and newness to the world of clinical medicine; to me, poring over its imperfections on this very last day of its companionship, it captured two years' worth of memories and growth."

Read Dr. Puri's essay

Nurturing Diversity at UCSF

Growing up in Sacramento, Renee Navarro, MD, PharmD, never saw a black physician, and medical role models were scarce. When she became the first doctor in her family, she didn't know what path to follow until a mentor suggested academia. "He was very supportive," said Navarro, who studied pharmacy at the University of the Pacific and medicine at UC San Francisco. "I had never even thought of it."

Today, Navarro is a role model, the only African-American professor in UCSF's anesthesia department. She sees hopeful signs around her that times are changing — UCSF has women in key leadership positions, from the chancellor to three of its five deans. And as director of UCSF's academic diversity program, she works to nurture and enhance diversity among faculty, students, residents and postdoctoral scholars.
Read more and watch a video of participants in the UC Diversity Pipeline Initiative

Baby Brain Development

Several UCSF experts were interviewed in this short radio feature on KQED Quest Radio about baby brain development and the Neuro-Intensive Care Nursery (NICN) at UCSF Children’s Hospital. The story focused on how UCSF researchers and clinicians are developing better diagnostic tools and treatments to help brain-damaged babies grow up to live more normal lives. An accompanying blog entry on the KQED website focused on stroke in newborns and included quotes from Donna Ferriero, MD, chief of child neurology.

Photo: Susan Merrell

Chilean Leader Visits UCSF Mission Bay

Chile's former President Michelle Bachelet, a doctor, recently visited UCSF’s Mission Bay campus, where she was given a tour by fellow pediatrician Sam Hawgood, dean of the School of Medicine. Bachelet, who has conducted epidemiological studies on HIV/AIDS, was interested in visiting UCSF as part of her Bay Area visit. Before becoming president of Chile in March 2004, she served as Chile’s Minister of Health and the first female Minister of Defense.
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Do Women Make Better Doctors?

At the UCSF School of Medicine, more than 50% of our students are women. "Do Women Make Better Doctors?" asks Pauline Chen in the New York Times. Or is the crucial factor to teach teach young doctors how to offer better counseling and prevention, provide shared decision-making and pay increased attention to how an illness and its treatment are affecting a patient -- all skills that are part of the educational continuum at UCSF.

Breakthrough Method Predicts Risk of Invasive Breast Cancer

For the first time, scientists have discovered a way to predict whether women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) – the most common form of non-invasive breast cancer – are at risk of developing more invasive tumors in later years. As a result of the finding, women with DCIS will have the opportunity to be more selective about their treatment, according to the scientists.

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Changing Perspectives

In his commentary "My Changing Perspectives: A 45-Year View From The Haight-Ashbury", UCSF School of Medicine alumnus David Smith, MD, reflects on how his decades of work in addiction medicine have changed some of his views and taught him that "keeping marijuana illegal has not decreased access to youth but in fact increased it."

He also describes a growing drug problem for youths that has been largely underreported, namely prescription narcotic abuse. "It is more of a gateway drug then marijuana; none of the youths have prescriptions, and their biggest source of drugs are their parents' medicine cabinet, with pharma parties replacing pot parties."

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Catching up on Sleep Science

Everyone can appreciate the value of a good night's sleep. But did you know that a lack of sleep can have real consequences for your health? Ying-hui Fu, PhD, UCSF geneticist, is profiled for her research in a segment of KQED's Quest. She's compiling a database of people who have unusual sleep patterns. Professor Fu and her research team zeroed in on a genetic mutation they found in a mother and daughter who only need to sleep six hours a night.
Watch the video

"Cancer Warrior Takes the Helm of UCSF"

The San Francisco Chronicle profiles UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH. Desmond-Hellmann has headed the University of California, San Francisco since August of 2009. The article cites her mission to "relentlessly uncover the key drivers of cancer" and describes her as "driven ..... by a mix of perfectionism, intellectual hunger and a kind of moral principle formed in her close-knit Catholic family.

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Serving on the First 'Death Panel'

Eliezer Van Allen, a third-year resident in internal medicine at UCSF, shares his observations about the real life impact of counseling patients about their options and choices as they are approaching death. "These questions, and the discussion that usually ensues, are a cornerstone of end-of-life counseling and a prominent part of a general practitioner's job description. Yet, amid the rancorous political debate that has occurred in Washington and around the country over the past year, it seemed that people like Grace, and the fundamental issues revolving around their health needs, had been left off the agenda."
Read Dr. Van Allen's insightful column in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Bodies in 3D

Diagnosis, treatment planning and medical education all benefit from the advances made in imaging techniques. Some of the most stunning images are created using a technology known as stereoscopic 3D. Watch these amazing 3D movies created by the UCSF School of Medicine, Office of Educational Technology for a demonstration of the process.

Learn more about the Henry I. Goldberg Center for Advanced Imaging Education

Related article: A Stunning Look Inside the Human Body

Did Obama's Health Care Bill Get It Right?

How is Obama's health care overhaul going to affect the economics of the industry? John Maa, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Director of the Surgical Hospitalist Program at UCSF, was on of three guests at a recent broadcast of the radio show "Your Call" which looked at what's in the bill that just passed and how it will affect the affordability of care.
Listen to the podcast

Art & Science Mix At Mission Bay

Imagine photographs produced by bacteria instead of film: is it art, or science? UCSF's Chris Voigt explains how researchers in his lab reprogram bacteria to print photos by mixing and matching genetic tidbits from various organisms across the living world. "The kingdom of life is our toybox or toolbox," Voigt said.
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No Dozing Off

UCSF's pioneering researcher and science coach Wendell Lim, PhD, has a knack for inspiring teenagers and teaches them how to build "cellbots" and enter national competitions.

Read how he does it in this "centrifuge" report from the "Bulletin", the magazine of the Howard Hughes Medicial Institute.

Julius Named 2010 Passano Laureate

David Julius, PhD, a pioneer in sensory neurobiology, will receive the prestigious Passano Award for his discovery of the molecular mechanism of thermosensation and his research in pain sensation. Previous UCSF awardees include Nobel Prize winners Elizabeth Blackburn, J. Michael Bishop, and Harold Varmus.

Passano Foundation

David Julius' Lab

Anti-Medical School, Pro Health

Anti-Medical School, a new graduate seminar at UC Berkeley, explores what is unknown and unsolved in medicine, and that’s what the course’s 70 students, mainly first- and second-year bioengineering graduate students, find compelling.

At each weekly lecture, a UCSF medical doctor presents a problem in need of an engineering solution in hopes of engaging the students in solving thorny, real-world clinical challenges as part of their master’s or doctorate research.
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The Last Breaths

Palliative care and how to enable a "good death" for patients has been a topic of much discussion in recent years. This thoughtful essay from the blog of UCSF Medical Student Eisha Zaid reflects on the complexities of decison-making at the end of life.
Photo: Eisha Zaid

A Little Less Salt Could Save A Lot of Lives

Reducing salt in the American diet by as little as one-half teaspoon (or three grams) per day could prevent nearly 100,000 heart attacks and 92,000 deaths each year, according to a new study. Such benefits are on par with the benefits from reductions in smoking and could save the United States about $24 billion in healthcare costs.

“A very modest decrease in the amount of salt, hardly detectable in the taste of food, can have dramatic health benefits for the U.S.,” said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, PhD, MD, lead author of the study, UCSF associate professor of medicine and epidemiology and the co-director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations at San Francisco General Hospital.

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Who Still Smokes?

Do you know someone who still smokes? Possibly even someone in the health professions? While smoking rates have gone down overall, there seems to be a increase in part-time smokers who light up intermittently, sometimes only in social situations, sometimes in secret. This Wall Street journal article examines various types of intermittent smokers and why they may need new strategies to learn to quit .

Proposed Constitutional Amendment Would Guarantee Funds for UC

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed Jan. 6 to amend the state constitution to shift money from prisons to higher education. The amendment he introduced in his State of the State address would limit the state correctional budget to no more than 7 percent of state general fund revenue and guarantee that the University of California and California State University together would receive no less than 10 percent. "Spending 45 percent more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future," Schwarzenegger said.
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Holding Doctors Accountable for Medical Errors

UCSF's Bob Wachter, a professor of medicine and a national leader in patient safety, gave an interview in the New York Times about his recently published critiques of the safety movement, one in Health Affairs and one in The New England Journal of Medicine. Both urge physicians to begin acknowledging their individual roles in medical errors. "As we enter the second decade of the safety movement, while the science regarding improving systems must continue to mature, the urgency of the task also demands that we stop averting our eyes from the need to balance 'no blame' and accountability."

Read article

UCSF's Maa Among Leading Advocates for Health Care Reform

A leading health industry publication has named UCSF surgeon and emergency care specialist John Maa, MD, one of the country's 20 most influential advocates for improving health care policy and practice. Maa, an assistant professor of surgery and director of UCSF's Surgical Hospitalist Program, describes health policy as his "passion" and has worked to bring a clinician's perspective to discussions surrounding health care reform, at both the state and national level."The problem with all of the reform efforts so far is that the people making the policies don't understand how health care is delivered and don't understand all of the underlying issues," Maa said. "If you don't really understand the problem, you can't propose any meaningful solutions."
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Follow Blackburn During Nobel Week 2009

This week, UCSF molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, will be in Stockholm, Sweden, where she will become UCSF’s fourth scientist to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Blackburn shares the award with Carol Greider, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Jack Szostack, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, for their co-discovery of the enzyme telomerase, which plays a key role in cell function, cell aging and most cancers.

The trio will each present their Nobel Lecture at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday, Dec. 7, and will receive the Nobel medal at the official award ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall on Thursday, Dec. 10.
Links and coverage

UCSF Photoswitch Research #3 Life Science Innovation of 2009

UCSF cellular engineering research that encoded mammalian cells to respond to light has placed third on The Scientist magazine’s list of the Top 10 Life Sciences Innovations of 2009. The UCSF research was among the first to demonstrate that plant light-switches can be imported into mammalian cells to control complex regulatory processes. The research was unique in developing a generic plug-and-play switch, based on protein recruitment, which can be wired to control diverse processes in many types of cells and organisms.
The Scientist noted that the project is “likely to have an extremely high impact” due to its reversibility, flexibility to work with any pair of proteins, and ability to function with nontoxic wavelengths of light.
Read more at The Scientist (free registration required.)

Watch video

The Most Vulnerable Patients

Extremely premature babies face tough odds. Their organs haven't finished forming. They spend weeks or months hooked to ventilators, intravenous fluids and feeding tubes. And if they survive, they may face a lifetime of disability and possible brain damage.

UCSF neonatologist David Rowitch is trying to solve some of the mysteries behind what goes wrong in an infants brain if it is delivered prematurely. To do so, he has set up the world's first pediatric brain tissue bank.
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Reduce the Impact of Smoking

Co-authored by UCSF doctors and health prevention advocates John Maa and Steven Schroder, this article in the American College of Surgeons Bulletin highlights opportunities for physicians and especially surgeons and anesthesiologists to help their patients quit smoking.

Surgeons and anesthesiologists witness the devastating consequences of cigarette smoking on a daily basis, as well as the hidden costs to society associated with smoking that we often don’t discuss. Smoking may cause the disease that requires mentand surgical outcomes for other non-smoking-related conditions. Smoking is a risk factor for perioperative cardiovascular, respiratory, and wound healing complications, such as pneumonia,myocardial infarction, and surgical site infections.

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Input Sought on Public Art Project Depicting Parnassus Trees

Artist Ellen Harvey has been commissioned by UCSF to create a new public art project, titled “The Forest of Parnassus,” which will feature the longest-living inhabitants of the flagship campus in a series of paintings. The idea is to record the past and to provide an iconic visual identity for the Parnassus campus.

Harvey is proposing to create 28 paintings, 30 x 30 inches, in oil on aluminum panels for UCSF. Each painting will be a portrait of a tree or trees that exist on the Parnassus campus with the buildings as background. The works will be clustered together and hung in prominent interior spaces throughout the campus and will be relocated when necessary. The actual sites have not yet been determined at this stage of the project.
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