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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A Conversation with Nobel Prize Winner Elizabeth Blackburn

A week after being named UCSF's—and her native Australia's—first woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, sat down with UCSF Chancellor Sue Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, to discuss the elusive goal of work-life balance and the importance of following one’s passions and making time for "intense relaxation."

Chancellor's Town Hall

UCSF Chancellor Sue Desmond-Hellmann's first town hall meeting will take place Monday, October 26, from 9 to 10 am, in Cole Hall on the Parnassus campus. During the town hall, the chancellor will share her thoughts on the future of UCSF, what the UCSF community can expect from her going forward, and how each UCSF community member can help shape the future of our University. The meeting will be simulcast to a dozen other UCSF campuses and sites. See the UCSF Today announcement for full details.

Our New Homepage

The UCSF School of Medicine has a new homepage! More precisely, it has two new homepages. The "School" or internal version displays automatically to anyone inside UCSF's network and highlights resources for faculty, students and staff. The "Public" page highlights our mission areas. Feel free to navigate between the two pages, using the buttons in the upper right corner of the page.

Please let us know what you think of the new site.

A Three-Ring Circus

Health policy expert Claire Brindis sheds light on the challenges of health care reform in an article in UCSF Today, comparing the health care arena to that of a three-ring circus: "One ring is coming up with equitable ways of covering the large chunk of people — 47 to 50 million — who are either partially covered or not covered at all. Another ring is making existing coverage more equitable. So many people who currently have health insurance feel they don’t have portability or the ability to leave their jobs. The third ring is cost."
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Dean Hawgood Confirmed by Regents

Sam Hawgood, MBBS, officially takes the helm as dean of School of Medicine and vice chancellor of medical affairs at UCSF today. In this high-level post, Hawgood leads one of the world’s most prestigious medical school as measured by its award-winning faculty, educational excellence, federal funding for research and scientific breakthroughs that have saved and improved lives.

“I look forward to continuing to ensure that we advance our mission as a great public university dedicated to healing, teaching, research and service,” Hawgood says.

A specialist in the care of newborns, Hawgood came to UCSF 27 years ago from his native Australia. Since then, he has earned an international reputation in neonatology and has achieved a distinguished career at UCSF. He is chair of the Department of Pediatrics, associate director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute and president of the UCSF Medical Group, roles that he will relinquish with his new responsibilities.
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Brainy Videos

Who says that all Internet video is brainless? UCTV was recently named the “Most Watched” YouTube EDU channel, with close to 48,000 channel views during the month.

You can also access UCTV's on-demand videos on their website and watch them on your computer or iPod. Try the health care and medicine channel which offers lectures by top experts on topics such as health care reform, diet, stress reduction, and the latest medical research.

Photo Contest Winners

Education, the primary mission of the UCSF School of Medicine, takes place in many settings: in classrooms, in clinics, in the community, on campus, and abroad. This year's School of Medicine Photo Contest challenged our photographers to visually capture some of these "learning moments." Not surprisingly, outreach programs like MedTeach yielded winning images, but we received a wide diversity of interesting photographs.

See all winners and honorable mentions

Saving Grace

For nearly three years, Grace has been shuttled in and out of hospitals and plagued by increasingly frequent seizures and the progressive weakening of her left side — the unpleasant byproducts of a benign tumor the size of a golf ball buried deep within her brain.

Surgeons at UCSF attempted to change the course of Grace’s illness on June 29 by removing the portion of the tumor they believed was causing the seizures. For her parents, Nikki and Michael, the surgery offered the first real glimmer of hope they have seen since their daughter fell ill—hope that she would begin to feel, and act, like her old self.
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Photo by Susan Merrell

First Human Gene Implicated in Regulating Length of Human Sleep

Scientists have discovered the first gene involved in regulating the optimal length of human sleep, offering a window into a key aspect of slumber, an enigmatic phenomenon that is critical to human physical and mental health.

"Short term and chronic disruptions in the length of optimal sleep can have serious consequences on cognition, mood and physical health, including cancer and endocrine function," says the senior author of the study, Ying-Hui Fu, PhD, UCSF professor of neurology. The finding, she says, offers an opportunity to unravel the regulatory mechanism of sleep.
Read news release
Read article in Science

Race for the Cure

Sunday, Sept. 27 is the 2009 Komen San Francisco Race for the Cure which starts at the Ferry Building. UCSF Mount Zion Women’s Imaging will sponsor a booth at the race and has formed a Women’s Imaging Team. The team captain is Dr. Hilda Tso, radiologist at the Breast Imaging Center at Mount Zion. Online registration is open at http://www.komensf.org/. The event is a 5K run/walk and one-mile fun walk. If you have any questions, contact Lydia Byres at 885-7804.

Wall Street Journal Highlights UCSF Decision Services program

Decision-making in the treatment of breast cancer is particularly complex, as patients are often faced with multiple options and "information overload." A UCSF program that helps breast cancer patients formulate questions for their doctors and navigate their path through treatment is being highlighted in the Wall Street Journal. The program was developed by Jeff Belkora, director of the Decision Services program at the UCSF Breast Care Center.

Decoding Synthetic Biology

KQED QUEST featured UCSF scientists in an 11-minute segment on research in synthetic biology: what it involves and the promise it holds, ranging from biofuels brewed from yeast to the biologically synthesized antimalarial, artemisinin. The July 21 show includes interviews with synthetic biologist Chris Voigt, PhD, in the School of Pharmacy, as well as Jeff Tabor, a postdoctoral scholar in the Voigt Lab. Both are affiliated with QB3, as is UC Berkeley chemical engineering professor Jay Keasling, PhD, who also appeared in the QUEST segment.

Jeremy Reiter Honored with Presidential Early Career Award

President Obama today named 100 beginning researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on young professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Among the young scientists honored is Jeremy F. Reiter, MD, PhD, an assistant professor at UCSF's Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI.) Dr. Reiter's research focuses on studying the mechanisms of intercellular communication, the ability of cells to send and receive information, during development from a single cell into a complex mechanism, and how mistakes in these signals contribute to diseases such as cancer.
White House Press Release

"Stuck" in the ED

This is a repost from the UCSF Synapse Med1 blog documenting the journey of a Fourth-Year UCSF Medical Student. The post is a lively account of the thought process of a health practitioner after accidentally getting stuck with a "dirty needle."

UCSF San Francisco Sites and Shuttles

UCSF is an integral part of the city of San Francisco. Did you know that UCSF is San Francisco's second-largest employer? A look at this Google map shows the many sites where UCSF has a presence. Each location pinpoint includes helpful shuttle and public transportation links in case you want to visit. Explore our campuses

Anatomy Made Easy

WinkingSkull.com has been expanded to feature more than 1,700 images, including illustrations from Atlas of Anatomy as well as clinical material such as MRIs, CT scans and sectional anatomy with explanatory schematics. Users can measure their knowledge using timed tests, then compare their scores against those of other users. The web-based self-study aid gives students the ability to drag and drop labels alongside each illustration and to turn labels on and off. Additional features include a zoom function for intricate details. Part of the site is free, but to gain access to all images, users do need to subscribe.

Bay Area Sound

The HHMI Bulletin recently spotlighted Christian Cunningham, a UCSF grad student in the laboratory of David Agard who spends his nights managing The Bay Bridged, a website and podcasting empire focused on the San Francisco Bay Area independent music scene.

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Claire Brindis Appointed as Director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies

Interim Dean Sam Hawgood has announced the appointment of Claire D. Brindis, Dr PH, as the director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, effective June 2. Dr. Brindis served as acting director of the Institute from 2006 to 2007 and has been interim director since 2007.In her new position, Dr. Brindis will continue the Institute’s legacy of leadership and service established by founding director Dr. Philip R. Lee and prior director Dr. Harold S. Luft. She will encourage and enhance the collaborations between IHPS faculty and other UCSF researchers, educators and clinicians. "By integrating a health policy perspective in our research, education, and service missions, [Dr. Brindis] will expand the impact of our scientific discoveries and improve the evidence upon which our local, state, national and international health policies are based", Hawgood stated in his announcement.
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Stress Relief for Every Body

Gentle Yoga is just one of the rejuvenating and relaxing classes and lectures offered at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine to help people cope with stress, tension, and difficult times. Yoga encourages clarity, strength, and ease of body and mind through the exploration of yoga postures, breath work, meditation, and deep relaxation.

More information

World No Tobacco Day

In an effort to promote awareness about the health hazards of tobacco, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) will bring together its own resident experts and student body to recognize World No Tobacco Day on May 29th, in HSW-301 from 12-1:00 p.m. for this important event.

Steven A. Schroeder,MD, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center, will talk about “Dispelling Myths About Treating Patients Who Smoke” and Lisa Cisneros, from the UCSF department of Public Affairs, will be introducing a premiere of the new video from Public Affairs titled “Cigarettes Clouding the Economic Rise-UCSF in India”. Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education will be moderating.
More info

Don’t “Cell” Yourself Short

How do lifestyle and stress affect health and aging? As part of UCTV's Women’s Health Today series, researchers Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel explore the effects of stress on our cells and how to manage the stressful elements in life.
image © 2003 The Blackburn Lab

Programs airs live May 21, 12noon

Series info / video archive

UCSF Scientists Welcome Sea Change in Stem Cell Development

Stem cell researchers at UCSF are at the forefront of their field, despite the political challenges and federal funding shortfalls faced during the last decade, said Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF in a panel presentation on May 7.

Read more at Science Café

Susan Desmond-Hellmann tapped as UCSF Chancellor

UCSF-trained physician Susan Desmond-Hellmann, a distinguished leader in cancer research, biotechnology business executive and Bay Area native, will be the first woman to serve as UCSF chancellor, if approved by the UC Regents next week.

Desmond-Hellmann, 51, brings a deep clinical, research, and executive leadership background and commitment to high-quality patient care to the position of UCSF chancellor. She is a board-certified physician in internal medicine and medical oncology who has dedicated much of her career to cancer research. She has been with South San Francisco-based Genentech for 14 years – as clinical scientist, chief medical officer, executive vice president and president – where she has overseen successful trials for therapeutic drugs, including Herceptin, Avastin and Rituxan, targeting a range of cancers and other diseases.
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Book Readings By UCSF Faculty

Nobel Prize-winner and UCSF Professor Emeritus Harold Varmus will be reading from his new book The Art and Politics of Science at Kepler's in Menlo Park on Monday, May 4, at 7:30 pm. Much of Dr. Varmus' scientific work was conducted during his 23 years as an active faculty member at UCSF. In 1993, Varmus transformed from an academic scientist to a political one when President Clinton asked him to direct the National Institutes of Health. He is currently the president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

David Kessler, Professor of Pediatrics and former Dean of the School of Medicine as well as former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will be talking about his new book The End of Overeating at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on May 8 at noon. Drawing on years of extensive research and interviews with medical experts and industry insiders, the book reveals the science and marketing behind overeating and how consumers can fight back.

In other literary news, a short story by UCSF Pediatric Oncology Fellow Chris Adrian was recently featured in the New Yorker. The story takes place at an unamed Children's Hospital near "Buena Vista Park." Adrian has also been awarded a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship

2009 Summer Photo Contest Announcement: "Education"

The theme for this year's School of Medicine Dean's Office Photo Contest is "Education" -- the primary mission of the UCSF School of Medicine. We are looking for new and original images that show the many ways in which "education" takes place on and off the UCSF campus. All current School of Medicine staff, faculty, students, housestaff and postdocs are invited to participate in this contest. Detailed submission information is posted on the School of Medicine website. Deadline for submission is August 15, 2009.
For questions, please contact editorial@medsch.ucsf.edu

An Excellent Balance

The UCSF School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five in the country both for its research and its primary care education programs in a new survey on “America’s Best Graduate Schools” conducted by “U.S. News & World Report.”
The UCSF medical school also ranks among the top 10 in all of its clinical specialty programs that were ranked in the new survey.

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Embryo Debate In IVF Treatment

New research from Finland suggests that when using in vitro fertilization, pregnancies can be achieved by implanting only one embryo. American fertility specialists are implanting more than one embryo. Marcelle Cedars, MD, director of UCSF’s Division of Reproductive Endocrinology, comments on the issue in this NPR news story.

How I Left Medicine for the Arts

On April 29, Ethan Canin, Author and Physician, will be on campus to speak on: "Oxidation of Squalene by Squalene Epoxidase to form 2,3-Oxidosqualene, or, How I Left Medicine for the Arts."

Canin, a former UCSF medicine resident and current faculty member at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, has written several successful novels including Blue River (1995), For Kings and Planets (1999), Carry Me Across the Water (2001), and America America (2008). Details

Photo: Red Diaz

Help Shape the NIH's Women’s Health Research Agenda

The Office of Research on Women’s Health/NIH/DHHS, the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women's Health are co-hosting the second in a series of four public hearings and scientific workshops to update the Women’s Health Research Agenda at the NIH for the coming decade. The ideas and recommendations emerging from this conference and other regional conferences will help inform future women’s health research priorities at the NIH.

Get involved