2008 Year in Review
The past year at UCSF has seen a steady stream of research breakthroughs, exciting innovations and inspiring accomplishments that have helped further the University's mission of advancing health worldwide™ as a global leader in patient care and scientific discovery.
From advances in the fight against HIV/AIDS and type 1 diabetes to the opening of a first-of-its-kind facility for treating brain damage at birth and the continuing growth of UCSF's stem cell research program, here's a look back at some of the many things that made 2008 a year to remember:
Improving and Promoting Health
Neuroscience
- UCSF neurosurgeons reported a new brain mapping technique that allows for the safe removal of tumors near the language pathways in the brain. Their findings also shed light on how language is organized in the human cortex.
- A small, short-term clinical trial led by UCSF researchers showed promising results for an experimental multiple sclerosis (MS) drug. The drug, rituximab, dramatically reduced the number of inflammatory lesions along the nerve fibers in patients' brains — a hallmark of MS. Later in the year, another group of scientists identified a pattern of gene activity that predicts which patients with early-stage MS symptoms are at high risk for developing the full-blown disease.
- UCSF Children's Hospital opened a first-of-its-kind clinical unit focused on infants who show signs of brain damage at birth and are at risk for developing cerebral palsy, mental retardation and other cognitive disorders. The Neurointensive Care Nursery (NICN) will bring the latest care to patients and conduct clinical research to get at the root causes of brain damage. Within a month of the NICN's midsummer opening, the number of patients referred to UCSF Children's Hospital for pediatric neurological care quadrupled.
- UCSF's Memory and Aging Center teamed up with the video-sharing website YouTube and the social networking website Facebook to create an online campaign dedicated to improving understanding of incurable neurodegenerative brain diseases. The initiative aims to increase awareness among patients, their families and physicians about the various forms of dementia, with the goal of promoting earlier diagnoses and getting more patients into research studies and clinical trials.
- UCSF and UC Berkeley scientists identified a link between age-related memory loss and the brain's ability to filter information quickly. According to their study, two processes that are crucial to memory formation — the capacity to ignore irrelevant information and the ability to process information quickly — work in tandem and diminish with age.
Stem Cells
- UCSF received a $34.9 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and a $25 million donation from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation to help fund a new regenerative medicine building on campus. The funds build on the $16 million donation made by Ray and Dagmar Dolby in 2006. The $123 million building on the Parnassus campus will serve as the headquarters of a center that will continue to extend across UCSF campuses. The building will bring together 25 labs involved in various areas of human and animal embryonic and adult stem cell research, as well as other related early-cell studies. Construction is scheduled for completion in 2010.
- Building on the major research funding UCSF scientists were awarded by CIRM in 2007, faculty successfully competed in three more rounds of CIRM research grants in 2008 — for innovative investigations being pursued by new faculty, creating new lines of human embryonic stem cells and developing strategies for moving basic research findings to clinical trials.
- UCSF scientists identified several molecules that enable embryonic stem cells to divide much more rapidly than the specialized cells of the adult body. The finding offers insight into normal embryonic development — the capacity to grow rapidly from a single fertilized cell to an entire embryo. It also suggests that when the molecules' behavior goes awry, they likely play a role in cancer.
- A team of UCSF researchers identified about two dozen genes that control the fate of embryonic stem cells. Their findings could someday help scientists accelerate the process by which a cell takes on a specialized form — an advancement that could benefit stem cell therapy and the study of certain degenerative diseases.
Cancer
- UCSF skin pathologist Boris Bastian, MD, and his team of researchers identified a mutant gene that gives rise to a deadly eye cancer, uveal melanoma. Targeting and treating the disease have previously proved difficult, but Bastian already has begun collaborating with a biotech firm to investigate a new treatment strategy based on his team's findings.
- The UCSF Center of Excellence for Breast Cancer Care launched a free, web-based service that helps patients around the country find out about and sign up for clinical breast cancer trials. The site, BreastCancerTrials.org, funded by a $2 million grant from the Safeway Foundation, is the first national service of its kind.
Transplants
- In September, UCSF celebrated 45 years of transplant procedures — treating 10,000 patients — with a weeklong series of special events, public lectures and forums. The University currently performs more than 500 procedures per year, about 70 percent of which are kidney transplants.
- UCSF's Heart and Lung Transplant Program performed its 500th procedure in April. Earlier in the year, a report from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients showed that survival rates among UCSF's heart and lung transplant patients exceed the national average.
Cardiology
- For the 12-month period ending in July 2008, UCSF cardiologists ranked first in the nation for the speed with which heart attack patients are treated by using balloon angioplasty, a procedure to open narrowed or blocked blood vessels of the heart. Patients at UCSF Medical Center were treated within an hour of their arrival, considerably faster than the 90-minute benchmark set by the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR). UCSF bested more than 850 US hospitals that completed an NCDR survey of treatment times.
- UCSF's Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI) celebrated its 50th anniversary. Since its founding, the institute has allowed scientists from a variety of disciplines to work together, leading to major advances in both the treatment and understanding of cardiovascular diseases.
- UCSF broke ground in May on its new, $254 million CVRI building at Mission Bay. The building, expected to open in 2011, will provide state-of-the-art laboratories for current scientists and allow for the recruitment of 25 more investigators. In addition to research facilities, it will house an outpatient clinic for patients with cardiovascular disease.
Diabetes
Two common cancer drugs appear to both prevent and reverse type 1 diabetes in the mouse model of the disease, UCSF researchers found. The drugs put the disease into remission in 80 percent of mice in the study, and 80 percent of them remained permanently disease-free. The researchers plan to conduct a safety and efficacy clinical trial in human patients.Dental Health
The UCSF School of Dentistry has received the largest grant in its history: $24.4 million from the National Institutes of Health to address socioeconomic and cultural disparities in oral health. The seven-year grant, which is funded through the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, will enable the UCSF Center to Address Disparities in Children's Oral Health (nicknamed CAN DO) to launch new programs in preventing early childhood tooth decay.School of Nursing
- In May 2008 the Integrated Nurse Leadership Program (INLP) won a $6.5 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to improving and expanding nurse education. The gift expands upon a $5.7 million grant from the same foundation, which enabled the School to create the INLP in 2004. The new grant funds will help the INLP work with hospitals to reduce medication-related errors.
- The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research presented the School with a $4.25 million, five-year grant to research personal assistance services for people with disabilities. This is the second time UCSF has received this type of grant, which enables researchers to study issues regarding the availability and quality of services provided by formal and informal caregivers to some 15 million people nationwide who need help performing activities of daily living.
School of Pharmacy
- Research by UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty has found that the information that is readily available to health professionals in the scientific literature on clinical drug trials is incomplete and potentially biased. Drug trials that are published in peer-reviewed journals are more likely to reflect favorably on the efficacy of the drug than the reports submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for New Drug Approval, while less positive results go unpublished. The results of their observational study appeared in PLoS Medicine and have subsequently attracted international media attention.
- The National Cancer Institute awarded a $5 million grant to UCSF’s School of Pharmacy’s Center for Translational and Policy Research on Personalized Medicine to investigate how genomic information and pharmacogenomics can best be translated into clinical practice. The grant is the first major NCI funding to focus on health policy issues relating to drugs that are geared to individual genetic differences, often referred to as “personalized medicine.” Many doctors are not yet aware of tests to see if targeted drugs will work for particular patients, or how best to use them.
Global Health
In September, two UCSF leaders delivered a formal proposal to the Regents of the University of California for a UC School of Global Health. The school would train new leaders to tackle global health issues and would be UC's first multicampus, systemwide school. Planning for the school is being led by Haile Debas, MD, executive director of UCSF Global Health Sciences. Debas, a former dean of UCSF School of Medicine and chancellor of UCSF, hopes to see the school's administrative headquarters set up at UCSF's Mission Bay campus.Integrative Medicine
In September, the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine broke ground on its future home at 1545 Divisadero St. The new space will allow the center's three programs — research, education and clinical care — to be housed under the same roof for the first time. The move is expected to take place in 2010.QB3
UCSF and Pfizer, Inc. launched an exciting new collaboration to advance the discovery and development of new drugs, as well as stimulate a broad range of basic research. The three year agreement, with research and other support from Pfizer of up to $9.5 million, will establish a team of UCSF scientists to help identify promising areas of mutual interest and facilitate project management. The innovative effort is managed by QB3, the multi-campus California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, headquartered at UCSF.Patient Care
- The University of California Board of Regents unanimously approved the design, budget and environmental certification for a new hospital complex on the UCSF Mission Bay campus. The facility is designed to be a 289-bed, integrated hospital complex with three specialty hospitals for children, women and cancer patients. Construction is set to begin in 2009, pending state approval, with the facility slated to open in 2014.
- UCSF Medical Center received a $575,000 grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to reduce hospital readmission rates among elderly heart failure patients. A team of more than 30 people across UCSF Medical Center — including two new heart failure discharge coordinator nurses — will prepare patients and their families for discharge from the hospital and will follow up with them in the ensuing weeks and months.
HIV/AIDS
A team of UCSF and University of Toronto researchers discovered a way to revitalize poorly functioning immune system cells in patients infected with HIV. After blocking a molecule — Tim-3 — that is present at high levels in a weakened immune system, the scientists saw improved cell function in patients and a renewed ability to fight off infection.Endocrinology
UCSF scientists were the first to identify the full effect of a commonly used weed killer, atrazine, on human cells. They reported that the herbicide alters hormone signaling, increasing the activity of a gene associated with abnormal human birthweight. Atrazine, they reported, also targets a gene that is amplified in the uteruses of women with unexplained infertility.Virology
- UCSF's Joseph DeRisi, PhD, was one of five Americans — and the only scientist — to receive a prestigious Heinz Award. He was honored for his breakthroughs in detecting some of the world's most threatening viruses and his investigations of the parasite malaria. Among other accomplishments, he and UCSF virologist Don Ganem, MD, developed and continue to modify a particular microarray tool — one that allows them to detect every known and unknown virus.
- UCSF researchers identified the virus behind a mysterious infectious disease that has been killing parrots and other exotic birds for more than 30 years. The team also developed a diagnostic test for the virus, avian bornavirus, which will enable veterinarians worldwide to control the spread of the often fatal disease.
Campus Developments
Administrative News
- Chancellor J. Michael Bishop, MD, announced his plans to step down from his post on June 30, 2009, after 10 years of leadership at UCSF. Bishop, who joined UCSF in 1968, will remain on campus, serving as a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and as director of the G. W. Hooper Foundation, a biomedical research unit at UCSF.
- John D. B. Featherstone, PhD, was appointed the new dean of the UCSF School of Dentistry after having served as interim dean since August 2007. He has been a member of the school's faculty for 13 years and served as chair of the school's Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences from 1996 to 2005.
National Recognition
- A U.S. News & World Report survey of "America's Best Hospitals" ranked UCSF Medical Center as the seventh best hospital in the country and the best in the Bay Area. This was the eighth consecutive year in which UCSF has achieved a top 10 ranking. A separate survey by the newsmagazine ranked UCSF School of Pharmacy first, UCSF School of Nursing second and UCSF School of Medicine fifth among all graduate schools in their fields. The survey rankings did not include dental schools.
- Four UCSF scientists were among the 65 newly elected members of the Institute of Medicine: Thomas S. Bodenheimer, MD, MPH; Douglas Hanahan, PhD; Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD; and Michael Merzenich, PhD. They joined 75 other UCSF faculty who are members of the prestigious organization, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences.