MEDIA ADVISORY: UCSF Holds Special Event to Honor Breakthrough Biomedical Research

WHAT: UC San Francisco will commemorate the 15th anniversary of a unique scientific research program that fosters basic science projects of potentially high impact, allowing scientists to be creative and to take risks, with the goal of achieving transformative discoveries.

The event, “Unconventional Wisdom: Advancing Scientific Discovery by Breaking the Rules.” will be hosted by Michael Krasny, PhD, host of KQED Forum.

It will pay tribute to a special funding apparatus at UCSF, known as the Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research, which uses private philanthropy to finance scientific ideas that challenge conventional wisdom.

The program, established by longtime philanthropists Herbert and Marion Sandler, is credited with engendering hundreds of millions of dollars in subsequent grant funding and projects, ultimately resulting in hundreds of publications and dozens of patents.

WHEN: Thursday, May 23, 2013 from 3:30 to 5 p.m.

WHERE: Genentech Hall on the UCSF Mission Bay campus, 600 16th Street, San Francisco.

WHO: The program will be moderated by Michael Krasny, PhD, host of KQED Forum. Panelists include:

Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, UCSF Chancellor, Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished Professor;
Joseph DeRisi, PhD, professor, UCSF Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, 2004 MacArthur Fellow;
Alfred Gilman, MD, PhD, Regental Professor Emeritus at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1994;
Anita Sil, PhD, MD, associate professor, UCSF Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist.
The event will also feature a video tribute to Marion Sandler who died last year at her home in San Francisco. Closing remarks will be delivered by Herbert Sandler and Chancellor Desmond-Hellmann.

MEDIA CONTACT: Jeffrey Norris, 415-502-6397, [email protected]