Timeline of UCSF Milestones in 2016
Scroll down through the interactive timeline to explore some of the major events and achievements of the past year at UC San Francisco.
See More of UCSF’s 2016 Year in Review »
Fundraising Powerhouse
UCSF raised a record $608.5 million in private contributions in 2015 – the highest total of any public U.S. university, according to rankings by the Council for Aid to Education
Landmark Dementia Study
In the largest and longest study thus far of ethnic disparities in dementia risk, researchers compared six ethnic and racial groups within the same geographic population and found significant variation in dementia incidence among them.
Vice President Visits
UCSF hosted Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, PhD, for a tour and panel discussion as part of a national listening tour for the Cancer Moonshot initiative.
Read more Feb. 28
Examining Injustice
Journalist Soledad O’Brien moderated a teach-in at UCSF on injustice, intolerance and inequities as well as their impact on health in America.
Read more Feb. 29Stopping Zika
UCSF’s Zika symposium brings together Bay Area experts in the field as the virus spread across the Americas. UCSF’s research contributions to Zika in 2016 include mapping the virus’ route to the developing fetus and the finding that a popular antibiotic can prevent the cells in fetal brain tissue from being infected.
Stellar School Rankings
In the U.S. News & World Report survey of best graduate schools, the School of Medicine ranks third in research and primary care education, the School of Nursing ranks third and the School of Pharmacy’s Doctor of Pharmacy ranks third.
Computational Approach
The Quantitative Biosciences Institute, directed by Nevan Krogan, PhD, is established to advance the application of computation, mathematics and statistics toward a deeper understanding of complex problems in biology.
Dialing Into Depression
A study about voice personal assistants’ inconsistent and incomplete responses to questions about mental health, rape and domestic violence leads Apple, the maker of the iPhone, to update Siri’s responses to such inquiries.
Noteworthy at NIH
For the third year in a row, UCSF’s schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy received the top tallies in National Institutes of Health funding in their respective fields in 2015, with the University overall receiving the most NIH funds of any public university.
Cancer Moonshot Leadership
Mitchel Berger, MD, and Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD, are named to a Blue Ribbon Panel of scientific experts, cancer leaders and patient advocates to guide the White House Cancer Moonshot initiative.
Cancer Immunotherapy Innovation
UCSF immunologist Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD, is named president and CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, an initiative launched by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker to enable coordination and collaboration of the field’s top researchers and quickly translate their findings into patient treatments.
Read more April 12New BRCA Resource for Patients
The Center for BRCA Research launches at UCSF, giving patients and individuals who carry BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations a one-stop resource. The center is co-led by Alan Ashworth, PhD, FRS, and Pamela Munster, MD.
Record-Breaking Gift
A $185 million gift from Joan and Sanford I. “Sandy” Weill establishes the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. The gift, the largest to date for UCSF, is one of several for the neurosciences in recent years, including the $25 million from the Oberndorf Foundation in April.
Read more April 25Addressing Affordable Housing
UCSF creates a need-based Cost of Living Supplement pilot program for students, one of several measures to address San Francisco's housing crisis.
Osseointegration Pioneer
A first of its kind in the U.S., UCSF completes an osseointegration surgery, in which a titanium screw is implanted in a bone, creating an anchor to which an external prosthesis can be attached.
Bioethics Program Launches
UCSF launches a new campus-wide bioethics program led by noted bioethics scholar Barbara Koenig, PhD, RN. The program is designed to bring prominence to the issues of ethics in research and medicine, especially as biomedical technologies are rapidly advancing.
Convening Precision Public Health
UCSF hosts a summit convened by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to kick-start the conversation about what can be accomplished in precision public health.
Read more June 13
Champions for Children
UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals placed among the nation’s premier children’s hospitals in all 10 pediatric specialties in the best pediatric hospital rankings from U.S. News & World Report.
Read more June 21AIDS Walk Anniversary
UCSF went big for the 30th anniversary AIDS Walk San Francisco, assembling one of its largest-ever groups and raising its highest-ever total of more than $150,000.
Bridges to the Future
The School of Medicine launches its new Bridges curriculum, a program that was built from the ground up to rethink training the clinicians of the future.
Read more Aug. 1Top-Ranked Hospital
UCSF Medical Center is named the seventh best hospital in the country and receives elite status in 15 specialties in U.S. News & World Report’s 2016-2017 Best Hospitals survey.
Sugar Industry Revealed
A newly discovered cache of industry documents revealed that the sugar industry began working closely with nutrition scientists in the mid-1960s to single out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of coronary heart disease and to downplay evidence that sucrose consumption was also a risk factor.
Bruce Alberts’ Lifetime Honors
Biochemist Bruce Alberts, PhD, received the 2016 Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science, one of the highest honors in biomedicine.
Read more Sept. 12
Billionaire Biohub
UCSF, Stanford University and UC Berkeley announce they’re joining forces in a new biomedical science research center funded by a $600 million commitment from Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and pediatrician Priscilla Chan.
Read more Sept. 21First Ever Postdoc Slam
The inaugural Postdoc Slam is held, a competition in which 10 UCSF postdocs compete to explain complex research in simple language – and in three minutes or less. The competition is modeled after the Grad Slam competition.
Invested in the Community
In his third State of the University address, Chancellor Sam Hawgood highlighted the findings of a new economic and fiscal impact analysis, showing UCSF’s total economic output in the Bay Area is now $8.9 billion.
Read more Oct. 4Childhood Brain Cancer
A groundbreaking study from UCSF researchers shows that next-generation sequencing for children with brain tumors can change diagnoses and retool treatment plans.
Coalition Against Cancer
Aiming to reduce the incidence and mortality from the most common cancers in San Francisco, a group that includes UCSF, the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), and health care and community organizations launched the San Francisco Cancer Initiative (SF CAN).
Breakthrough Symposium Returns
Three years after Silicon Valley titans launched the Breakthrough Prizes at UCSF, the symposium returned to campus. The event showcased the research of current and past laureates, including UCSF's inaugural winner Shinya Yamanaka, PhD.
Read more Dec. 5Gift Creates New Investigator Program
Biotech pioneer Bill Bowes makes a $50 million pledge that establishes the Bowes Biomedical Investigator Program at UCSF. The program provides a five-year funding stream of $250,000 per year per investigator to early- and mid-career faculty members to support “unconventional” research. The UCSF community was saddened to learn of Bowes’ passing in later December.