UCSF scientists have received two grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to refine their human embryonic stem cell-based strategies for treating neurological diseases and liver failure.
UCSF environmental health specialist Gina Solomon is calling for improved scientific study of and publicly available and robust data about the health hazards posed by the BP oil disaster.
Stefan Habelitz, an engineer and materials scientist, is blazing a new research trail by investigating tooth enamel in the UCSF School of Dentistry's Marshall Lab, where researchers fruitfully focus on every facet of teeth, knowing they’re nothing to take for granted…
A novel technique created at UCSF to deliver a growth factor directly to brain cells has shown promising results in treating Parkinson's symptoms and could enter human clinical trials as early as next year.
James McKerrow, leader of the Sandler Center for Drug Discovery at UCSF, was honored with the 2009 Mendel Medal for his work identifying the vulnerabilities of disease-causing parasites and for devising new strategies to fight them.
For his groundbreaking work on the sensation of touch, David Julius, PhD, professor and chair of the UCSF Department of Physiology, has been named to receive the 2010 Shaw Prize in Life Sciences and Medicine.
Taking an innovative path toward personalized medicine, scientists for the first time will be able to eliminate – at an early point in a clinical trial — experimental drugs that show poor efficacy, dramatically shortening the time it takes to get the right medication to the right patient with breast cancer.
A panel of experts appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom recently presented an action plan as the approaching “age wave may bring a potential crisis in Alzheimer’s and dementia care” to San Francisco.
UCSF nephrologist Flavio Vincenti, MD, is the lead author of a paper in the March 2010 issue of the <i>American Journal of Transplantation</i> that reports results from a Phase III clinical trial for a new drug that selectively blocks immune suppression for kidney transplants. The drug, belatacept, is given to kidney-transplant recipients to prevent the immune system from rejecting the new organ. Vincenti and his co-investigators found that belatacept may be as effective as the commonly used anti-rejection drug cyclosporine, but with fewer side effects and superior kidney function after 12 months.
Scientists have identified a gene family that plays a key role in one of the earliest stages of development in which an embryo distinguishes its left side from the right and determines how organs should be positioned within the body. The finding in mice likely will lead to a better understanding of how certain birth defects occur in humans.
Molecular biologist Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD, 60, of the University of California, San Francisco, received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on December 10th, 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Telomeres — which are the DNA repeats that form the tips of chromosomes and are produced by the telomerase enzyme — play a crucial, and curious, role in the life of the cell.
Sleeping pill sales have increased dramatically in the past year — in part due to hundreds of millions of dollars spent on direct advertising to consumers.
Stanley B. Prusiner, MD, 55, today was named to receive the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering and characterizing an entirely new class of proteins, called prions, which cause several rare and fatal neurodegenerative diseases.