University of California, San Francisco
Encyclopedia : U : UN : UNI : University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dental, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world. The UCSF Medical Center is consistently ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the United States. Patients from around the world with rare and difficult diseases are referred to UCSF for treatment. Some of UCSF's most renowned treatment centers include kidney and liver transplant, neurosurgery, neurology, oncology, gene therapy, women's health, and internal medicine. UCSF also has the nation's leading HIV/AIDS treatment and research centers. Collaboration with African Universities such as the University of Zimbabwe to deal with HIV have been established. UCSF Medical School is the only medical school in the country to rank in the top 5 for both "research" and "primary care."
Founded in 1873, the mission of UCSF is to serve as a "public university dedicated to saving lives and improving health." Though one of the ten campuses of the University of California, it is unique for being the only University of California campus dedicated solely to graduate education, and this in health and biomedical sciences. UCSF has developed a reputation for unique interdisciplinary collaboration between the health science disciplines which has led to some of the most important discoveries in the biosciences. The graduate-focused environment of UCSF, its relatively small size, and its culture of collaboration allows for a flexibility to translate new discoveries into new treatments hard to find even at many of the world's other top medical centers.
Academics
University of California, San Francisco is unique in that it does biomedical and patient-centered research in its Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing and Dentistry and their hundreds of associated laboratories. The university is known for innovation in medical research, public service, and patient care. UCSF's faculty includes three Nobel Prize winners, 31 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 69 members of the Institute of Medicine, and 30 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1995, the National Research Council ranked UCSF in the top ten for biochemistry and molecular biology (1st), genetics (2nd), cell and developmental biology (3rd), neurosciences (4th), physiology (5th), and biomedical engineering (7th). Overall, the campus is fourth in the nation in annual NIH funding with $438.8 million (2004). UCSF's Schools of Dentistry, Nursing, and Pharmacy all are first in NIH funding among their peers, with $19.8 million, $14.6 million and $23.5 million, respectively. Its School of Medicine is third with $379.9 million.
UCSF's Parnassus Campus facilities serve as the main campus and include the 600 bed [UCSF Medical Center], [Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute] (one of the state's largest outpatient clinics), the Children's Hospital (located inside the center) and hundreds of research labs.
The Mount Zion Campus contains UCSF's Comprehensive Cancer Center, Women's Health Center, and outpatient resources. The VA Hospital Campus is one of the leading Veterans Affairs research and treatment centers.
The San Francisco General Hospital campus cares for the indigent population of San Francisco and site of UCSF's level-I trauma center. The earliest cases of HIV/AIDs were discovered at SF General Hospital in the 1980s. To this day SF General Hospital has the world's leading HIV/AIDs treatment and research center.
UCSF's Mission Bay Campus is the largest ongoing biomedical construction project in the world. The 43-acre Mission Bay campus, recently opened in 2003 with construction still ongoing, contains additional research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences companies. It will double the size of UCSF's already mammoth research enterprise over the next 10 years. The Mission Bay campus currently contains the following facilities:
- UCSF Genentech Hall: Opened in January 2003 at UCSF's new Mission Bay campus, the first research building contains space for approximately 900 faculty, staff, students, and postdoctoral fellows working in the fields of structural and chemical biology and molecular cell and developmental biology.
- Rock Hall: Opened in February 2004 at UCSF's new Mission Bay campus, the second research building contains space for approximately 400 researchers in the fields of neuroscience, developmental biology, and genetics.
- Byers Hall: Serving as the headquarters for the California Institute for Biomedical Research (QB3), a cooperative effort between the UC campuses at San Francisco, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz, this building opened in February 2005 at UCSF's new Mission Bay campus. It contains space devoted to both computational and experimental research and houses a 7 tesla superconducting magnet, the first on the West Coast of the United States, for use in magnetic resonance imaging.
- Women, Children's, and Cancer Hospital: Planning ongoing
- Several other facilities opened at Mission Bay in the fall of 2005: a campus community center (designed by famed architect Ricardo Legoretta) containing fitness, conference and student services, a housing complex for 750 students and postdoctoral fellows, and two parking garages totalling 1400 spaces. Three new research buildings designated for cancer, neuroscience, and cardiovascular research programs are in the planning phase, with groundbreaking on all three facilities expected by the end of 2006.
Distinctions
- First to discover that normal cellular genes can be converted to cancer genes (Nobel Prize in Medicine, J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus, 1989)
- First to discover (together with Stanford) the techniques of recombinant DNA, the seminal step in the creation of the biotechnology industry
- First to discover the precise recombinant DNA techniques that led to the creation of a hepatitis B vaccine
- First to perform a successful surgery on a baby still in the mother's womb
- First to clone an insulin gene into bacteria, leading to the mass production of recombinant human insulin to treat diabetes
- First to synthesize human growth hormone and clone into bacteria, setting the stage for genetically engineered human growth hormone
- First to develop prenatal tests for sickle cell anemia and thalassemia
- First to train pharmacists as drug therapy specialists
- First to establish special care units for AIDS patients and among the first to identify HIV as the causative agent of the disease
- First to discover and name prions (PREE-ons), an infectious agent that is responsible for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases (Nobel Prize in Medicine, Stanley Prusiner, 1997)
- First to develop catheter ablation therapy for tachycardia, which cures "racing" hearts without surgery
- First university west of the Mississippi to offer a doctoral degree in nursing
- First to discover that a missing substance called surfactant is the culprit in the death of newborn with respiratory distress syndrome; first to develop a synthetic substitute for surfactant, reducing infant death rates significantly
- With a work force of 18,600 people and annual economic impact of $2 billion, UCSF is San Francisco's second largest employer.
Noted alumni/faculty
- J. Michael Bishop - Nobel laureate in Medicine (1989), worked to discover the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes
- Stanley Prusiner - Nobel laureate in Medicine (1997), discovered and described prions
- Harold Varmus - Nobel laureate in Medicine (1989), worked to discover the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes. Also served as Director of the NIH in the Clinton Administration, and currently as president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
- David Kessler - Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine, and former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in the Clinton Administration. Also former Dean of the Yale University School of Medicine.
- Richard Carmona - Surgeon General of the United States
- Julie Gerberding - Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- Steve Schroeder - Former CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Peter Kollman - developer of the AMBER force field in molecular dynamics simulation
- Paul Volberding, whose pioneering work in the early days of the AIDS pandemic was noted in Randy Shilts' book And the Band Played On
- John Clements, first to isolate surfactant and to develop it artificially
- Stanton Glantz, regarded as the Ralph Nader of the anti-big-tobacco movement
- Jay Levy, who, along with Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute and Luc Montagnier at the Pasteur Institute, was among the first to identify and isolate HIV as the causative agent in AIDS
- Dean Ornish, who first established that coronary artery disease could be reversed with lifestyle changes alone
- Richard Feachem, the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria
External links
- [UCSF main website]
- [UCSF School of Medicine]
- [UCSF School of Pharmacy]
- [UCSF Medical Center website]
- [UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center website]
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