Takeda San Francisco, Inc., announced September 21, 2009 that that it has entered into a sponsored collaboration with UCSF to support antibody-related research in the laboratory of Charles Craik, PhD, faculty member in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UCSF School of Pharmacy. Craik will be the principal investigator of the project, which will focus on therapeutic antibody discovery and development to an undisclosed target.

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Full Story:

Takeda San Francisco Enters into a Sponsored Research Agreement with UCSF

Craik to Lead Takeda-sponsored Research on Antibodies

Takeda San Francisco,Inc., announced September 21, 2009 that that it has entered into a sponsored collaboration with UCSF to solely support antibody-related research in the laboratory of Charles Craik, PhD, faculty member in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UCSF School of Pharmacy. Craik will be the principal investigator of the project, which will focus on therapeutic antibody discovery and development to an undisclosed target. Full Story:Takeda San Francisco Enters into a Sponsored Research Agreement with UCSF

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UCSF researcher Deanna Kroetz, PhD, discusses the impact of genetic differences on how an individual responds to drugs in a KQED Quest radio interview that aired September 14, 2009. Fellow members of the interview panel were UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, and UCSF breast cancer surgeon Laura Esserman, MD, MBA.

Pharmacogenomics is a major research focus in Kroetz's home Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, which is a joint department between the UCSF Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine. The goal is safer, more effective therapies for populations and individuals. Making the promise of pharmacogenomics a reality for patients is a major strategic goal of the UCSF School of Pharmacy.

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Listen:

Source:

Personalized Medicine, KQED Quest, September 14, 2009.- 5 min. 42 sec.

More:

Pressing Ahead in New Directions, UCSF School of Pharmacy Strategic Plan 2007-2012

Breast cancer patients might not be getting full advantage from a genetic screening test for the protein known as HER2 to help determine if the use of trastuzumab (marketed as Herceptin) is the best course of treatment for them. For patients whose breast cancer cells produce excessive amounts of HER2, trastuzumab can be highly effective. These conclusions appear in the first major research report from the Center for Translational and Policy Research on Personalized Medicine (TRANSPERS) established in 2008 by the UCSF School of Pharmacy, Department of Clinical Pharmacy. Center Director Kathryn Phillips, PhD, was the lead author of the paper that appeared in Cancer, online September 14, 2009. Phillips and colleagues found thath little evidence is available to determine whether all eligible patients are tested, how many are retested to confirm results, and how many with negative HER2 test results still receive trastuzumab.

Full Story:

Many Breast Cancer Patients May Not Be Receiving Recommended Test

Clinical practice patterns and cost effectiveness of human epidermal growth receptor 2 testing strategies in breast cancer patients, Cancer, September 14, 2009.

Scientists from the UCSF School of Pharmacy's Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry have been selected to lead a new federal initiative aimed at developing new classes of drugs to target cancer.

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), "To advance the NCI's mission of bringing novel therapies to patients, and to fully exploit NCI's expertise in the later stage of preclinical development, the Institute is now focusing efforts and resources on drug candidate identification and optimization to enhance the entry of early-stage drug candidates into the NCI therapeutics pipeline."

To accomplish this goal, the NCI is enlisting a nationwide consortium of academic scientists. James Wells, PhD (pictured right), chair of the UCSF School of Pharmacy's Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, along with Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry Adjunct Assistant Professor Michelle Arkin, PhD (pictured left), will lead UCSF's participation in the new NCI initiative, called the Chemical Biology Consortium (CBC). Wells and Arkin are the Director and Associate Director of Biology, respectively, of the Small Molecule Discovery Center (SMDC), which is a laboratory that provides innovative approaches to drug discovery for UCSF researchers. The SMDC will be at the heart of UCSF's consortium work.

Participation in the consortium supports one of the UCSF School of Pharmacy's current strategic goals, which is to create a new framework for drug discovery and development.

New Approach

Consortium members will be traveling a different path than that of pharmaceutical firms, which are developing drugs against two major classes of proteins known as kinases and G-coupled proteins. Instead, consortium members will explore a new world of molecular interactions. Their goal is to target--to "drug"--previously untargeted proteins and other molecules. These may include some proteins previously thought to be "undruggable."

Drawing on a range of expertise, the goal of the consortium is to identify new molecular targets that both help tumors survive, grow and spread and for which no drugs have been developed.

UCSF Focus

From among competing proposals, SAIC-Frederick--which is the Prime Contractor that manages the operations and technical services at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick, Maryland--selected the UCSF group and its SMDC to serve as a Specialized Applications Center.

The UCSF researchers will use a new, alternative approach, called fragment-based drug discovery in their work. In this approach, drug leads are discovered in pieces and subsequently assembled.

For many targets, conventional high-throughput screening methods yield no likely drug candidates. Wells pioneered the fragment-based method for screening and identifying small molecules--or fragments--that can serve as the starting points for building new drug molecules.

The focus of most drug development has centered on finding molecules that can powerfully gum up the "active" sites of proteins that have been identified as drug targets. Active sites are structures within the protein, often pocket-like, where enzymatic transformation of a bound substrate molecule takes place, driving a particular biochemical event. But fragment-based methods allow researchers to more easily evaluate other surfaces of the protein as potential sites where small molecules can bind and allosterically block the biochemical function of the targeted proteins.

"Our group has extensive experience in oncology drug discovery and has pioneered fragment discovery technologies and their application to difficult undruggable targets," Wells says. In fact, Wells already has focused on using the technique to target caspases, proteins that play a role in cancer, and previously identified small molecules suitable for using as starting points for designing drugs to target caspases.

The SMDC is located at UCSF's Mission Bay campus in Byers Hall, which is the San Francisco home of the multi-site California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3). QB3 provides key instrumentation in addition to space. While Arkin directs the biology and high-throughput screening efforts in the SMDC, Adam Renslo, PhD, leads the SMDC's medicinal chemistry work.

Multidisciplinary Approach

"The challenge of fragment-based drug discovery is that to an extraordinary degree it is really a multidisciplinary operation," Arkin notes. "It requires expertise in protein expression, biophysics, structural biology, computational chemistry and synthetic biology. What's great about UCSF is that we have experts in all of those areas who are interested specifically in fragment-based drug discovery. UCSF's collaborative culture is also critical."

In addition to Wells and Arkin, UCSF members of the NCI consortium include the following scientists who envision the formation of a larger multi-investigator, multi-laboratory Fragment Discovery Center that is organized through the SMDC:

School of Pharmacy

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry:

• Thomas James, PhD, structural biology
• Mark Kelly, PhD, structural biology
• Brian Shoichet, PhD, computational chemistry
• Matthew Jacobson, PhD, computational chemistry
• Adam Renslo, PhD, medicinal chemistry

School of Medicine

Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics:

• Robert Stroud, PhD, structural biology
• Robert Fletterick, PhD, structural biology

Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology

• Jack Taunton, PhD, medicinal chemistry

In Short:

The UCSF School of Pharmacy will lead a UCSF research collaboration, under the National Cancer Institute, to use small molecules to "search" the surface of cells for possible new "druggable" sites. The goal is to develop whole new classes of drugs to target cancer.

Contributed by Jeffrey Norris

Acknowledgement:

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal Funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, under SAIC-Frederick, Inc's Prime Contract No. HHSN261200800001E. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Media Inquiries:

Kristen Bole

UCSF Pubic Affairs

kbole@pubaff.ucsf.edu

415-476-2557

UCSF School of Pharmacy researchers and colleagues have successfully created a mathematical model that genetically programs bacteria and causes the bacteria to "trace" images projected onto them in a petrie dish. The bacteria sense and display the area of the projection where light meets dark by producing a visible black pigment. The result is the "tracing" of a projected picture, from the profile of Alfred Hitchcock to the outline of a five-pointed star. The model is applied using many genetic circuits.

The work shows that it is possible to string tens or hundreds of genes together to engineer cells to perform very complex tasks, such as self assembling into a liver or swimming through the bloodstream to hunt and kill tumors. The paper that presents this research appeared in Cell on June 26, 2009 and builds upon the researchers' previous success in engineering E. coli bacteria to act as a film that is capable of "taking" a photograph.

Lead author of the paper is postdoctoral scholar Jeffrey Tabor, PhD, who works in the in the laboratory of corresponding author and School of Pharmacy faculty member Christopher Voigt, PhD. Co authors in the Voigt laboratory are postdoctoral scholar Howard Salis, PhD, and PhD graduate student Anselm Levskaya. Fellow members of the team are scientists from the University of Texas, Austin.

The work was cited in Popular Science, September 21, 2009.

Research Paper:

A Synthetic Genetic Edge Detection Program, Cell, June 26, 2009

More:

Genetically Engineered Bacteria Etch Famous Faces Into a Petrie Dish, Popular Science online, September 21, 2009

UCSF School of Pharmacy researcher Lisa Bero, PhD, served with UCSF School of Medicine colleagues Bernard Lo, MD, and Deborah Grady, MD, MPH, on an Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee that in spring 2009 published its findings on conflict of interest in medical research, education, and practice.

The report states that while collaborations between physicians or medical researchers and pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotechnology companies can benefit society, financial ties between medicine and industry may create conflicts of interest. Furthermore, these conflicts may jeopardize the integrity of scientific investigations, the objectivity of medical education, the quality of patient care, and the public's trust in medicine. Lo chaired the IOM committee.

Committee recommendations include the following:

• Medical institutions should establish conflict of interest policies that require disclosure and management of both individual and institutional financial ties to industry.
• Congress should create a national reporting program that requires pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotechnology companies to make public all payments to physicians, researchers, health care institutions, professional societies, patient advocacy and disease groups, and providers of continuing medical education.
• As a general rule, researchers should not conduct research involving human participants if they have a financial interest in the outcome of the research, for example, if they hold a patent on an intervention being tested in a clinical trial.

Committee Report

Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice - April 28, 2009

Report Brief

Report Brief: Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice - April 2009 (PDF, 4 pages, 725 KB)

Mitra Assemi, PharmD, UCSF School of Pharmacy associate professor of clinical pharmacy, has been named the School's assistant dean for accreditation and quality, effective September 1, 2009.

"Mitra has the perfect qualifications for this pivotal position. She understands the complexities of the PharmD program and its delivery. She is a remarkable teacher, a superb leader, is extremely well organized, and always thinks ahead," remarked Dean Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD, who made the appointment. "She is a great addition to the School's impressive roster of deans."

Accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education is essential for the viability of School's program and funding, explained Koda-Kimble. "Full accreditation is not easy to attain, and the standards are extremely high," she commented. "While we have been accredited at each 6-year review cycle, the process is demanding and involves the entire faculty. Mitra will stay on top of the accreditation standards, monitor changes in the review process, and ensure a smooth review."

Assemi will work with Cynthia Watchmaker, MEd, MBA, UCSF School of Pharmacy director and associate dean, Office of Student and Curricular Affairs (OSACA), to ensure the accomplishment of any program improvement plans outlined by the School in its own written self assessment during accreditation periods. She will also work with Watchmaker as OSACA takes on responsibility for both collecting the specific PharmD program data required for accreditation and directing the results to appropriate committees and other School bodies if program improvement is needed.

"I very much look forward to this new role," explained Assemi. "While the School goes through a complete accreditation review every 6 years, the ongoing accreditation work that underpins our PharmD program ensures that our curriculum continues as the best in the nation, remains fresh, and produces pharmacy leaders who are agents of change. Our graduates are creating better ways to deliver pharmacy services and shaping the future of pharmacy patient care for the world. Though it is a large and daunting responsibility, it's an honor to serve the School in this capacity through this new appointment."

Assemi is the program director of the UCSF School of Pharmacy education site in Fresno, California. She is a diabetes practitioner focused on culturally and linguistically appropriate care; accomplished teacher; veteran of curriculum design and assessment, recruitment and development of volunteer faculty, student mentoring and career counseling, and outreach to underrepresented and socioeconomically disadvantaged youth in California's Central San Joaquin Valley.

Assemi is also a 1997 graduate of the UCSF Doctor of Pharmacy program, which continues to rank as number one among PharmD degree programs in the United States according to results of a survey conducted in 2007 and published online on March 26, 2008 by U.S. News & World Report.

Donald Kishi, PharmD, UCSF School of Pharmacy health sciences clinical professor of pharmacy, has been named the School's associate dean of student and curricular affairs by Dean Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD. The appointment was effective September 1, 2009.

As associate dean, Kishi is responsible for ensuring that the doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) academic program is delivered exceptionally well and assessed continually. He also oversees the academic health and progress of individual PharmD program students and serves as a key mentor to the School's pharmacy students through the day they graduate.

"I can think of no other faculty member in our School who is in a better position to take on these important responsibilities," said Koda-Kimble. "Don has been on the faculty since he earned his PharmD here in 1968. During this time, he helped shape the role of the clinical pharmacist and the clinical curriculum, served as deputy director of pharmaceutical services and vice chair of the department of clinical pharmacy, directed the clinical pharmacy residency program, and taught many courses."

Kishi's teaching covers the spectrum of professional courses, from introductory and advanced pharmacy practice experiences to pharmacy administration, and from study design to therapeutics. During his academic career at UCSF, Kishi estimates that he has taught and mentored more than 4,000 pharmacy students and 500 pharmacy residents.

Kishi's current interests include faculty mentoring, cultural diversity, health care disparities, pharmacy practice and education in Japan, pharmacists' roles in preventive medicine and health care promotion, and the professionalism of student pharmacists.

"When the dean asked to see me, given all of the budgetary turmoil, I was anticipating that it might be time to exit stage left and retire! Instead, she asked me to consider this position, and I was elated." Kishi explained. "I have had the opportunity to work with Associate Dean Cindy Watchmaker and her great Office of Student and Curricular Affairs staff through admissions interviews, orientation for new students, and white coat ceremonies, and I look forward to continuing and growing those relationships.

"With respect to our individual students and student organizations, they are the best in the country, and they have worked hard to achieve the awards and other recognitions that they have so rightly earned. Given the difficulty of our curriculum, my goal will be to mentor them toward working smarter, not harder, to not only maintain, but achieve, more of their already nationally recognized community service and professional leadership goals. So, am I happy about this appointment, yes!"

Kishi brings to the position additional experience as an active member of the UCSF campus, including service to the UCSF Medical Center and to Academic Senate committees. He has served as president and board of trustees member of the School's Pharmacy Alumni Association. He has been very involved with the California Society of Health-System Pharmacists (CSHP), having served as its president and on various committees and task forces. In 1989, Kishi was named by CSHP as Pharmacist of the Year. In 2001 he received CSHP's Distinguished Service Award. He has served on the board of directors as well as on several councils and task forces of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. He has been active, as well, on committees and task forces of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

"Don's professional experience is trumped only by his professional wisdom," says Koda-Kimble.

Kishi will work closely with Cynthia Watchmaker, MEd, MBA, associate dean and director of the Office of Student and Curricular Affairs who administers the School's PharmD program.

The PharmD program offered by the UCSF School of Pharmacy continues to rank as number one among doctor of pharmacy degree programs in the United States according to results of a survey conducted in 2007 and published online on March 26, 2008 by U.S. News & World Report.

UCSF researchers have identified the two key circuits, compared to hundreds as previously thought, that control a cell's ability to adapt to changes in its environment. These circuits are key to a cell's ability to reset itself after responding to a stimulus. Since disruption of the circuitry can lead to diseases such as diabetes and autoimmune diseases, the research results could help scientists better understand these diseases and create therapeutics to readjust underlying biological networks.

The lead author of the paper detailing this discovery is Wenzhe Ma (pictured), Li Foundation Fellow, and visiting scholar from Peking University in the laboratory of co-senior author Chao Tang, PhD, UCSF Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences in the UCSF Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine. Co-senior author is Wendell Lim, Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, UCSF School of Medicine. Co-authors are postdoctoral scholar Ala Trusina, Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, and faculty member Hana El-Samad, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, UCSF School of Medicine. Results appeared online on August 21, 2009 in Cell.

Image credit (whiteboard background): © majedphoto.com

Full Story:

UCSF researchers identify two key pathways in adaptive response

Research Paper:

Defining Network Topologies that Can Achieve Biochemical Adaptation, Cell, August 21, 2009

A team of scientists from UCSF and colleagues have identified a new potential drug target for the herpes virus that causes Kaposi's sarcoma. Their research reopens the possibility of using a class of drugs called protease inhibitors, against diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer's Disease. This research was published online in Nature Chemical Biology, July 26, 2009. The lead author is Tina Shahian, UCSF Graduate Group in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Authors from the UCSF School of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, are senior author Charles Craik, PhD, Gregory Lee, and Ana Lazic. Other authors are colleagues from St. Judes Children's Research Hospital.

Full Story:

UCSF researchers identify new drug target for Kaposi's Sarcoma

Research Paper

Inhibition of a viral enzyme by a small-molecule dimer disruptor, Nature Chemical Biology, July 26, 2009

Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, dean of the UCSF School of Pharmacy, shares her life story, passion for clinical pharmacy, and leadership philosophy in this July 29, 2009 video.

Watch:

Voices - Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD

A new medication management service in Fresno, California is now scheduling patient appointments to begin September 1, 2009. The UCSF Medication Management Service, Fresno helps California Central Valley health care providers select the best medications for their patients' needs and circumstances and helps patients increase their ability to access and manage their medications. The service is run by clinical pharmacists who are faculty members in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy, UCSF School of Pharmacy. The service is open to patients of all income levels. Staff members are experts in all aspects of medication management, as well as in access to special programs that offer medications to qualified patients at no cost.

Image credit: © David Powers, 2001

Full Story:

UCSF launches medication consultation service in Fresno

Synthetic biologist and UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Christopher Voigt, PhD, and Jeffrey Tabor, a postdoctoral scholar in Voigt's laboratory, discuss the field and promise of synthetic biology in this July 21, 2009 KQED television segment.

Image credit: © majedphoto.com

Video:

QUEST on KQED Public Media.

Source:

QUEST: Decoding Synthetic Biology

Tejal Desai, PhD, UCSF School of Pharmacy and Medicine faculty member, was chosen in January 2009 as a 2009 Emerging Scholar in Physiology by Diverse Issues in Higher Education, which is a news source, founded in 1984, that gathers and shares information to promote the higher education of people of color and underrepresented minority groups. Desai is an bioengineer who focuses on the design, fabrication, and use of advanced micro/nano biosystems.

Image credit: © majedphoto.com

Full Story:

Emerging Scholars, Physiology, 'The Picture Perfect' Inventor

Dorie Apollonio, PhD, UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member and political science and health policy expert, received, with co-authors, the inaugural Best Article prize for 2007 - 2008 from the journal, Regulation & Governance. In their report, the authors test and then counter the widely held expectation that regulators can more effectively target serious violations when they have a broader array of sanctioning options in their enforcement arsenal. The researchers studied the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) during a period when the FEC received an expansion in its sanctioning options. They found that the FEC was not better able to focus on the most serious violations after receiving a broader array of sanctions.

Research Paper:

Wheat from Chaff: Third Party Monitoring and FEC Enforcement Actions, Regulation & Governance (2008), Volume 2, Issue 2

UCSF scientists from the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences and UCSF School of Pharmacy Dean Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD, spoke on June 23, 2009 about how their research is aiming to make therapeutics sophisticated, highly effective, and tailored to the different needs of individuals. The audience for their luncheon presentation in downtown San Francisco included advisers to clients engaged in making gift decisions related to estate planning.

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Full Story:

Making Intelligent Therapeutics

Layoff notices are predicted by mid-July 2009 for California Poison Control System employees unless adequate funding for the System is both included in a new California state budget and a new budget is soon passed by the state legislature.

Full Story:

California Poison Control System Faces Layoffs, Closure

William Soller, PhD, UCSF faculty member and expert on food and drug law and regulations comments on the June 30, 2009 vote of a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee to lower the US maximum over-the-counter dose of acetaminophen and make the current maximum single dose of the drug be available by prescription only. Soller's research on acetaminophen was included as part of the advisory committee's deliberations.

Full Story:

FDA Crackdown on Acetaminophen

UCSF Clinical Pharmacy Study Is Part of FDA Acetaminophen Deliberations

More:

FDA Advises Lower Dosage for Popular Painkiller

June 29-30, 2009: Joint Meeting of the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee with the Anesthetic and Life Support Drugs Advisory Committee and the Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee Meeting Announcement

Acetaminophen and Liver Injury: Q and A for Consumers

Poison experts nationally are tracking the fate of the California Poison Control System, as California state legislators work to pass an already overdue budget. Operation of the System is dependent upon sufficient state funding, the prospects for which remain bleak.

Full Story:

Poison Control Centers May Be Budget Victims

Candy Tsourounis, PharmD, UCSF School of Pharmacy clinical faculty member and expert on integrative and complementary therapies, was chosen to participate in an international practicum on dietary supplement research. The June 1-5, 2009 course was attended by 80 university faculty members and graduate students and held in Bethesda, Maryland.

Image credit: Flickr: Andrei Z - by-nc-sa-2.0 license

Reprint June 5, 2009
National Institutes of Health
Office of Dietary Supplements

University of California, San Francisco Clinical Pharmacy Professor Participates in NIH Dietary Supplement Research Practicum 2009

Candy Tsourounis, PharmD, professor in the University of California, San Francisco Department of Clinical Pharmacy, joined more than 80 other professors and graduate students from universities throughout the U.S. and around the world to participate in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) course, "Dietary Supplement Research Practicum 2009." The Practicum was held on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, June 1-5, 2009.

ODS offers this annual intensive course to provide essential knowledge of dietary supplements to academic faculty and their doctoral or post-doctoral students with a serious interest in this subject. Experts from NIH, academic institutions, and Federal regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) served as speakers.

The ODS practicum provides a thorough overview of issues, concepts, unknowns, and controversies about dietary supplements and supplement ingredients. It also emphasizes the importance of scientific investigations to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and value of these products for health promotion and disease prevention and treatment, as well as how to carry out this type of research.

On Wednesday, June 3rd, participants spent the day in Washington, D.C., to meet with representatives from the U.S. Congress, the dietary supplement industry, media, and consumer advocacy groups that study, advocate, regulate, or educate about dietary supplements.