2008 News

Wed Dec 17, 2008
Lindsey Elmore and Evan Clemens, student pharmacists from the UCSF School of Pharmacy, are national winners of the 2008 American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Clinical Skills Competition. The competition, which involves both a written and oral evaluation of a specific patient case, is...
Mon Dec 15, 2008
Deanna Kroetz, PhD, UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member, has been elected as a fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). Her election was announced during the November 2008 annual AAPS meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The AAPS confers the honor of fellow to recognize...
Mon Dec 15, 2008
Leslie Z. Benet, PhD, UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member, received the 2008 Paul Ehrlich Magic Bullet Lifetime Achievement Award at the Second World Conference on Magic Bullets, which convened in Nuremberg, Germany, in early October. The award recognized Benet's scientific accomplishments in...
Mon Dec 8, 2008
Research by UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Lisa Bero, PhD, and UCSF colleagues Kristen Rising, MD, and Peter Bacchetti, PhD, have found that the information that is readily available to health professionals in the scientific literature on clinical drug trials is incomplete and potentially...
Mon Dec 8, 2008
The path from scientific insight to a new drug used to treat patients is a long, expensive, inefficient, hazard-strewn obstacle course requiring many steps before the drug arrives at the pharmacy. Unfortunately, the specialists working at each of these steps do not necessarily have a clear vision...
Mon Dec 8, 2008
James Wells, PhD, chair, department of pharmaceutical chemistry in the UCSF School of Pharmacy, shares his thoughts on the need for increased public awareness about the ultimate value of science to health and the opportunities now presenting themselves to university scientists to become more...
Wed Oct 15, 2008
Scientists need to speak out now—as individuals and through advocacy groups—to educate the public about the importance of basic science research and to rally support for more funding, according to an October 3, 2008 editorial in Science. Authors of the editorial, James Wells, PhD, chair, department...
Mon Oct 13, 2008
The wider world use of medical tests and treatments based on individual genetic differences is the focus of a new, US$5 million research program funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and led by UCSF School of Pharmacy health economist Kathryn Phillips, PhD. The grant was awarded on...
Mon Sep 22, 2008
UCSF biophysics PhD student Gabriel Rocklin and Jacob Heller, Stanford University law student, were first-place winners, with a second team, of the Science, Technology and Engineering Policy (STEP) White Paper Competition 2008 sponsored by the STEP Policy Group at the University of California,...
Wed Aug 27, 2008
Parents need to be accountable for medications in the home and discard unused medications, according to UCSF School of Pharmacy volunteer faculty member and pain management specialist Peter Koo, PharmD. His comments were in response to an annual survey released this year on August 14, 2008 by the...
Fri Aug 15, 2008
Understanding protein folding is key to understanding what goes wrong in diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, that result when proteins misfold. UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty members Ken Dill, PhD, and Andrej Sali, PhD, comment on the history of and next steps in protein folding research.  ...
Fri Aug 1, 2008
Dear UCSF School of Pharmacy Family and Friends: Another academic year will soon begin. I can hardly believe it. We have barely caught our collective breath from last year—a year of intense preparation for the reaccreditation review of our Doctor of Pharmacy program and of launching our School...
Fri Jul 25, 2008
An international list of 100 independent medical experts to whom journalists can turn for unbiased advice on how to interpret research studies and data was published online by the British Journal of Medicine on July 23, 2008. Named on this list is UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Lisa Bero,...
Fri Jul 25, 2008
UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty members support a proposed City and County of San Francisco ordinance that would prohibit San Francisco pharmacies from selling tobacco products. "Everyone knows that tobacco kills," says UCSF School of Pharmacy Dean Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD. "There is no place...
Fri Jul 25, 2008
Historical underfunding of the UCSF School of Pharmacy, which has been exacerbated by successive California state budget cuts, threatens the School's ability to retain accreditation status of its doctor of pharmacy program, explains the School's dean, Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD. The School is...
Wed Jul 16, 2008
Lisa Bero, PhD, UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member, looks at the potential benefits, risks, and ethical issues of different corporate/academic funding models. She also calls for a research agenda aimed at clarifying the effects of these relationships on research integrity, faculty attitudes,...
Wed Jul 16, 2008
In this series of regular reports, Sharon L. Youmans, PharmD, MPH, faculty member in the UCSF School of Pharmacy, shares her personal story during her 3-week research stay in The Republic of Malawi in southeastern Africa. The goals of Youmans’ research project are to describe how religious groups...
Thu May 15, 2008
Through study results of a particular enzyme of unknown function, called Tm0936, that is found in a bacterium that lives in thermal vents in the Mediterranean Ocean, UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Brian Shoichet, PhD and colleagues are shedding light on how to ultimately better predict the...
Thu May 1, 2008
Ken Dill, PhD, professor and associate dean of research in the UCSF School of Pharmacy and international expert on theoretical approaches to determining how protein molecules fold, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). With this announcement, made by the Academy on Tuesday,...
Mon Apr 21, 2008
For the 29th consecutive year, the UCSF School of Pharmacy ranks first among US pharmacy schools in contract and grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), according to figures for fiscal year 2007. "The School's history of research funding success reflects its strength in both the...
Wed Apr 2, 2008
The UCSF School of Pharmacy continues to rank #1 among Doctor of Pharmacy (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. "Our success in rankings such as these has a lot to do...
Tue Apr 1, 2008
Strategic Course 2007-2012 "It is a plan that looks at today's medications and the needs of patients and lays out an agenda to meet those needs," says Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD, dean of the UCSF School of Pharmacy. She refers to the School's 5-year strategic plan Pressing Ahead in New...
Wed Mar 19, 2008
Marilyn Stebbins, PharmD, faculty member at the UCSF School of Pharmacy, was hired in 1996 by a 120-physician group practice to control the cost of prescribing. That work evolved into a model for cost effective medication therapy management (MTM) by pharmacists who work closely with physicians....
Tue Mar 18, 2008
UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty members and students were recognized with three honors at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) held March 14-17, 2008 in San Diego, California. Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD (image right), dean of the School received the 2008...
Mon Mar 3, 2008
James A. Wells, PhD, an internationally recognized biochemist and leader in the development of new technologies for engineering proteins and for identifying small molecules to aid drug discovery, has been named chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the UCSF School of Pharmacy. His...
Mon Mar 3, 2008
Dear UCSF School of Pharmacy Family and Friends: While writing this letter, I was reminded what an honor it is to lead this School. As you will see, the people taking us forward are beyond compare. Strategic plan I am excited to share with you our latest plan, Pressing Ahead in New Directions:...
Tue Feb 19, 2008
Sharon L. Youmans, PharmD, MPH, UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member, has been named to the new position of Associate Dean of Diversity. The appointment was announced February 7, 2008 by School of Pharmacy Dean Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD. Full story UCSF School of Pharmacy Names First...
Thu Jan 31, 2008
Brian Shoichet, PhD, School of Pharmacy faculty member and Brian Feng, PhD, former staff research associate with the School, and colleagues have discovered that many amyloid inhibitors, which scientists had hoped would keep "sticky" amyloid protein fibers such as those associated with Alzheimer's...
Wed Jan 23, 2008
B. Joseph Guglielmo, Jr., PharmD, School of Pharmacy chair of the department of clinical pharmacy, comments on the last line of defense to the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium that has now spread from hospitals to schools, gyms, homes and beyond through human-to-human...
Fri Jan 11, 2008
School of Pharmacy faculty member and computational biologist Andrej Sali, PhD, and international colleagues have developed new techniques to reveal the architecture of large protein complexes within cells. Their ultimate goal is to see how these complexes interact in real time—however fleeting the...