Milestones

May 2013

This page describes milestones reached in the strategic plan Pressing Ahead in New Directions: Strategic Course 2007-2012.

The UCSF School of Pharmacy continues to excel in accomplishing its goals during this strategic plan cycle. The current plan originally dated to cover 2007-2012 was extended through December 2013 and subsequently through December 2014 to allow a new dean, appointed in April 2013, time to develop the next plan together with the faculty.

Background

While accomplishing our plans, UCSF and the School faced substantial budget challenges, most notably due to extensive budget cuts from the State of California and the need to finance unfunded mandates for retirement and cost-of-living increases.

Regardless, the UCSF School of Pharmacy:

  • Continues to increase research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) across all three departments.
  • Remains the recipient of more research funding from the NIH than any other pharmacy school in the nation.
  • Remains the top-ranked Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program in the United States.
  • Remains highly competitive for the top PharmD and PhD student applicants and postdoctoral scholars.

Administratively during this strategic plan period, the School:

  • Participated fully in the creation of a Long Range Development Plan for the campus, which includes School aspirations for the next 30 years.
  • Created, along with campus unit peers, first-ever business plan goals that both align with the School's mission and aim to increase revenue to the School.
  • Centralized the School's PharmD education administrative functions to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Downsized contracts and grants and human resources staff in concert with campus plans to centralize these functions and increase administrative efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Created a management position to harness and optimize the use of academic, administrative, and research information technology, and to increase efficiency and effectiveness across the breadth of what we do in the School.
  • Developed the technical framework for a contemporary School of Pharmacy online presence, including integrated websites across the School; launched a comprehensive overhaul of web content; and began using analytics and "listening" tools to inform communications strategies.
  • Dissolved its Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences and united with the School of Medicine to create a new joint department, the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, and appointed department co-chairs.
  • Appointed a scientist with pharmaceutical industry expertise as chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.
  • Transitioned after the retirement of the dean to the administration of an interim dean, while recruiting for the permanent position.

Amid these School changes and substantial changes on campus-including the recruitment and hire of a new chancellor, the appointment of campus leadership within the chancellor's office, and major transformations in the ways UCSF carries out its administrative operations as a whole-the School's accomplishment of its 2007-2012 plans proceeds without pause during this extension period.

Examples of major accomplishments appear below. Accomplishments often relate to more than one goal but are presented below just once under the goal to which each is most closely aligned.

Goal 1: Create a new framework for drug discovery and development

Amplify and integrate our expertise in chemistry, physics, and math to more deeply understand health and disease

Advance our understanding of protein structure and function; discover failures in biological systems that are associated with complex diseases; deploy the power of computation to make sense of vast quantities of biological and pharmaceutical data

Milestones

  • Recruited and hired new faculty physicists (Adam Abate, PhD; Xiaokun Shu, PhD) and new faculty members with chemistry expertise (Michael Fischbach, PhD; William Degrado, PhD; Zev Gartner, PhD; Bo Huang, PhD; Danica Fujimori, PhD) to amplify our expertise in the physical sciences.
  • Hired faculty members with mathematical research programs (Ryan Hernandez, PhD, whose research is in computational genomics; Rada Savic, PhD, whose research is in pharmacometrics).
  • Let the formation of the Quantitative Biosciences Consortium to facilitate PhD training in the quantitative biosciences at UCSF. This umbrella graduate group involves five major graduate programs: Bioengineering, Biological and Medical Informatics, Biophysics, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics.

Create new research tools

Apply nanoscience to develop tools and devices to diagnose and treat diseases; develop small molecules to probe biological processes and serve as therapeutic agents; develop advanced computational tools that will transform understanding of living systems; use physical methods to understand normal and pathological biological processes at the molecular level

Milestones

  • Created the Small Molecule Discovery Center to assist UC researchers in the identification of small molecules that modulate biochemical or cellular processes and have the potential to alter disease states.
  • Was selected to lead a UCSF research collaboration under the National Cancer Institute to use small molecules to "search" the surfaces of cells for possible new "druggable" sites. The goal is to develop whole new classes of drugs to target cancer.
  • Chosen as one of three renal device projects nationwide to pilot a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory approval program called Innovation Pathway 2.0. The Kidney Project at UCSF is creating an implantable bioartificial kidney under the national leadership of Shuvo Roy, PhD, Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences. The program will involve close contact among the FDA and device developers early in the development process, in order to identify and address potential scientific and regulatory hurdles and create a roadmap for project approval. The goal is to improve the projects' overall chance of success and maintain safety, while reducing the time and cost of FDA review.
  • Created the Biomedical Microdevices Laboratory to apply microelectromechanical systems (the microelectronics, microfabrication, and micromachining technologies known collectively as MEMS) and associated nanotechnologies to clinical applications such as surgical instruments, tissue repair, artificial organs, diagnostic tools, and drug delivery systems.
  • Created the Therapeutic Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory for the design, fabrication, and use of advanced micro/nano biosystems for cellular integration and tissue engineering, biomimetic architectures for functional biomaterials, and therapeutic drug targeting and delivery.
  • Created a suite of computational tools that can be licensed (or are freely available) and used in drug discovery programs. These tools include a new version of DOCK and SEA (Similarity Ensemble Approach) from the laboratory of Brian Shoichet, PhD; Modeller and ModBase from the laboratory of Andrej Sali, PhD; and MutInf from the laboratory of Matt Jacobson, PhD.
  • Through a grant from the National Institutes of Health, began building the UCSF Antibiome Center. The build involves assembling an automated "production factory" that, along with facilities at the Universities of Chicago and Toronto (a consortium dubbed the Recombinant Antibody Network), will make antibodies that selectively bind to all of the approximately 1,500 human transcription factors-proteins that bind to DNA sequences and control the flow of genetic information that generates new proteins inside cells. The Network's antibodies will be a resource for all researchers studying transcription factors and gene regulation. They also may be developed as diagnostic tools and new pharmaceutical agents.
  • Co-led the cross-disciplinary Pediatric Device Consortium to guide the invention of new medical devices for children.
  • Acquired and applied a Thermo-Fisher LTQ Orbitrap Velos mass spectrometer to monitoring and measuring the molecular kaleidoscope of the human proteome.

Find new approaches to therapeutics discovery and delivery

Expand our ability to predict therapeutic effectiveness based on genetic profiles; use chip technology to evaluate how drugs will act in the body; find better ways to deliver drugs and novel therapies to targeted disease sites in the body

Milestones

  • Supported the exploration of promising new research areas, including: high-throughput biology using microfluidics, advanced light microscopy, pharmacometrics, de novo protein design, design of genetically engineered encoded probes for multicolor whole-body imaging, computational genomics, design of cellular networks, application of microelectromechanical systems to the development of therapeutics, enzymatic features responsible for the development of antibiotic resistance, and polypharmacology.
  • Launched the Center for Quantitative Pharmacology to accelerate predictive drug development. Recruited and hired an expert in pharmacometrics (Rada Savic,PhD). Began rebuilding the School's quantitative pharmacology leadership.

Goal 2: Ensure that more patients get the best results from their medications

Make the promise of personalized medicine a reality

Discover genetic factors that affect drug response; apply pharmacogenomics knowledge to patient care and improved clinical trial design

Milestones

  • Identified ethnic-specific alleles that modify response to anti-asthmatic drugs.
  • Identified genetic variants that associate with reduced response to anti-diabetes drugs and toxicities in anti-cancer drugs.

Find new ways for pharmacists to help patients make the best use of medicines

Design and validate new pharmacy practice models; extend new pharmacy practice models across the continuum of care; create new ways for pharmacists to improve the health of patients on complex drug therapies

Milestones

  • Established research-based, innovative pharmacy care models in ambulatory and community practice settings in the areas of HIV, chronic diseases (such as diabetes and asthma), pediatric oncology, and for elderly patients as they transition out of the hospital. Faculty members are providing pharmacy care in a variety of ambulatory care settings, including clinics that serve the underserved. New technological methods to provide care, such as telepharmacy, are being tested.
  • Initiated a California statewide research project focused on the Medicare Part D benefit. The program involved all California pharmacy schools and applied peer-to-peer teaching across the health disciplines, with student pharmacists leading Medicare Part D counseling sessions in the community.

Minimize medication errors and adverse events

Develop leadership in health systems pharmacy; create and test approaches in the hospital and community to curtail adverse events; evaluate risk in medication use systems and develop ways to reduce risk with technology; identify genetic variants that make individuals susceptible to adverse drug reactions

Milestones

  • Created a Medication Outcomes Center to assess the value of medication-related health care interventions by conducting quality medication-related research and evidence-based medication use analyses, evaluating pharmaceutical models of care, and contributing to continuous quality improvement. The aim is to help implement value-added strategies and improve patient outcomes within the Medical Center and its affiliated institutions.
  • Partnered with the UCSF Medical Center in its successful as an NIH Center of Excellence in Pain Education. This designation is an interprofessional collaboration. School faculty pharmacists will educate health professional students about pain to achieve newly developed pain education competencies.
  • Identified genetic variants that are important determinants of paclitaxel toxicity in women with breast cancer.

Help meet the pharmacy needs of the underserved in our world

Extend pharmacy services to underserved in California; find ways to extend pharmacy care to underserved and underinsured people who might not have access to pharmacists

Milestones

  • Created pharmacist-based medication therapy management services for indigent and underserved patients at a variety of settings, such as Glide Memorial Church and the Saint Anthony Free Medical Clinic.
  • Developed a pharmaceutical care clinic at San Francisco General Hospital.
  • Assisted uninsured and underinsured patients with obtaining medications through patient assistance programs and helped with Medicare Part D plan selection.
  • Established the Medication Management Service in Fresno, where a faculty pharmacist helps California Central Valley health care providers optimally select their patients' medications and helps patients increase their ability to access and manage their medications.

Steer policy that affects health sciences research and health care

Extend research on national and global health policy issues; advance understanding of health care decision making; engage stakeholders around significant health policy issues; increase leadership in national and international health and science organizations

Milestones

  • Received the first major grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to launch a research center on health policy issues related to personalized medicine and pharmacogenomics, specifically related to the wider use of medical tests and treatments based on individual genetics. The NCI grant, along with foundation grants, forms the nexus of the newly established Center for Translational and Policy Research on Personalized Medicine.
  • Joined faculty colleagues campuswide in supporting the launch of the UCSF Center for Healthcare Value (CHV) and continued to participate actively in the center's many initiatives. CHV seeks to establish a new framework for delivering evidence-based, high-quality healthcare at lower cost and to develop a national model for the role of academic medicine in increasing healthcare value.

During 2007-present, the School's faculty members were honored for their leadership, receiving major awards and memberships, including:

  • Paul Parker Award, ACCP (American College of Clinical Pharmacy), Mary Anne Koda-Kimble
  • Outstanding Dean Award, APhA (American Pharmacists Association), Mary Anne Koda-Kimble
  • Fellows, APhA, (American Pharmacists Association) Robert Day, Glenn Yokoyama, Sharon L. Youmans
  • Member, NAS (National Academy of Sciences), Ken Dill
  • Unbiased Medical Expert, BJM, Lisa Bero
  • Fellow, AAPS (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Deanna Kroetz
  • Paul Ehrlich Magic Bullet Lifetime Achievement Award, DPhG and ISAP (German Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the International Society of Anti-Infective Pharmacology), Leslie Benet
  • Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award, ASCPT (American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics), Kathy Giacomini
  • Henry Elliott Distinguished Service Award, ASCPT (American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics), Carl Peck
  • Member, ASCI (American Society of Clinical Investigation), Esteban G. Burchard
  • Emerging Scholar Award, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, Tejal Desai
  • Top Ten Life Science Innovations (spatiotemporal control of cell signaling using a light-switchable protein interaction), The Scientist, Christopher Voigt, Anselm Levskaya, Wendall Lim, Orion Weiner
  • Top Scientific Breakthrough (polypharmacy prediction), Wired Science, Michael J. Keiser, Vincent Setola, John J. Irwin, Christian Laggner, Atheir I. Abbas, Sandra J. Hufeisen, Niels H. Jensen, Michael B. Kuijer, Roberto C. Matos, Thuy B. Tran, Ryan Whaley, Richard A. Glennon, Jérôme Hert, Kelan L. H. Thomas, Douglas D. Edwards, Brian K. Shoichet, Bryan L. Roth
  • Hall of Fame, CPhA (California Pharmacists Association), Robert Day
  • Jane Boggess Advancement of Pharmacy Practice Award, Pharmacy Foundation of California, Marilyn Stebbins, Helene Levens Lipton
  • California Innovative Pharmacist of the Year, CPhA (California Pharmacists Association), Marilyn Stebbins
  • ASBMB-Merck Award (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), James Wells
  • Remington Honor Medal, APhA (American Pharmacists Association), Mary Anne Koda-Kimble
  • Robert K. Chalmers Distinguished Educator Award, ACCP (American College of Clinical Pharmacy), Mary Anne Koda-Kimble
  • Oscar B. Hunter Memorial Award in Therapeutics, ASCPT (American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics), Leslie Benet
  • New Innovator Award, NIH (National Institutes of Health), Michael Fischbach, Bo Huang, Xiaokun Shu
  • Therapeutic Frontiers Lecture Award, ACCP (American College of Clinical Pharmacy), Kathy Giacomini
  • Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, The Packard Foundation, Bo Huang
  • Fellow, AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), Charles S. Craik
  • Scheele Award, SAPS (Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Kathy Giacomini
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb Smissman Award, ACS (American Chemical Society, Division of Medicinal Chemistry), James Wells
  • The Albert B. Prescott / Glaxo SmithKline Pharmacy Leadership Awards, APhA (American Pharmacists Association), Timothy Cutler, Conan MacDougall
  • Searle Scholars (Estates of John G. and Frances C. Searle), Danica Fujimori, Bo Huang
  • Dawson Biotechnology Award, AACP (American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy), Tejal Desai
  • R.T. Williams Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award, ISSX (International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics), Paul Ortiz de Montellano
  • Pharmacist of the Year, CSHP (California Society of Health-System Pharmacists), Peter Ambrose
  • BayBio Pantheon Award, BayBio, Shuvo Roy
  • Honorary Membership, FIP, International Pharmaceutical Federation, Leslie Benet
  • Dr. Rainer Hoffman Product Through Science Award, AAPS, Francis Szoka
  • Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award, UCSF, B. Joseph Guglielmo
  • Outstanding Faculty Mentorship Award, UCSF Graduate Division, Sarah Nelson

Goal 3: Shape the future of pharmacy science, policy, education, and patient care by working in fresh and collaborative ways

Mesh scientific and academic disciplines in new ways

Fully integrate engineering into our therapeutics work; participate fully in UCSF's Clinical Translational Science Institute

Milestones

  • Created the UCSF Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, which focuses on speeding the innovation of medicines and medical devices to "intelligent" therapeutics. The new department is a union of the former Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences in the School of Pharmacy and the Program in Bioengineering in the School of Medicine. It is a joint department between the Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine.
  • Assumed leadership roles in the development of the Center for Translational Science Institute (CTSI) by, for example, co-directing CTSI's new UCSF Strategic Opportunities Support Center to fund and carry forward the translation of research studies into clinical and human studies and eventually into community practice.
  • Created a new associate dean position for external scientific affairs and appointed its first holder. The position is charged with cultivating and moving forward specific, mutually beneficial research partnerships between the School and business entities outside the School, primarily in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
  • Organized regular meetings between UCSF faculty members and industry scientific leaders of the larger Bay Area biotechnology community. Work has led to numerous university-industry collaborations including those with Johnson and Johnson, Amgen, Genentech, and Bayer.
  • Brought together a venture capital company and several faculty members—a collaboration that led to the founding of the startup company Global Blood Therapeutics, which completed Series A financing and is sponsoring research at UCSF.
  • Sponsored a yearly Bay Area Biotechnology Symposium, during which the program's industry affiliates present their companies' research to a large group of university and public attendees.
  • Led, through the appointment of two consecutive directors, the California Institute of Quantitative Biosciences at UCSF, which aims to apply the quantitative sciences to a better, integrated understanding of biological systems at all levels of complexity.
  • Collaborated with the UCSF School of Medicine and the UC Berkeley Department of Bioengineering in the launch of a Master of Translational Medicine degree program.

Prepare more clinical scientists

Articulate a clear path for PharmD students who wish to pursue research or an academic career; establish a post-PharmD clinical pharmacology and therapeutics research training fellowship program; increase the number of clinical faculty members prepared to do National Institutes of Health-level research

Milestones

  • Hired clinical scientists who can compete for federal funding and serve as faculty mentors for PharmD students.
  • Congratulated clinical faculty members who each received an NIH Clinical Research Career Development Award (K Award): Janel Long-Boyle, PharmD, PhD; Jennifer Cocohoba PharmD; Kirby Lee, PharmD; Kathy Yang, PharmD.
  • Congratulated clinical faculty members who each completed the UCSF Masters Degree Program in Clinical Research: Jennifer Cocohoba, PharmD; Kirby Lee, PharmD; Conan MacDougall, PharmD.
  • Provided the resources to allow clinical faculty members Kathy Yang, PharmD, and Janel Long-Boyle, PharmD, PhD, to receive analytical assistance from the School's Drug Studies Unit for pilot studies, which in turn helped them receive NIH funding.
  • Congratulated clinical faculty member Kathy Yang, PharmD, who received an NIH Research Project Grand Program (R01) award and Janel Long-Boyle, PharmD, PhD, who received an NIH Mentored Career Development (KL2) award.

Advance interprofessional learning and practice among student pharmacists, physicians, nurses, dentists, and physical therapists

Create and support multi-professional teams of faculty members who are dedicated to designing interdisciplinary curricular opportunities among all four professional schools; develop opportunities for peer-to-peer teaching among heath professional students

Milestones

  • Created an associate dean position for teaching and learning and appointed its first holder. The position is charged with promoting contemporary ways of teaching that will both meet the rapidly changing learning needs of PharmD professional students and also maintain the School's national and international leadership role in education. The promotion of interprofessional learning is a key position responsibility.
  • Implemented a California statewide outreach initiative that reaches into the community and provides seniors with one-on-one Medicare Part D counseling. The program served as a model of collaboration among health professionals as student pharmacists taught health professional peers and practitioners about the benefit.
  • Began working aggressively to promote interprofessional education. Participated in the UCSF Center for Innovation in Interprofessional Education, which was launched in January 2012. Joined UCSF's professional programs in a series of defined interprofessional experiences including all first-year learners.
  • Assumed leadership in teaching pharmacology in UCSF's nursing, dental, and physical therapy professional programs.
  • Partnered with the UCSF-affiliated Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency Program to develop collaborative interprofessional models of care for pharmacy students in North Bay Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) sites in community health centers and community hospitals. Family medicine faculty members have served as preceptors for student pharmacists working with family medicine residents and UCSF medical students.

Prepare our doctor of pharmacy students to be leaders and agents of change

Test and apply new teaching methods; broaden our students' experiences in novel health care practice settings; increase our students' exposure to new ways of thinking, new developments, and new trends; continually assess our curriculum to ensure it is timely, integrated, and relevant.

Milestones

  • Created an associate dean position for accreditation and quality improvement and appointed its first holder. The position is responsible for ensuring that the School continually assesses its PharmD program through the collection and evaluation of specific program data, and by ensuring that any improvements to the program, which might be required by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) as part of the School's accreditation process, are completed and reported back to ACPE.
  • Developed a Programmatic Evaluation Plan for the School (to assess progress related to the School's stated mission) and a PharmD Evaluation Plan for the PharmD curriculum within the School, both of which aim to significantly change the School's approach to assessment.
  • Revised the PharmD educational outcomes-or "terminal competencies"-that describe the abilities of the School's PharmD graduates. This was a significant revision using an evidence-based and best practices approach.
  • Developed milestones for PharmD educational outcomes that will allow the School to track students' achievements of competencies along a gradient as they proceed through the curriculum.
  • Brought E*Value online for its use in the PharmD program. E*Value is a web-based application designed to provide evaluation, analysis, and reporting tools.
  • Led efforts and directly participated in evidence-based revision of assessment-related instruments for the PharmD curriculum (e.g., APPE Student Performance Evaluation form; APPE precepting and course evaluation forms; pathway project student, faculty, and course evaluation forms).
  • Implemented a scientific approach to the collection and analysis of assessment-related data (e.g., significantly changed the Graduating Senior Survey and how results are analyzed annually to highlight significant differences between pathways, APPE sites, and across cohorts of graduates; this approach is currently being translated and implemented with faculty, preceptor, and alumni-related assessment data).
  • Adopted Ilios 2.0, an open-source web application, to collect, manage, analyze, and deliver curricular information via the university's collaborative learning environment. Included all of the required didactic courses in the PharmD program in the system, which maps courses by session to programmatic outcomes as well as to accreditation standards. The program was created through a partnership between the School of Medicine and the Library and is an update of the program created and used by the UCSF SOM since 2002. Our PharmD program became the second UCSF program to use Ilios 2.0.
  • Applied the capture system (MediaSite) to record 19 required courses for the PharmD curriculum. The system records lectures during delivery for playback and review at the student's convenience.
  • Initiated studies to learn more about outcomes associated with the PharmD pathways, which were implemented in 1998. For example, the School completed a study of pathway alumni, 2002-2010.
  • Launched a revamp of the PharmD curriculum.

Strengthen the diversity of our faculty, students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff

Incorporate our commitment to diversity in the School's mission statement; centralize and coordinate the School's diversity agenda; increase the number of faculty, staff, PharmD and PhD students, postdoctoral residents and fellows from historically excluded and currently underrepresented populations

Milestones

  • Reaffirmed among the faculty a shared commitment to diversity and added a statement that captures this commitment to the School's mission statement: We achieve these goals within a culture of understanding, inclusion, equity, and respect. We recruit and support faculty members, staff, and students who are diverse in gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. We have a particular commitment to historically excluded populations who are currently underrepresented.
  • Created an associate dean of diversity position and appointed its first holder. The position is charged with establishing and communicating concrete diversity goals for the School; developing and implementing a plan to achieve the School's diversity goals; soliciting input from students, faculty, staff, and alumni through advisory groups or other forums; and coordinating outreach and recruitment initiatives within the School and with other health professional schools and campus units, as appropriate.
  • Implemented a holistic admissions review to ensure the consideration of applicants to the PharmD program includes the sum of their academic strengths, life experience, and potential for leadership in the profession and within underserved communities. This review has netted entering classes that are not only academically strong but also rich in diversity of perspectives, goals, and backgrounds.

  • Improved underrepresented minority (URM) enrollment in the PharmD program.

    Ethnicity 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

    Blk​/​African American

    0

    3

    3

    5

    9

    Span​/​Hisp​/​Latino

    7

    9

    13

    7

    7

    Filipino

    6

    5

    4

    4

    8

    American Indian

    0

    0

    0

    1

    3

    Total URM

    13

    17

    20

    17

    27

    % of class

    11%

    14%

    16%

    14%

    22%
  • Initiated a post-baccalaureate program, in conjunction with the Schools of Dentistry and Medicine, to provide academic and professional preparation for individuals from diverse backgrounds to support their successful applications to professional schools.
  • Created the Early Conditional Admissions Program (ECAP) to encourage eligible high school students from the California Central Valley to pursue pharmacy careers. ECAP participants are guaranteed early admission to UCSF's PharmD program if they meet certain criteria.

Extend our work globally

Modernize drug development and regulatory processes worldwide through courses that bring together pharmaceutical scientists and policy makers from around the globe; establish opportunities for scientific and academic collaboration with international colleagues; find new therapeutic approaches to treat emerging infectious diseases and common diseases in underdeveloped countries

Milestones

  • Created an associate dean of global affairs position and appointed its first holder. The position is charged with overseeing the School's relationships with the international community and with people and programs at UCSF involved in international work, assessing potential global partnerships and outreach on behalf of the dean, and advising on actions that support the School's mission and strategic plan. The position represents the School's international interests, both at UCSF and abroad.
  • Launched a two-year postgraduate course offered in both Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, CA, to give U.S. industry leaders, regulatory authorities, and universities the scope of knowledge needed to influence significant, broad-reaching improvements in the ways drugs and medical products are developed.
  • Collaborated in the launch of a course in China that ultimately aims to contribute to the improved quality and broader acceptance of Chinese pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical exports.
  • Congratulated faculty member Lisa Bero, PhD, who was named to represent The Cochrane Collaboration on the World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO). The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organization that promotes high-quality research and evidenced-based decisions about health care. The seat will allow the Collaboration to have input on the way research evidence is created and used by the WHO.
  • Congratulated faculty member Lisa Bero, PhD, who was named director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Pharmaceutical Research and Science Policy. The new center will be based in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy, where Bero is a faculty member and vice chair for research. The center seeks to combine high-quality academic research with WHO's political clout to remove roadblocks that prevent people in lower-income countries from receiving the most crucial and effective medications.
  • Celebrated with faculty member Kathy Giacomini, PhD, as she assumed leadership as the principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-led Global Alliance in Pharmacogenomics, Japan (GAP-J), a large multi-disciplinary collaboration among the Center for Genomic Medicine, RIKEN, Japan, and the NIH Pharmacogenomics Research Network.
  • Increased student participation in global health activities through the development of a structured and coordinated process for these activities, which extends across all three PharmD curriculum pathways. For example, students provided pharmacy leadership and participation in two medical missions to Honduras and participated in international advanced practice pharmacy experiences in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and the People's Republic of China.
  • Established agreements for cooperative education and research between the School and universities in Guatemala, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the People's Republic of China.
  • Faculty member Fran Aweeka, PharmD, worked with Ugandan colleagues in collaborative research in the area of HIV and malaria, in an effort to improve the care of patients with these diseases.
  • Faculty member Sharon L. Youmans, PharmD, continued a research project in Malawi to study the influence of spiritual leaders in HIV education and control.