UCSF School of Pharmacy leads in NIH funding for the 43rd straight year

In 2022, and for the 43rd consecutive year, the UCSF School of Pharmacy received more research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) than any other pharmacy school in the country. School researchers netted $30,217,559 to fuel their efforts spanning drug discovery, bioengineering, pharmacokinetics, clinical pharmacy, and more.

The funds were comprised of 79 grants spread across the School’s Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, and Department of Clinical Pharmacy; the UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI), an Organized Research Unit in the School; as well as the UCSF-Stanford Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI), housed in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences.

UCSF as a whole received $823,760,533 million in NIH funds—setting a new record for the most NIH research dollars brought in by any public research institution in the U.S. in a single year.

School rankings are compiled by the independent Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research, based on the most current NIH data.

“Investment in public research is vital for pushing health care forward,” said Kathy Giacomini, PhD, BSPharm, dean of the School. “Our faculty continue to lead with their ideas, tools, and discoveries, and these grants ensure that this vital work can continue to break necessary ground across biomedicine.”

Top School recipients of NIH funds

Zev Gartner, PhD, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, $1,845,334

Zev Gartner, PhD, is studying the cellular organization of tissues in health and disease. He is applying insights from this work to lay a foundation for future drug and regenerative therapies.

Su Guo, PhD, Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, $1,805,138

Su Guo, PhD, is investigating how genes influence the development of the brain, with the ultimate goal of understanding a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Michelle Arkin, PhD, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, $1,631,378

Michelle Arkin, PhD, focuses on the development of drug-like molecules that alter important biological processes. These molecules will help us understand human biology and may lead to the design of new drugs.

Bo Huang, PhD, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, $1,367,089

Bo Huang, PhD, is applying modern microscopy techniques to follow the movement of proteins inside of cells, shedding light on how these processes influence cell biology.

Deanna Kroetz, PhD, Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, $1,251,751

Deanna Kroetz, PhD, seeks to understand the molecular basis of interindividual variation in drug response and toxicity, including genetic differences in chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy and other cancer drug phenotypes.

UCSF-Stanford CERSI unites science, industry, and government to speed the path from discovery to cure

Dean Kathy Giacomini, PhD, BSPharm

The UCSF-Stanford Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI), led by Dean Giacomini and Stanford’s Russ Altman, MD, PhD, is home to advances in regulatory sciences ensuring that leads in drug development can result in tangible benefits for patients. Giacomini brought in a total of $7,144,939 in federal funding in 2022, primarily fueling the UCSF-Stanford CERSI’s various projects.

Susan Merrell

Nevan Krogan, PhD (standing), leads a meeting of the QBI Coronavirus Research Group with fellow UCSF faculty members (seated from left) Danica Galonić Fujimori, PhD; Natalia Jura, PhD; James Fraser, PhD; and David Agard, PhD.

Nevan Krogan, PhD, has spent the last seven years leading the UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI), one of the world’s most productive cross-institutional scientific organizations. QBI has become well known for breaking down silos among the biosciences in the course of making discoveries in fields like infectious disease, computational biology, and drug discovery.

In the last year, Krogan and QBI brought in $79.3 million in NIH funds to fuel this multi-disciplinary work. Nearly $70 million of these funds—part of the largest-ever single NIH grant earned at UCSF—will fund QBI’s Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Center for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern, which seeks to address the current pandemic and futures ones by building new tools for understanding and fighting pathogens.