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2016 News
Mon Dec 12, 2016
Research in the lab of UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Adam Renslo, PhD, has developed a new way of selectively targeting cancer cells with drugs. In experiments with mice, the new approach allowed for the delivery of fifty times higher doses of chemotherapy to tumors while avoiding toxic...
Wed Dec 7, 2016
Ernest Prien, BS ’34 and Mary MacWilliam, EdD, UC Berkeley, 1956
The UCSF School of Pharmacy has established new endowed faculty positions to be held by the chairs of two School departments.
As chair of the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, faculty member Tejal Desai, PhD, will hold the Ernest L. Prien Endowed Professorship in...
Thu Dec 1, 2016
Robert Rizzo
Graphic depiction of a typical DOCK setup used toward the discovery of a potential disease inhibitor—in this case, testing compounds for binding to an HIV protein.
Brian Shoichet, PhD, faculty member in the School’s Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, has been named the 2017 recipient of the DeLano Award for Computational Biosciences.
Given annually by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), the DeLano Award honors a...
Tue Nov 15, 2016
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has awarded the UCSF-Stanford Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (UCSF-Stanford CERSI) a five-year grant with up to $25 million in funding.
UCSF-Stanford CERSI brings together a world-class team of scientists from two outstanding...
Mon Oct 24, 2016
Kathy Giacomini, PhD, has been named the 2017 recipient of the Henry W. Elliott Distinguished Service Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT).
Founded in 1900, ASCPT comprises more than 2,200 members whose primary interest is to advance the science and...
Wed Oct 19, 2016
Sharon (McPartland) Leaf, PharmD ’81, with her daughter, first-year student pharmacist Megan Lau.
When Megan Lau donned her white coat with fellow student pharmacists in the incoming class of 2020 last week, it was more than your standard rite of professional passage.
Lau is the third generation of her family to attend the UCSF School of Pharmacy—her mother and both her late maternal...
Tue Oct 18, 2016
Ailin Kim and Alishia King receive their white coats from Andy Davenport, PharmD and Virginia Chu, PharmD ’98.
The 126 students of the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s class of 2020 donned their white coats for the first time on October 14, 2016, in an afternoon ceremony that symbolized their entry into the profession.
The first-year student pharmacists were joined at Cole Hall on the Parnassus campus by a packed...
Mon Sep 26, 2016
UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Zev Gartner, PhD, will be co-director of a new multi-institution UCSF-administered Center for Cellular Construction, which has been awarded a five-year $24 million grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The new center’s research will unite scientists...
Mon Aug 29, 2016
Sharya Bourdet, PharmD
Sharya Bourdet, PharmD, BCPS, a volunteer faculty member in the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s Department of Clinical Pharmacy, has been named a new member of the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators (AME). She will be inducted, along with 14 UCSF colleagues, at a welcoming ceremony on September...
Thu Aug 25, 2016
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to a billion people and to overlapping health burdens, including the world’s highest rates of both malaria and HIV infection.
The region’s children are especially hard hit: Those under age five are more susceptible to malaria and accounted for two-thirds of the 438,000...
Wed Aug 17, 2016
Research co-led by UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Brian Shoichet, PhD, has developed a new opioid drug candidate that blocks pain as effectively as morphine in mice, without triggering dangerous side effects, and also apparently without the addictive properties of current prescription...
Tue Aug 16, 2016
Michelle Fang and Stephanie Golahi
UCSF student pharmacists Stephanie Golahi and Michelle Fang, both class of 2019, took first place in Division I of the 2016 Student National Pharmaceutical Association (SNPhA)/Kroger Clinical Skills Competition held in Atlanta in late July.
The national competition had two divisions (representing...
Wed Aug 10, 2016
It was fortuitous that David Adler, PharmD ’70, began his studies at the UCSF School of Pharmacy in the fall of 1966, precisely when UCSF Medical Center’s Ninth Floor Project went into action. That project’s unprecedented placement of pharmacists on a UCSF hospital ward—providing their drug...
Tue Aug 9, 2016
Metformin is the most widely used initial medication for controlling blood sugar (glucose) in type 2 diabetes, a disease affecting 350 million people worldwide. The drug helps reduce their risk of complications leading to heart, eye, and kidney disease.
But there are major differences in metformin...
Mon Jul 25, 2016
Edward (Eddie) Leong Way, BS, MS, PhD, celebrated his 100th birthday on July 1, 2016, with more than 70 colleagues, friends, and family at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center.
Eddie—as he is known—studied at what was then called the College of Pharmacy of the University of California (on...
Thu Jul 14, 2016
Over the past five years, School of Pharmacy faculty member Eleanor Vogt, PhD, RPh, has co-developed and implemented a program for hundreds of employees of the city and county of San Francisco that imparts tools to reduce stress and increase resiliency.
The collaboration with the city started with...
Mon Jul 11, 2016
A growing body of evidence is showing that comprehensive medication management (CMM) can be an important component in reaching the so-called triple aim of health care reform:
Improving the experience of care
Improving the health of populations
Reducing per capita costs
In December 2015, the...
Fri Jun 17, 2016
Eric Davila
Tracy Fulton, PhD
The 2016 Dean’s Innovation in Education Award was presented to Tracy Fulton, PhD, on Thursday during the School of Pharmacy faculty meeting on the Parnassus campus.
A faculty member of the UCSF School of Medicine, Fulton was recognized for her excellence in bringing new educational approaches to...
Thu Jun 16, 2016
Marquitta White (right), MS, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Burchard Lab, took on five young summer research students of diverse backgrounds, including Maria Contreras (left) and Oona Risse-Adams (center), a 16-year-old sophomore at Lowell High School in San Francisco.
The photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. hanging on the wall of the Asthma Collaboratory lab in UC San Francisco’s Rock Hall serves a reminder to all who toil there, purifying DNA samples or analyzing genetic, social or environmental data that their research is also part of a dream of equality and...
Wed Jun 1, 2016
Dear UCSF School of Pharmacy Family and Friends,
The Update has a new approach, with photos and links to explore deeper content depending upon your interests. Let me know what you think.
You’ll note we’ve continued making tremendous progress toward our 2015–2020 strategic plan goals....
Thu May 26, 2016
Studies of pharmacogenetics testing of pharmacy students as a teaching tool, an improved system to resolve medication issues after patients go home from the hospital, and the prophylactic use of an antiseizure drug for brain surgery patients took top honors at the Department of Clinical Pharmacy...
Tue May 24, 2016
So-called specialty drugs can represent lifesaving advances in the treatment of serious complex conditions, such as cancers, hepatitis C, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and inflammatory bowel disease. They can turn once routinely lethal diseases such as HIV and cystic fibrosis into...
Thu May 12, 2016
Results from the largest single study of the genetic and environmental causes of asthma in African American children suggest that only a tiny fraction of known genetic risk factors for the disease apply to this population.
The research, published online on May 3, 2016, in advance of print...
Tue May 10, 2016
UCSF School of Pharmacy
James Lightwood, PhD
A new study lead-authored by UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member James Lightwood, PhD, has found that reducing smoking cuts health care spending, not just in the long- or immediate-term, but the very next year.
For example, the analysis found that a 10 percent decline in smoking in the United...
Fri May 6, 2016
The UCSF School of Pharmacy held its 2016 commencement on May 5 at Louise Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, conferring the doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) degree on each of the 115 members of the graduating class.
Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, addressed a gathering that included hundreds of...
Thu May 5, 2016
Predicting difficult-to-detect drug binding sites
Most drugs are comprised of small molecules that pass through cell membranes and are designed to bind to much larger protein molecules at exposed concave pockets. But in many disease-associated proteins, these binding sites are difficult to detect...
Tue May 3, 2016
Richard Trujillo, UCSF
The annual UCSF School of Pharmacy Student Awards and Recognition Dinner, hosted by Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, and sponsored by Ralph’s Inc., was held on Friday, April 29, 2016, at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus.
The event honored dozens of students whose excellence and leadership were...
Fri Apr 29, 2016
Clockwise from top left: Rada Savic, PhD; Steven Altschuler, PhD; Lani Wu, PhD; Kathryn Phillips, PhD
Computer models provide optimal dosing for pediatric TB meningitis
Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is an inflammation of membranes lining the brain and spine (central nervous system, CNS) due to infection with TB bacteria. TBM is especially devastating in young children, in whom it is most common,...
Thu Apr 28, 2016
Sheng Ding, PhD (center), with Deepak Srivastava, MD (right), co-senior author of Science study, and Yadong Huang, MD, PhD (left), co-senior author Cell Stem Cell study.
In a major breakthrough, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes, led by UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Sheng Ding, PhD, have transformed skin cells into heart and brain cells using combinations of chemicals.
All previous work on cellular reprogramming required adding external genes to the...
Wed Apr 27, 2016
Some 250 UCSF School of Pharmacy graduates reconnected with classmates, rekindled friendships, and learned about the latest work across schools and the Graduate Division during Alumni Weekend 2016, held April 8 and 9, and headquartered at the Fairmont San Francisco...
Mon Apr 18, 2016
At APhA awards ceremony (left to right): Karen Hudmon, DrPH, MS, BSPharm; Robin Corelli, PharmD; Rear Admiral Pamela Schweitzer, USPHS.
Three UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty members have received national honors for health sciences education this spring.
Public Health Excellence Award
Robin Corelli, PharmD, and Karen Hudmon, DrPH, MS, BSPharm, both Department of Clinical Pharmacy, received the Public Health Excellence Award from...
Thu Apr 14, 2016
Learning how to solve problems and think critically—using course content as the vehicle to apply these skills—is one evolving goal of the UCSF School of Pharmacy doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) curriculum, according to the School’s dean, B. Joseph Guglielmo PharmD, in an interview posted April 12, 2016...
Thu Mar 31, 2016
UCSF News
For the 36th consecutive year, the UCSF School of Pharmacy has received more funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) than any other pharmacy school in the United States.
School researchers were awarded $27 million during NIH’s 2015 fiscal year, from October 1, 2014 to September 30,...
Mon Mar 28, 2016
Mandy K. Mason, University of Cape Town
Natal long-fingered bat embryo (Miniopterus natalensis) stained to highlight bone (red) and cartilage (blue).
Researchers in the laboratory of UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Nadav Ahituv, PhD, study the roles of gene regulatory elements—DNA segments that tell genes when, where, and to what extent to turn on and off—including in human conditions ranging from limb malformations to epilepsy and autism...
Thu Mar 24, 2016
Protease enzymes of the Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV Pr) require two monomer proteins to combine into a dimer in order to activate. Dotted black box is the protein-protein interface targeted for disruption by Craik Lab researchers. (Colored balls represent amino acids—methionines—labeled to help determine if screened fragments inhibit dimerization.)
To discover new drugs and chemical probes, researchers have traditionally screened small molecules—small enough by weight to pass through cell membranes. Their goal is typically to find compounds that selectively bind to a much larger protein molecule (often an enzyme) at a chemically reactive...
Wed Mar 16, 2016
Susan Merrell
Nevan Krogan, PhD
UC San Francisco today announced the establishment of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI). The mission of QBI, located in Byers Hall on the UCSF Mission Bay campus, is to drive forward the application of computation, mathematics, and statistics toward a deeper understanding of complex...
Tue Mar 15, 2016
Susan Merrell
Student pharmacists after White Coat Ceremony
The UCSF School of Pharmacy’s doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) program is among the top-ranked programs in the 2017 U.S. News and World Report survey of accredited PharmD programs released on March 15, 2016.
The UCSF program was ranked third. “This means our PharmD program is perceived by academic...
Fri Mar 11, 2016
Charles S. Craik, PhD, faculty member in the School’s Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, has been named the 2016 recipient of the Protein Society’s Emil Thomas Kaiser Award.
The Kaiser award is given annually by the international society to recognize “a recent, highly significant contribution...
Fri Feb 26, 2016
The Troy C. Daniels Curricular Innovation Awards provide funds in 2016 to support the evolution of the UCSF School of Pharmacy doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) curriculum to prepare leaders for a changing health care marketplace.
The award and its endowment honor Troy C. Daniels, PhD, who served as...
Thu Feb 25, 2016
The Mary Anne Koda-Kimble Seed Award for Innovation funds “truly innovative projects” by faculty, staff, and students that “have the potential to move forward the mission of the UCSF School of Pharmacy in new ways.”
The award was established in 2012 to honor Dean Emeritus Koda-Kimble upon her...
Fri Feb 19, 2016
Adam Abate, PhD
UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Adam Abate, PhD, has been named a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research...
Wed Feb 3, 2016
Susan Merrell
Lisa Kroon, PharmD
Lisa Kroon, PharmD, chair of the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s Department of Clinical Pharmacy, has been named a Fellow of the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Pharmacy Practice and Management (APhA-APPM).
The selection honors APhA Academy members for exemplary professional achievements and...
Wed Jan 20, 2016
UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Leslie Benet, PhD, has been named the 2016 recipient of the Remington Honor Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the American Pharmacists Association (APhA). He will be officially recognized during the APhA Annual Meeting and Exposition in Baltimore, MD, March...
Fri Jan 15, 2016
Sharon L. Youmans, PharmD, MPH (left) and Renée Navarro, MD, PharmD
The UCSF Office of Diversity and Outreach (ODO) celebrated its five-year anniversary on Friday, January 15, 2016 with a ceremony at the Millberry Union Event & Meeting Center on the Parnassus campus, honoring six campus leaders who were instrumental in the development of the office.
Included...
Thu Jan 7, 2016
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes, the Diabetes Center at UCSF, and the UCSF School of Pharmacy have converted human skin cells into fully functional pancreatic cells that produce insulin in response to changes in glucose levels. Transplanted into mice, the cells protected the animals from...