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2021 News
Thu Dec 16, 2021
UK Department for International Development
A child sits on a bed surrounded by a bed net intended to prevent mosquito bites that could transmit malaria, Kenya. A new drug regimen developed at UCSF offers children improved protection against the disease.
Malaria can infect people of all ages, but young children with the disease fare particularly poorly and are often excluded from clinical trials of drug therapies.
Using a combination of kid-friendly blood sampling, clinical trials, and computer modeling, UCSF School of Pharmacy researchers have...
Tue Dec 14, 2021
Wikimedia Commons
Five trainees in the UCSF School of Pharmacy have earned the 2022 Presidential Trainee Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (ASCPT) in recognition of the outstanding quality of their research endeavors.
The trainees, ranging from PhD students to postdoctoral...
Thu Dec 9, 2021
Krogan Lab
A birds-eye depiction of the findings from the Quantitative Biosciences Institute’s recent work on cancer. Each node represents a protein system and darker-colored nodes are more likely to be involved in cancer.
Researchers at the UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) and UC San Diego have mapped previously unknown interactions between hundreds of proteins that drive cancer, unveiling potential new drug targets. The findings, announced in a trio of papers published in Science on October 1, detailed...
Tue Nov 23, 2021
The 2021 UCSF climate survey, which assesses campus community members’ perspectives on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), will close on November 30. Survey results will help shape UCSF’s policies on DEI and ensure that people across the university feel empowered and valued.
On October 11, all...
Tue Nov 23, 2021
Faculty and student instructors in the UCSF School of Pharmacy have shown remarkable adaptability, creativity, and commitment to training the next generation of doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) graduates. During an ongoing pandemic, instruction within the PharmD program continued uninterrupted, with...
Tue Nov 23, 2021
Created to support junior faculty at the assistant professor level, the UCSF Population Health and Health Equity Scholars (PHHE) award provides flexible funding to accelerate and increase the impact of population health and/or health equity research or program evaluation. Each scholar award is $20,...
Thu Nov 18, 2021
Dear UCSF School of Pharmacy family and friends,
As the fall days shorten, our School continues to be as productive as ever. As always, the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s patients ultimately remain at the center of everything we do.
In this, my final Update from the Dean, I remain humbled by the...
Mon Nov 15, 2021
Lisa Kroon, PharmD, delivered the keynote address during the annual UCSF School of Pharmacy White Coat Ceremony.
The Class of 2024 arrived on campus this summer with the gravity of their newfound responsibilities in health care cast in sharp relief against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time, the UCSF School of Pharmacy was cautiously optimistic that its newest class of doctor of pharmacy (PharmD)...
Mon Nov 15, 2021
Esteban G. Burchard, MD, MPH, delivered the 20th Annual Faculty Research Lecture in Clinical Science on November 2. The UCSF Academic Senate selected Burchard for the honor in recognition of his substantial contributions to our understanding of population differences in asthma and asthma treatment...
Wed Nov 10, 2021
Susan Merrell
Samples and reagents in an ultra-low temperature freezer in the laboratory of Adam Abate, PhD, at the UCSF Mission Bay campus. A recent effort led by UCSF Supply Chain Management’s Dean Shehu and School of Pharmacy Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, replaced 43 of the campus’s least-efficient freezers.
Ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers are the unsung heroes of biomedicine, storing materials that are vital for discovery and diagnosis. In the age of the coronavirus, they are also key to storing tens of thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses. But this critical cold storage comes at a steep cost.
“...
Wed Nov 10, 2021
Ana Najafi, PharmD ’21
The patient was a healthy man with no significant medical history. Like many others, though, he was concerned about contracting COVID-19. So in the summer of 2020, he began taking a supplement of vitamin B6 to “strengthen” his immune system.
In May 2021, the man’s health took a turn for the worse...
Mon Nov 8, 2021
Sarah de Jesus and Kera Jewett
Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) student Lynna Davis, Class of 2023, administers the flu vaccine to Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD.
Fall is upon us and flu cases are predictably on the rise. In anticipation of a stronger-than-normal flu season, UCSF doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students recently stepped up to make sure that School of Pharmacy Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, received a timely dose of the influenza vaccine....
Wed Nov 3, 2021
Kathy Giacomini, PhD, received the 2021 Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Award in October for her research on the factors involved in variation in individuals’ drug responses and the mechanisms underlying drug absorption and disposition.
The award is the highest honor given by the American...
Tue Oct 26, 2021
Esteban G. Burchard, MD, MPH, was selected by the UCSF Academic Senate to give the 20th Annual Faculty Research Lecture in Clinical Science, an honor recognizing his contributions to asthma research.
Burchard has spent over 20 years investigating genes, environment, and asthma in minority children...
Fri Oct 22, 2021
Marco Sanchez, UCSF
Stephanie Hsia, PharmD, 2020–2021 Teacher of the Year
Stephanie Hsia, PharmD, Class of 2022 Teacher of the Year
Every year, each doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) class bestows the following teaching awards on their instructors and their preceptors.
Teachers of the Year
Preceptors of the Year, IPPEs
Long Teaching Awards for Outstanding...
Thu Oct 21, 2021
Networks of proteins are responsible for keeping cells alive and healthy. Research from UCSF’s Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI), published in Nature on October 13, has unearthed important details about a protein, known as a molecular switch, that ensures the proper functioning of these...
Wed Oct 20, 2021
Panelists and moderators in discussion. Top to bottom, left to right: Aashish Manglik, PhD; Nevan Krogan, PhD; B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD; Tejal Desai, PhD; Angelica Sandoval-Perez, PhD; Jason Sello, PhD; Michael Keiser, PhD; Willow Coyote-Maestas, PhD.
On August 25, faculty members Tejal Desai, PhD; Michael Keiser, PhD; Nevan Krogan, PhD; Aashish Manglik, MD, PhD; Jason Sello, PhD; and Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, gathered for a virtual discussion about creating healthy and inclusive spaces on campus.
The panelists have demonstrated their...
Tue Oct 19, 2021
Todd Dubnicoff
Tejal Desai, PhD
Tejal Desai, PhD, received the 2021 Chancellor’s Award for Advancement of Women this fall for demonstrating “outstanding commitment and service to the advancement of women beyond the scope of their job, area of research, or training.”
Desai is a faculty member in the UCSF Department of...
Mon Oct 18, 2021
Video of School of Pharmacy - Town Hall (October 7, 2021)
Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, and School leadership took a closer look at the School’s approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as well as the latest updates from our PharmD program.
School DEI efforts and draft DEI...
Tue Oct 12, 2021
Faculty and student instructors in the UCSF School of Pharmacy have shown remarkable adaptability, creativity, and commitment to training the next generation of doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) graduates. During an ongoing pandemic, instruction within the PharmD program continued uninterrupted, with...
Wed Sep 29, 2021
When Deanna Kroetz, PhD, first encountered the pharmaceutical sciences in the 1980s as a student, her career path was uncertain. As she bounced from caring for patients as an intern in a hospital pharmacy to studying pharmacology as a research assistant in a laboratory, one question kept gnawing at...
Fri Sep 24, 2021
Paul Takamoto
Pharmacy student So Young Kim, Class of 2023, prepares cefepime, an antibiotic, for a patient in septic shock as part of her introductory pharmacy practice experience (IPPE) in the UCSF Emergency Department.
Pharmacists are often the health care providers that patients see first, last, and most frequently, making effective and compassionate communication a vital skill for the profession. Mastering such communication, as well as the skills required to work smoothly within the health care team, takes...
Tue Sep 21, 2021
Louise Aronson, MD, MFA Geriatrician, Author of Elderhood and other books
The School of Pharmacy Staff Wellness Group invites School community members to a webinar on caregiving.
In this webinar session, Dr. Louise Aronson, a UCSF geriatrician and author of the New York Times bestseller, Elderhood, will discuss practical tips for caring for older family members or...
Tue Sep 21, 2021
Jennifer Cocohoba, PharmD, MAS, right, conducts a patient check-in in front of PharmD students in 2018.
Three faculty members in the UCSF School of Pharmacy received accolades from the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators (AME) in recognition of their contributions to the training of health care professionals.
Crystal Zhou, PharmD, and Stephanie Hsia, PharmD, both faculty members in the...
Tue Sep 14, 2021
The Laboratory for Genomics Research
The Laboratory for Genomics Research (LGR) is offering one-year LGR Innovation Awards to faculty members at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley to develop highly innovative ideas into early proofs-of-concept across the field of functional genomics.
The LGR is a hybrid academic-industry partnership...
Thu Sep 9, 2021
The Kidney Project
The Kidney Project’s bioartificial kidney, which was successfully implanted in a preclinical model.
The Kidney Project’s implantable bioartificial kidney, one that promises to free kidney disease patients from dialysis machines and transplant waiting lists, took another big step toward becoming reality, earning a $650,000 prize from KidneyX for its first-ever demonstration of a functional...
Mon Aug 30, 2021
It’s a disease of the lungs. It spreads through the air. It can kill millions in a year. And it’s the cause of an ongoing pandemic.
The disease isn’t COVID-19. It is tuberculosis (TB). Each year, nearly ten million people are diagnosed with TB and over a million die. Prior to COVID, TB was the...
Fri Jul 30, 2021
Video of School of Pharmacy - Town Hall (July 29, 2021)
Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, hosts Alesia Woods, associate dean of administration and finance, and Liana Crosby, MFA, executive assistant to the dean, for review and discussion of the Gallup Staff Engagement Survey results. A...
Wed Jul 14, 2021
Dear UCSF School of Pharmacy family and friends,
Change may upend the ways of the world, but change and continuous improvement is our North Star in the UCSF School of Pharmacy.
From our pioneering of the field of clinical pharmacy decades ago, to our rollout of a transformed, unparalleled,...
Tue Jul 13, 2021
element5digital
Faculty and student instructors in the UCSF School of Pharmacy have shown remarkable adaptability, creativity, and commitment to training the next generation of doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) graduates. During an ongoing pandemic, instruction within the PharmD program continued uninterrupted, with...
Tue Jul 13, 2021
Clockwise from top left: Kelly Lam, Sabrina Lin, Afshar Hassani, and Venus Tong, all in the PharmD Class of 2022.
This April, a group of UCSF second-year doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students won the ISPOR 2021 Pharmacoeconomic Debate competition. The debate, which tackled the impacts of different insurance plans on the quality of U.S. health care, was an opportunity for students to explore the often-overlooked...
Wed Jun 30, 2021
A cell (blue) heavily infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (green), isolated from a patient sample.
While businesses and schools reopen across the U.S. thanks to the domestic waning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus responsible for the disease, SARS-CoV-2, continues to spread globally.
Scientists in the UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI), an organized research unit in the UCSF...
Thu Jun 17, 2021
The UCSF Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine now use helium recycling equipment, shown above, to avoid wasting the gas, which is used to cool certain types of scientific and medical imaging machines.
Helium, the ultra-light gas found in airships and birthday balloons, has a quirk that makes it invaluable for science and medicine. With a freezing point of -458°F (-272.2°C), it is only a liquid at all but the coldest of temperatures, making it an ideal substance for supercooling the electronics...
Mon Jun 14, 2021
UCSF School of Pharmacy Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD
In May 2021, two UCSF School of Pharmacy graduating classes received their doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) degrees, each in a virtual commencement.
The ceremonies, honoring the PharmD classes that matriculated to UCSF in 2017 and 2018, were broadcast on May 15 and May 21, respectively. Each ceremony...
Wed Jun 2, 2021
Susan Merrell
As 2020 drew to a close, the first two effective vaccines for COVID-19 were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Within days, institutions around the country, like UCSF, began vaccinating health care workers, essential workers, and vulnerable individuals.
In the coming months,...
Fri May 28, 2021
UCSD
Join UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS; UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center President Alan Ashworth, PhD; and faculty to learn more about UCSF’s institutional commitment to, and vision for, living therapeutics and cellular manufacturing. Living therapeutics, also called cell...
Wed May 12, 2021
NIH
A DNA double helix and chromosomes inside a cell. A UCSF/Stanford study of Neanderthal and human DNA found over 400 changes to regulatory DNA that may help explain the differences between the hominid relatives.
Very little remains of the Neanderthals, evolutionary cousins of humans who lived from 500,000 to 40,000 years ago, but Neanderthal DNA extracted from fossilized specimens is making it easier to learn more about our extinct hominid relatives.
Scientists at UC San Francisco and Stanford University...
Mon May 10, 2021
UCSF is asking all employees working onsite to receive or decline the COVID-19 vaccine by June 30, 2021. Even if you are currently working from home, submitting your vaccination record will help UCSF better understand the rate of vaccination in the UCSF community.
If you received your vaccine at...
Thu May 6, 2021
Facilities Services Campus First Impressions Contest 2018 winners included a School of Nursing lounge where students requested new lockers, plants, and artwork to make the space more inviting.
UCSF Facility Services has brought back its First Impressions contest to help faculty members, staff, and students identify ways to enliven shared break and eating spaces on campus.
The contest, which began four years ago, provides funds for community members to transform campus eyesores into...
Thu Apr 29, 2021
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator Award supports risky and innovative research projects across UCSF, UC Berkeley, and Stanford University. The application deadline for the next cohort of awardees has been extended to May 14, 2021.
Once every five years, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub offers several $1 million Investigator Awards that aim to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery. Citing pandemic demands, the deadline to apply for these awards has been extended to May 14, 2021.
Successful applicants will join a community of...
Wed Apr 28, 2021
As more and more people receive a COVID-19 vaccine, one question looms large: how long will immunity to this disease last?
Only time can definitively answer this question, as researchers monitor the pandemic’s spread in an increasingly vaccinated population. But a new test, developed at the UCSF...
Mon Apr 26, 2021
Nicola Clayton, PharmD ’14, left, practices giving a shot to James Go, PharmD ’17, as part of a recent immunization training for pharmacists that was organized by faculty members in the UCSF School of Pharmacy.
Many Americans are still waiting for their chance to get a COVID-19 vaccine to do their part in ending the pandemic. For many, these immunizations will occur at a familiar location: a local pharmacy.
Pharmacists have been critical to the U.S. COVID response, just as they are in the health system...
Wed Apr 14, 2021
A PharmD student (right) helps a patient determine prescription drug coverage under Medicare Part D as part of an annual outreach event. Faculty members and School leadership are working to ensure that the PharmD curriculum produces future pharmacists who are anti-racist and skilled in navigating issues of equity and inclusion.
When millions gathered around the country in the summer of 2020 to protest the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and numerous other people of color, students in the UCSF School of Pharmacy knew they had to act.
Three students—Pamela Concepcion, June Kim, and Temi Sofeso, all Class of 2022...
Tue Apr 6, 2021
An update on our PharmD education
Vice Dean Sharon L. Youmans, PharmD, MPH, talked about the latest news from our PharmD program.
Updates this week included several topics and speakers.
Admissions and the virtual interview process, Joel W. Gonzales
Residency match results and upcoming...
Mon Apr 5, 2021
USFS
The UCSF Office of Sustainability is encouraging the UCSF community to practice LivingGreen this spring with the Earth Month Challenge.
April 22 is Earth Day, and we invite you to celebrate with two months of LivingGreen tips and events. There’s something for everyone, whether you’re a veteran...
Mon Apr 5, 2021
Jennifer Cocohoba, PharmD, center, instructs two PharmD students on vaccination procedures during an in-person skills laboratory in September 2020.
Faculty and student instructors in the UCSF School of Pharmacy have shown remarkable adaptability, creativity, and commitment to training the next generation of doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) graduates in a tumultuous year. In spite of an ongoing pandemic, the PharmD program continued uninterrupted,...
Fri Apr 2, 2021
The UCSF School of Pharmacy's 2021 Mary Anne Koda-Kimble Seed Awards for Innovation, given in honor of the School’s former dean, were awarded to eight projects across education, clinical research, and basic science.
Applicants were encouraged to submit their boldest, riskiest, and most blue-sky...
Fri Mar 12, 2021
UCSF faculty members and staff will have a new option for affordable housing in San Francisco starting this summer, thanks to a generous gift from an anonymous donor.
The complex, named Mount Zion Housing, is located two blocks away from the UCSF Mount Zion campus and features 71 units ranging...
Thu Mar 11, 2021
Dear UCSF School of Pharmacy family and friends:
Almost exactly a year ago, a shelter-in-place order was announced for several California counties, including San Francisco, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This order did not come as a surprise—our medical centers and educational units had been...
Wed Mar 10, 2021
Akinyemi Oni-Orisan, PharmD, PhD
As society continues to grapple with issues of race, racism, and systemic injustice, health care and medicine remain at a crossroads, forced to balance an understanding of the role of ancestry in health outcomes with the need to shed racially biased practices.
UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty...
Mon Mar 8, 2021
An ambitious effort to catalog the genomes of a large, diverse pool of people recently published its first batch of results. The project, carried out in part by scientists in the UCSF School of Pharmacy, is a critical step toward making precision medicine more effective and equitable.
The study,...
Fri Mar 5, 2021
Bob Day, PharmD ’59
The UCSF School of Pharmacy has existed for 148 years and for more than 60 of them, it has borne the imprint of the work of Robert L. Day, PharmD ’59. Bob, as most of his friends and colleagues know him, arrived at the School as a student and soon became a valued faculty member. His influence on...
Tue Mar 2, 2021
Yvette Gullatt, PhD, Vice President, Vice Provost, and Chief Diversity Officer, University of California Office of the President
On March 2, 2021, as the first featured speaker in the UCSF School of Pharmacy's Equity and Inclusion Speaker Series, Yvette Gullatt, PhD, delivered an overview of the University of California's wide-ranging efforts to make the university system welcoming and supportive of all. The talk covered...
Mon Mar 1, 2021
Susan Merrell
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to place an immense burden on families, with a disproportionate impact on women. The UCSF Faculty Resource Fund offers two levels of awards to support faculty members struggling with disruption of work-life balance or research activity funding during the pandemic....
Tue Feb 23, 2021
The Health Innovation via Engineering (HIVE) Postdoctoral Fellows Program seeks to inspire and encourage bioengineers to explore their creativity in addressing the grand challenges of health care in new, innovative, and collaborative ways.
The program is an internal one-year fellowship aimed at...
Thu Feb 18, 2021
For the 41st year in a row, the UCSF School of Pharmacy received more research funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) than any other pharmacy school in the country.
The School’s grants from the agency in 2020, summing to $40,905,190, were more than the total grants earned by the next...
Wed Feb 17, 2021
Gabriela Hasbun
Matthew Jacobson, PhD
At the age of 39, UCSF biophysicist Matthew Jacobson, PhD, was trailblazing new paths in drug discovery and training future generations of scientists and pharmacists. But he was also struggling with worrisome and worsening symptoms like tremors, an unsteady gait, severe pain shooting down his arm....
Thu Feb 11, 2021
PharmaMar
Aplidin is extracted from Aplidium albicans, a sea squirt found off the coast of Spain.
Plitidepsin, a drug approved by the Australian Regulatory Agency for the treatment of multiple myeloma, has potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to researchers at the UCSF QBI Coronavirus Research Group (QCRG) and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt...
Wed Feb 10, 2021
Susan Merrell
UCSF pharmacy student Matthew Aludino, right, scans a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine prior to administering it on the first day of vaccinations at UCSF, December 16, 2020.
UCSF pharmacy student Matthew Aludino, Class of 2021, gave over 100 influenza vaccines during the course of his doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) education. So it was a no-brainer that he could lend a hand when UCSF put out a call for volunteers to administer the first COVID-19 vaccinations at the end of...
Thu Jan 28, 2021
Join School of Pharmacy Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, for the latest on the COVID-19 vaccines and news from the School.
Presenters include:
Lisa Kroon, PharmD, discusses vaccine distribution and getting our PharmD students involved.
Desi Kotis, PharmD, talks about the logistics of the...
Wed Jan 20, 2021
Tejal Desai, PhD, and colleagues took inspiration from the structure of DNA to engineer a biomaterial that promises to improve CAR-T cell therapy for various cancers.
It may sound like science fiction, but since 2017, scientists and oncologists have genetically engineered patients’ own immune cells to successfully track down and destroy tumor cells. The approach, called CAR T-cell therapy, is currently used to treat just a small number of cancers of the blood...
Tue Jan 12, 2021
Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD opened the ceremony by highlighting frontline health care workers, physicians, nurses, pharmacists and scientists working to combat COVID-19.
When the UC San Francisco doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) class of 2020 delayed their commencement back in April, it was hoped that the COVID-19 pandemic would be contained in time for the class to celebrate their new degrees in person, surrounded by friends and family. But it wasn’t meant to be.
Even...