Researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF are tackling monumental problems – cures for diseases as pernicious as Parkinson’s disease and brain tumors. Yet a vexing barrier to those would-be cures doesn’t get as much limelight: how to put the cells into people as efficiently […]
A Team for an Ambitious Project: UCSF, February 2011
Stem cells have an innate attraction to tumor cells. If genetically engineered to produce proteins with anti-tumor activity, they could serve as tumor-killing assassins. At UCSF, a team of scientists led by Mitchel S. Berger, MD, chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery, is exploring this strategy in the fight against glioblastoma – the most […]
The Road to a Cure: UCSF, February 2011
In searching for a cure for diabetes, researchers from UCSF and their partners at ViaCyte, a San Diego biotechnology company, have already cleared some large hurdles. ViaCyte has developed a line of human stem cells that have been specially cultured in the laboratory. When transplanted into rodents, these stem cells turn into insulin-producing beta cells, […]
Seeking Balance in the Brain: UCSF, February 2011
Some signals in the brain inhibit action, and some spark or excite it. A balance of those two impulses is critical to healthy brain function – and an imbalance lies beneath many of the most common brain problems such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and traumatic injuries. Researchers Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, PhD, and John Rubenstein, MD, PhD, […]
Addressing the Data Bottleneck: UCSF, February 2011
In an age of tremendous biological discoveries, where stem cells may ultimately prove useful as therapies for many diseases, a quiet mathematician and physicist is emerging as a key player. Jun Song, PhD, has found himself in demand among the biologists in the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research […]
Nurturing a Delicate Balance: UCSF’s Industry Partnerships: UCSF, February 2011
When UCSF researcher Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, recently renewed his center’s partnership with Abbott Diagnostics, it marked a milestone in the University’s efforts to keep its industry partnerships alive and well. Abbott’s renewed funding for the Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center (VDDC), which Chiu directs at China Basin near UCSF’s Mission Bay campus, underscores a common goal of […]
Jason Pomerantz: From Boyhood Dreams to the Scientific Lab: UCSF, January 2011
When he was in kindergarten, Jason Pomerantz, MD, drew a self-portrait depicting a surgeon at work in an operating room. He told his mother, “I want to make people not get old.” Now 38 and a craniofacial plastic surgeon at UCSF, he knows all too well that immortality is the stuff of science fiction. Yet […]
Giants Past and Present
Dan Fost is a freelance writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, specializing in technology coverage for newspapers and magazines and interested in a wide range of other subjects as well. Dan is the author of the baseball book “Giants Past and Present,” for MVP Books, which was published in March 2010. The San Francisco Giants’ 2010 World Series victory has provided the icing on the cake for a very sweet year!
Power in Numbers: San Francisco Magazine, December 2010
What do you do if the fitness club you’re obsessed with is about to go out of business? If you’re Max Levchin, the multimillionaire cofounder of PayPal, you get your similarly fanatical gym buddies to go in with you to buy the club yourselves. Levchin had been working out for about a year at an […]
What Obama Can Learn From the Giants: The Huffington Post, November 2010
In what must have been a happy moment on the eve of a miserable midterm election, President Obama called San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy to congratulate him on the team’s improbable World Series victory. The conversation was no doubt short and perfunctory, but the sports-minded president would have done well for himself to ask […]