This story was my contribution to a UCSF package on the 30th anniversary of the discovery of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Treatment is Key to Prevention of HIV/AIDS, Doctors Say Doctors fighting HIV/AIDS have a new strategy working for them: Use the treatment of the disease as a way to prevent it – […]
Author: Simon
The Search for the Big Picture: UCSF, May 2011
The science of biology is undergoing a historic transformation, from one based on observation to one based on creation, and UCSF is in the forefront of driving that change. The move to a New Biology promises to accelerate an era of astounding discovery and achievement, in which science will not only cure many diseases and […]
Bay Area’s Little Leagues Overflow With Would-Be Giants: New York Times, April 2011
SAN FRANCISCO — The good vibrations from the San Francisco Giants’ World Series victory last fall continue to reverberate in the Bay Area, where children inspired by the improbable success of the Giants’ assemblage of castoffs have overwhelmed local Little Leagues. Youths who had never played the game suddenly saw themselves as Cody Ross or Tim […]
Unplugged, Interfaith Style: Interfaith Family, February 2011
As a member of an interfaith family, I haven’t really observed Shabbat. Even when I was growing up in a Jewish household, my parents never observed Shabbat, except for the brief run-up to my bar mitzvah when we’d attend Friday night services. But in recent years, as I reconnected with my Jewish roots through Reboot, a nonprofit that […]
Trial designed to treat children with connatal Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD): UCSF, February 2011
Sometimes, the rarest diseases provide the most critical insights. Pediatrician David Rowitch, MD, PhD, is leading a stem cell trial designed to treat children with connatal Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD), an uncommon but fatal brain disorder. It is UCSF’s first stem cell clinical trial in humans, and Rowitch has high hopes that his work will not […]
Cardiovascular: Reaching for a Cure: UCSF, February 2011
The heart cannot adequately regenerate damaged tissue after a heart attack. But could stem cells help it along that path? Doctors and researchers at UCSF with a wide range of expertise are exploring this possibility together, working to see whether stem cell therapies might pump some regenerative power into the heart. Working within a so-called […]
From Worms to Blood Stem Cells: UCSF, February 2011
The simple worm piqued the budding young scientist’s interest in developmental biology. “I loved it,” he says. Robert Blelloch, MD, PhD, followed that passion through fellowships and into work with blood stem cells. “It was so exciting to see how many different ways blood stem cells were being used to treat patients,” he says.
Overcoming a Vexing Barrier: UCSF, February 2011
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, […]