Many types of lung cancer thwart even the most targeted of therapies due to drug resistance, but a group of UCSF scientists led by Sourav Bandyopadhyay, PhD, have now shown that adding a second drug into treatment regimens can overcome this resistance in lab-grown, lung cancer cell lines.
Tuberculosis is usually treated with a six month regimen of daily antibiotics, but millions of patients do not recover from the disease during treatment. Rada Savic’s team showed that adjusting the duration of this regimen based on disease severity could lead to better outcomes.
Drug discovery today begins with computation rather than test tube experimentation. Three School of Pharmacy faculty emeriti, Robert Langridge, Irwin “Tack” Kuntz, and the late Peter Kollman, were awarded the UCSF Medal for creating computational tools for drug discovery that are now used worldwide.
Curriculum transformation, An expanded role, Gaining recognition, Graduate match rate; School of Pharmacy scientists receive UCSF Medal: Founding fathers of drug discovery honored; Beyond drugs, Two artificial pancreas projects, Bringing prosthetics to patients; Beyond drugs, Two artificial pancreas projects, Bringing prosthetics to patients; Advancing the fight against cancer, Combining drug therapies, Mapping cells; In memoriam: Robert D. Gibson
A lifetime of pharmacy and advocacy
UCSF’s Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI), founded two years ago, is making waves with its unique approach to scientific collaboration, catalyzing discoveries from cancer to psychiatry while supporting female scientists and engaging with the public.
Adam Rao, MD/PhD student in Bioengineering, won the $50,000 Grand Prize at the 4th Surgical Innovations Shark Tank competition.
Rao, member of the Roy Lab in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, won with Tabla, a low-cost portable acoustic device for pneumonia detection.
Inspiration can be a hard thing to find. The history of science is filled with elusive “eureka moments” taking place under unlikely circumstances—Archimedes’ jump in a bath to intuit displacement, Issac Newton’s observation of a falling apple to grasp gravity, and Nikola Tesla’s inspiration for the electric induction motor, which came as he was observing a sunset in a park and quoting Faust. In the halls of UC San Francisco, sometimes inspiration comes knocking on the door.
Kathy Giacomini, PhD, an expert in pharmacogenomic transporter biology and regulatory science, is the 2018 Bill Heller Mentor of the Year Award recipient from the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education (AFPE) for her mentorship of students.
The award recognizes university faculty members, nominated by their students and current or past AFPE Fellows, for their guidance, dedication, leadership, instruction, and encouragement.
A beloved educator and alumnus of the UCSF School of Pharmacy, Robert D. Gibson, PharmD ’58, died on July 19 at the age of 93. Gibson had an illustrious career over five decades at UCSF and was a strong national leader for diversity in the pharmacy profession.
Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S., trailing cancer and heart disease. Many of those errors can be traced to issues with medications.
By diligently tracking the medications that each patient takes, and bringing trained pharmacists into the fold of everyday patient care, our health system could be made more effective and safer, UCSF School of Pharmacy Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, explains in a recent article for The Conversation.
Cancer, fundamentally, is a problem of too much growth. For decades, health care providers have tried and failed to slow tumor growth using drugs that interfere with a particular signaling pathway, called PI3K, which is known to operate in proliferating cancer cells.
Health at the molecular level: Decoding cellular signals, A trigger for tissue repair, Seeding tomorrow’s science. The future of custom care: Tracking cancer drug resistance, Treating malaria and tuberculosis, Quantitative Biosciences Institute’s culture of inclusivity, The genetics of asthma. Ensuring the best possible care: Using the right drugs, Keeping up with the testing boom. Update on the new PharmD curriculum: Welcoming our new students at the end of July. And more.
In BPS 115, (Genetics and Pharmacogenetics), first year PharmD students study themselves at a genetic level using pharmacogenetic testing, and volunteer to share their data with each other. Data is aggregated for selected drug metabolizing genes-of-interest. These results are presented on “Reveal Day,” where students role-play doctor-patient consultations and review each “patient’s” proclivity for developing certain conditions and diseases. (See video links, below)
Sessions include: quickly identifying molecules that show potential as drugs; improving access and treatments for AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis; why curiosity and imagination are taking the place of memorization the PharmD curriculum. Honoring the Class of 1968. Kennedy receives Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award.
Ten finalists battled for the Grad Slam Championship on 3/22/18. The competition was stiff, the crowd was raucous; but in the end, two BioEs swept the awards.
Yiqi Cao took both 1st Place and the People’s Choice awards for her presentation “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart… Again.” You can see her winning 3-minute presentation starting at 49:15 in Grad Slam 2018 Video Recording.
Second Place went to Inez Raharjo.
“Whole genome sequencing of pharmacogenetic drug response in racially diverse children with asthma” has been published by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (ARJCCM). “This is a huge win for the NHLBI’s TOPMed program, UCSF, and our lab,” said senior author Esteban G. Burchard, MD, MPH.
A new PharmD curriculum; Implementing new practice opportunities for pharmacists; PharmD students shine in state and national clinical pharmacy competitions; A pioneer in pharmacogenomics; The NIH streak lives on; Improving adverse event reporting and medication therapy protocols; Big-data to cut drug discovery time; Computational approaches target dopamine receptors; Researchers expose industry manipulation of science by sugar industry; Women in science; more.
