FYI…UCSF in the News is a daily summary of news stories published worldwide that highlight UCSF, its affiliated programs, and issues that affect the University.  To read the full news story, click the individual headlines listed below.

On the second Wednesday of each month, FYI…UCSF in the News includes an additional "Research Roundup" section that lists research papers authored by UCSF faculty and published in the journals Cell, Health Services Research, JAMA, Lancet, Nature, NEJM, Nursing Research, and Science.

UCSF PRINT AND ONLINE COVERAGE

  • State stem cell agency rejects 10 applications for grant money (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle reports: "California's stem cell agency on Friday acknowledged that it has turned back 10 grant applications worth millions of dollars because the applications were accompanied by letters of support from members of its own governing board. ... Sources have told The Chronicle that four of the institutions whose young scientists lost out on their grant applications were UCSF, UCLA, the University of Southern California and UC San Diego."
  • Play Smart Best memory-boosting games (Good Housekeeping)
    Good Housekeeping reports: "Growing evidence suggests that a lifetime spent using your noodle -- in your day job as an astrophysicist or mom, or after hours playing Monopoly, tooting the clarinet in your local chamber group, or doing crossword puzzles -- may build extra brain connections (a kind of mental savings account called cognitive reserve) and slow the symptoms of dementia." -- Michael Merzenich, Ph.D., a professor in the Keck Center for Integrative Neurosciences at the University of California at San Francisco, is interviewed.
  • Medicare drug gap will be even trickier in 2008 (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle reports: "If you're a Medicare beneficiary who's looking for a drug plan that will cover brand-name prescriptions in the so-called doughnut hole - a financial gap built into the benefit - you're out of luck. Next year, none of the 56 stand-alone Medicare drug plans available in California will offer that level of coverage; that's down from just one plan this year. -- Marilyn Stebbins, professor of clinical pharmacology at UCSF, is quoted.
  • Commercializing a campus creation (Sacramento Bee - Online)
    The Sacramento Bee reports: "The work done on Raju Pandey's computer research project at UC Davis between 2003 and 2006 produced the expected trove of top-drawer students who cranked out three doctoral and three master's theses. It also generated the foundation for one of the more promising tech companies the region has recently produced -- so promising that it brought in more than $12.5 million in venture funding in less than two years. ... UCD now brings in between $9 million and $10 million in royalties a year for licensing its discoveries to outside business. In 2006, that put UCD on a par with UC Berkeley at $7.7 million and UC Irvine at $9.9 million, though far behind UC San Francisco where licensing fees from medical-related discoveries brought in $127.1 million."
  • Doctors testing anti-obesity implant (San Antonio Express-News - Online)
    The San Antonio Express reports: "In the never-ending quest to find new ways to shed pounds, San Antonio doctors are testing a mechanical method on a handful of diabetic patients -- a heart pacemake-like implant that sends signals to the stomach, tricking it into thinking it's full before it really is. ... Dr. Robert Lustig, an endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who isn't involved with the device but is studying the idea of severing the vagus nerve to the stomach as an obesity treatment, said the idea 'makes perfect sense.'"
  • Tobacco-Free (Forbes.com)
    Forbes reports: "[Former smoker Jotham] Coe is now striking back against tobacco: A medicine he invented, called Chantix, is turning out to be the most powerful anti-smoking drug ever, and Pfizer's...biggest surprise hit in a decade." -- Neal Benowitz, a leading researcher in nicotine addiction at UCSF, is quoted.
  • Stress makes us depressed, fat, sick - and we do it to ourselves (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle reports: "Americans are so riddled with stress these days that it's making them sick. ... Chronic stress has been linked to depression, heart disease, autoimmune disorders, premature cell aging, and obesity and diabetes." -- Elissa Epel, an assistant professor of psychiatry at UCSF and an expert on the physiological effects of stress, is quoted.
  • A clear pattern of risk emerges from city smog (Los Angeles Times)
    The LA Times examines the health effects of air pollution on children's developing lungs. Dr. John Balmes, professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and professor of public health at UC Berkeley, is quoted.
  • The Washington Daybook - Senate Committees (Federal Information & News Dispatch, Inc./Agence France-Presse)
    Norman Hearst, professor at the University of California San Francisco, will testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s full committee hearing on “Meeting the Global Challenge of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria,” tomorrow, 12/11, at 10 AM. Also testifying: U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Mark Dybul; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Julie Gerberding; Princess Zulu, HIV/AIDS educator at World Vision, Federal Way, Wash.; Agnes Binagwaho, executive secretary of Rwanda AIDS Control Commission in Rwanda; Helen Smits, vice chairman of the Committee for the Evaluation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Implementation at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies; and Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), testify. 325 Russell -- Contact: 202-224-0767 or Melissa Wagoner (Kennedy), 202-224-2633 or Craig Orfield (Enzi), 202-224-6770
  • M2M in Healthcare (M2M)
    Consumer publication M2M reports: "The UCFS Medical Center announced it is in the process of deploying a ZigBee-based senor networking asset tracking solution from Awarepoint Corp., www.awarepoint.com, San Diego, Calif., to keep better tabs on its equipment. “With the installation of Awarepoint, the UCSF operating rooms’ equipment will be reliably retrievable within minutes including weekend and after hours shifts,” says James Bennan, administrative director for perioperative services, UCFS Medical Center."
  • Stem-cell agency denies 10 grants, cites conflicts of interest (San Jose Mercury News)
    The Mercury News reports: "Scrambling to deal with their second conflict-of-interest mix-up in three weeks, officials at California's stem-cell institute said Friday that they have rejected 10 new applications for research grants because some board members wrote in support of the grants. ... Citing their policy against identifying applicants not yet awarded money, agency officials declined to name the institutions whose applications were rejected. However, an agency source said they were the University of California-San Francisco, University of California-Los Angeles, University of Southern California and University of California-San Diego."
  • Power List: The Great + The Good (7x7 Magazine)
    "Fund-raising powerhouse" Dede Wilsey, president of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Board of Trustees, who is currently raising $500 million to build a women's, children's and cancer hospital at UCSF Mission Bay, was selected as one of 7x7 Magazine's first annual most influential people in S.F. list.

UCSF TELEVISION COVERAGE

  • Fighting kids' colds: The elbow technique (ABC 7 News at 5 PM - KGO-TV San Francisco)
    ABC 7 reports: "If you want to stay healthy during the cold season, cough in your elbow. That's the recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control. Today, more and more schools and daycare centers are adopting this technique as a way to avoid colds and the flu. ... Health care providers at UCSF also practice this hands-free approach to hygiene. They hope it will gain momentum throughout the general public." Air Time: 5 PM
  • Mistake cuts supply of medical isotopes (ABC 7 News at 11 AM - KGO-TV San Francisco)
    ABC 7 reports: "A nuclear blunder cuts off the supply of isotopes to the worlds hospitals, cancelling some tests for cancer and heart disease." Dr. Randall Hawkins, head of nuclear medicine at UCSF, is interviewed. -- Air Time: 5 PM
  • Childhood obesity affects risk for heart problems in adulthood (Channel 4 News at 11 PM - KNBC-TV San Francisco)
    NBC 11 reports: "Scientists at uc san francisco say the teen obesity problem will lead to a rise in heart disease. The researchers took the number of overweight teens in the year 2000 and used the computer model to predict heart disease and premature death when those teens reach adulthood." -- Air Time: 5 PM
  • Horse Therapy Helps Disabled Boy Ride to Walk (ABC News-10 Sacramento)
    ABC in Sacramento reports that five-year-old Kole Miller of Roseville, diagnosed with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes involuntary self-mutilation, is improving thanks to medical care at Shriner's and UCSF Children's Hospital and a therapeutic horseback riding program called "Ride to Walk."
  • Prescription For Addiction (CBS -- 60 Minutes National)
    60 Minutes reports: "Prometa is touted as a new treatment for addictions, especially to meth, but some doctors say its claims are unverified, even though addicts and other doctors say it works." Dr. John Mendelson, MD, at the University of California, San Francisco, and senior scientist at the Addiction Pharmacology Lab at the California Pacific Medical Center, is quoted.

UCSF RADIO COVERAGE

  • Animal Rights Group Calls for Boycott of Snackfoods (KCBS- 740 AM Radio San Francisco)
    KCBS reports: “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are calling for a boycott of M&M, Twix other snack foods made by Mars, claiming the company funds experiments to kill mice, Guinea pigs and rabbits. PETA says it's in violation of the company's own written policy. The company is currently funding a study at the University of California, San Francisco that uses rats.” -- Air Time: 8 AM [This news piece also aired at 8 AM, 12/9, on KCBS Los Angeles -- KNX-AM 1070, and on WTOP-AM 1500 (CBS) Washington, DC, at 11 AM, 12/9.]

UCSF HEADLINES

  • Two Win International Leadership Awards for Leading Fight Against HIV/AIDS (UCSF Today)
    UCSF Today reports: "William L. Holzemer, associate dean of international programs in the UCSF School of Nursing, and Purnima Madhivanan, a former UCSF and UC Berkeley graduate student, each have been recognized separately for their international work in combating HIV/AIDS."
  • UCSF lands $1.4 million grant to reduce maternal mortality worldwide (UCSF News Office -- Press release)
    "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given UCSF researchers nearly $1.4 million to expand African research trials on an innovative anti-shock garment that aims to reduce maternal deaths in remote areas worldwide," reports Kristen Bole in the UCSF News Office.