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

  • An Ounce of Prevention Worth a Pound of Productivity (Sun Microsystems -- Executive Boardroom Newsletter)
    Sun Microsystems interviews UCSF ergonomics expert Dr. Robert Goldberg, M.D., about "how ergonomic and workplace issues affect the bottom line."
  • Navajo Nation president Joe Shirely Jr., praises AP report (Navajo Nation -- Press release)
    "Navajo president Joe Shirely Jr. complimented the AP for reporting on a rare but deadly disease [called severe combined immune deficiency (SCID)] that affects a small percentage of Navajo and Apache children." Dr. Morton Cowan, director of the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Program at the University of California, San Francisco, who has worked with SCID patients for more than two decades, is featured.
  • From sex roles to eating, female hyenas rule (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle reports: "Mothers don't share with their children. Males are terrorized by females. Both sexes have prodigious appendages, and only a practiced eye can tell them apart. These are the facts of life for a spirited community of spotted hyenas that lives in the Berkeley hills - and is suddenly being downsized, despite its unique status in the research world. ... In one case, the project's research was cited in a paper about a girl born at UCSF with male external genitalia. There was a defect in placental metabolism that allowed abnormally high quantities of androgen to be secreted by the placenta -- much like a hyena placenta -- instead of the estrogen issued by a normal human placenta."
  • Questions Swirl Around Kessler's Abrupt Dismissal From UCSF (Science)
    Science reports: "David Kessler, the high-profile dean of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), School of Medicine, was fired last week, for reasons that have so far not been disclosed by the university. Kessler and the university had been at odds over 'financial irregularities' Kessler says he discovered shortly after taking the post in 2003."

UCSF RADIO COVERAGE

  • Benefits of hospitalist care confirmed in new study (KCBS-AM)
    Dr. Andrew Auerbach spoke to KCBS radio yesterday about his study, the largest to date, published in the Dec. 20, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine showing care by hospitalists resulted in shorter stays and lower costs to patients. -- UCSF News release: http://pub.ucsf.edu/newsservices/releases/200712192/. Air Times: 10 AM and 4 PM

UCSF HEADLINES

  • Songbirds offer clues to highly practiced motor skills in humans (UCSF News Office -- Press release)
    Evren Turner and Michael Brainard of the University of California, San Francisco, report in the journal Nature that the minor changes in pitch of a bird's song are not random variations, but show an effort to maintain or improve the sound. Jennifer O'Brien in the UCSF News Office reports the findings lend an understanding of the "way in which adult humans perform and retain well-learned motor skills."
  • After cancer (UCSF Today -- Front page, ucsf.edu)
    Thanks to great strides in pediatric oncology research, the rate of survivorship for children with cancer is rising. There are roughly 250,000 long-term survivors living in the United States today.
  • Nurturing Diversity: Accomplishments, Challenges and Plans for the Future (UCSF Today)
    UCSF leaders presented key initiatives, including the 10-point plan to promote diversity, academic diversity case studies, initiatives for staff diversity and the role of the UCSF director of academic diversity at a panel held last fall in Cole Hall.
  • Ernest Charles "Charlie" Watkins Passes Away at 83 (UCSF Today)
    UCSF Today reports: "Ernest Charles Watkins, DDS, passed away on Dec. 4 at the age of 83. Watkins attended the UCSF School of Dentistry, where he subsequently taught dentistry for 20 years. "He taught me and hundreds of other alumni during the 1960s and ’70s,' recalled Assistant Dean for Community Clinics Nelson Artiga-Diaz, DDS."