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

  • Eat Healthy, Eat Japanese (AsianWeek)
    AsianWeek reports: "[Dr. Wendy] Kohatsu, now a student at Oregon Culinary Institute, has chosen to combine her love of medicine and cooking to teach the health benefits of the Japanese diet. She will lecture at Hotel Kabuki’s Grand Ballroom in San Francisco on March 12, as part of The Takahashi Dinner Series presented by UCSF’s Osher Center for Integrative Medicine."
  • Brain-disease battle ends for ex-mayor (El Paso Times)
    The El Paso Times reports: "Carlos Ramirez, the man El Pasoans remember as a mild-mannered mayor, died of heart failure Saturday in a hospital in Zaragoza, Spain, ending his five-year battle with a degenerative brain disease." The newspaper gives information on frontotemporal dementia from the National Center on Caregiving; University of California, San Francisco.
  • An Anesthesia Revolution? (Forbes - Online)
    Forbes reports: "The journal Anesthesia & Analgesia devoted its entire April 2007 issue to sugammadex, and researchers were almost breathless about its promise. "Sugammadex is clearly one of the most exciting drugs to appear in the field of anesthesia in many years," wrote Ronald D. Miller, an anesthesiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, in one editorial."
  • An elusive billionaire gives away his good fortune (Los Angeles Times)
    The LA Times reports: "The joshing at a Manhattan gathering would have been nothing out of the ordinary except that the man pulling a worn blue blazer over his head in mock modesty was none other than the onetime billionaire, Chuck Feeney. ... Feeney's biggest beneficiary has been Cornell University, which he attended on the GI Bill. ... Many of Feeney's grants are still directed to traditional bricks and mortar -- $60 million for a Stanford biomedical center and $125 million for a UC San Francisco cardiovascular complex. ... But others are iconoclastic... ."
  • Cost of the pill inflated? (Los Angeles Times)
    The LA Times reports: "A whistle-blower lawsuit contends that Planned Parenthood affiliates in California overcharged the state and federal governments by at least $180 million for birth-control pills, despite internal and external warnings that its billing practices were improper." --- Research by the UC San Francisco Center for Reproductive Health Research and Policy is mentioned.
  • Diet books, pound for pound (Los Angeles Times)
    The LA Times reports: "Ornish's serious academic cred -- professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and author of peer-reviewed journal articles -- makes diet-science wonks swoon. This latest book (which includes plugs from genome scientist Craig Venter as well as Clint Eastwood) emphasizes a range of healthy lifestyle choices for food, meditation and exercise."
  • What's the crack? (New Scientist)
    Don L Jewett, Professor Emeritus of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, explains for readers what causes the popping sound when knuckles crack.
  • Self-Made Philanthropists (New York Times)
    The New York Times reports: "{Herb and Marion Sandler]...are also among the very few philanthropists in the country who finance basic scientific research, at the University of California at San Francisco."
  • A rare and once-baffling disease forces Navajo parents to cope as a cure is sought (North County Times)
    The North County Times reports: "In the Navajo population, one in every 2,500 children inherit SCID, a condition that endows them virtually no immune system. In the general population, SCID is much more rare, affecting one in 100,000 children." --- Dr. To 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, discusses the epidemiology and treatment.
  • Cancer doesn't stop survivor (Salinas Californian, The)
    Cancer survivor Susan Silva, who is now pregnant, will model clothes at the American Cancer Society's Celebration of Life 2008 Fashion Show and Luncheon this Friday at the Hyatt Regency Monterey. "As part of her treatment regimen since her surgery, Silva undergoes weekly acupuncture sessions, a step suggested by a UCSF physician," said the Salinas Californian.
  • Yayoi Kambara, mother and dancer at ODC (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle featured a front page story Saturday about ODC dancer and new mother, Yayoi Kambara, and her husband Dr. Richard Coughlin, "a globe-trotting orthopedic surgeon and faculty member at UCSF/San Francisco General Hospital's Orthopedic Trauma Institute, and founder of ODC's Healthy Dancer clinic."
  • Changing demographics drive move to SoMa (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The Chronicle reports: "As buildings open, planning progresses and buyers put down deposits across SoMa, the outlines of the city's nascent residential districts are coming into focus: Mid-Market, Transbay, Rincon Hill and, furthest along, Mission Bay. The early evidence from the area's pioneer buyers both supports and disputes preconceived notions of who would land there, illuminates why they're coming and hints at what may follow. ... Alexandra Loucks, a 25-year-old doctoral student at UCSF, will move from a studio in the Mission to a one-bedroom condo in Mission Bay."
  • Women shouldn't beat themselves up for hating to say no, therapist says (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
    Dr. Nanette Gartrell, psychiatrist and professor in the Center for Excellence in Women's Health at the University of California, San Francisco, is interviewed about her book, "My Answer Is No ... If That's Okay With You: How Women Can Say No and Still Feel Good About It" (Free Press, $24).

UCSF HEADLINES

  • UCSF Asian Heart and Vascular Center Welcomes New Advisors (UCSF Today)
    Since its inception one and a half years ago, the UCSF Asian Heart and Vascular Center (AHVC) has made reaching out to the Asian community a top priority. In turn, the community has taken notice and is responding with its support.
  • Does It Matter How You Lower Your Cholesterol? (UCSF Today)
    Recent headlines are shining a hot spotlight on a continually simmering issue — who should be treated for risk factors associated with heart attack and stroke, and what should the prescription be?