University of California, San Francisco

From Freepedia

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public university located in San Francisco, California dedicated to saving lives and improving health. It is one of 10 University of California campuses, and it is the only campus dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences.

Contents 1 Academics 2 Distinctions 2.1 Noted faculty 3 External links

Academics

University of California, San Francisco is unique in that it does biomedical and patient-centered research in its Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing and Dentistry and their hundreds of associated laboratories. The university is known for innovation in medical research, public service, and patient care. UCSF's faculty includes three Nobel Prize winners, 21 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 69 members of the Institute of Medicine, and 30 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1995, the National Research Council ranked UCSF in the top ten for biochemistry and molecular biology (1st), genetics (2nd), cell and developmental biology (3rd), neurosciences (4th), physiology (5th), and biomedical engineering (7th). Overall, the campus is fourth in the nation in annual NSF-NIH funding with $420.7 million (2003). UCSF's Schools of Dentistry, Nursing, and Pharmacy all are first in NIH funding among their peers, with $28 million, $13.4 million and $19.8 million, respectively. Its School of Medicine is fourth with $350.8 million.

UCSF's Parnassus facilities serve as the main campus and include the 600 bed UCSF Medical Center, Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute (one of the state's largest outpatient clinics), the Children's Hospital (located inside the center) and a hundreds of research labs. Mount Zion contains UCSF's Comprehensive Cancer Center, and outpatient resources. UCSF's 43-acre Mission Bay campus, recently opened in 2003 with construction still ongoing, contains additional research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences companies. The Mission Bay campus currently contains the following facilities:

UCSF Genentech Hall: Opened in January 2003 at UCSF's new Mission Bay campus, the first research building contains space for approximately 900 faculty, staff, students, and postdoctoral fellows working in the fields of structural and chemical biology and molecular cell and developmental biology.

Rock Hall: Opened in February 2004 at UCSF's new Mission Bay campus, the second research building contains space for approximately 400 researchers in the fields of neuroscience, developmental biology, and genetics

QB3: Serving as the headquarters for the California Institute for Biomedical Research, a cooperative effort between the UC campuses at San Francisco, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz, this buliding opened in February 2005 at UCSF's new Mission Bay campus. It contains space devoted to both computational and experimental research and houses a 7 tesla superconducting magnet, the first on the West Coast of the United States, for use in magnetic resonance imaging.

Several other facilities opened at Mission Bay in the fall of 2005: a campus community center (designed by famed architect Ricardo Legoretta) containing fitness, conference and student services, a housing complex for 750 students and postdoctoral fellows, and two parking garages totalling 1400 spaces.

UCSF is also affiliated with the San Francisco General Hospital and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Distinctions

• Researchers at UCSF developed gene-splicing techniques that have revolutionized biology, spawned the biotechnology industry and led to life-saving treatments.
• Over 25,000 doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and scientists have graduated from UCSF.
• UCSF handles more than 1 million patient visits a year through its medical centers at Parnassus and Mount Zion as well as its affiliated hospitals, San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
• UCSF has spawned over 60 biotech and life sciences company and contributes some $1.2 billion annually to the Bay Area economy.
• UCSF researchers discovered, in cooperation with Stanford, the techniques of recombinant DNA.
• With a work force of 18,600 people, UCSF is San Francisco's second largest employer.

Noted faculty

• J. Michael Bishop - Nobel laureate in Medicine (1989), worked to discover the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes
• Stanley Prusiner - Nobel laureate in Medicine (1997), discovered and described prions
• Harold Varmus - Nobel laureate in Medicine (1989), worked to discover the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes

External links

• UCSF main website
• UCSF School of Medicine
• UCSF Medical Center website