The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. Founded in 1873, the mission of UCSF is to serve as a "public university dedicated to saving lives and improving health." Though one of the ten campuses of the University of California, it is unique for being the only University of California campus dedicated solely to graduate education, and this in health and biomedical sciences. UCSF has developed a reputation for unique interdisciplinary collaboration between the health science disciplines which has led to some of the most important discoveries in the biosciences. The graduate-focused environment of UCSF, its relatively small size, and its culture of collaboration allows for a flexibility to translate new discoveries into new treatments hard to find even at many of the world's other top medical centers.
Chimpanzee 'mini-brains' hint at secrets of human evolution
At some point during human evolution, a handful of genetic changes triggered a dramatic threefold expansion of the brain's neocortex, the wrinkly outermost layer of brain tissue responsible for everything from language to ...
Feb 08, 2019
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CRISPR opens door to new type of medicine—'genome surgery'
Within a few years, Jim Johnsen and Delaney Van Riper may be among the first to benefit from CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, a breakthrough that has already revolutionized biology research and promises to resurrect gene therapy.
Cryo-electron microscopy characterizes integrins
A collaboration between three labs at UC San Francisco has resulted in an unprecedented look at a member of a vital and ubiquitous class of proteins called integrins (pronounced "INT-uh-grins"). Integrins are associated with ...
CRISPR-based tool maps gene function in human cells
UC San Francisco scientists have used a high-throughput CRISPR-based technique to rapidly map the functions of nearly 500 genes in human cells, many of them never before studied in detail.
T cell engineering breakthrough sidesteps need for viruses in gene-editing
In an achievement that has significant implications for research, medicine, and industry, UC San Francisco scientists have genetically reprogrammed the human immune cells known as T cells without using viruses to insert DNA. ...
How CRISPR tools are unlocking new ways to fight disease
Recent leaps in gene editing technology have brought ideas that just a decade ago seemed like science fiction to the cusp of reality.
CryoEM study captures opioid signaling in the act
Opioid drugs like morphine and fentanyl are a mainstay of modern pain medicine. But they also cause constipation, are highly addictive, and can lead to fatal respiratory failure if taken at too high a dose. Scientists have ...
Prop. 47 lessened racial disparities in drug arrests
In 2014, California voters approved Proposition 47, which reclassified drug possession offenses from felonies or "wobblers"—which prosecutors can charge as either felonies or misdemeanors—to misdemeanors, and in the process ...
Not junk: 'Jumping gene' is critical for early embryo
A so-called "jumping gene" that researchers long considered either genetic junk or a pernicious parasite is actually a critical regulator of the first stages of embryonic development, according to a new study in mice led ...
Biologists program cells to self-organize into 3D-structures in a first step towards tissues that regrow and self-repair
How do complex biological structures—an eye, a hand, a brain—emerge from a single fertilized egg? This is the fundamental question of developmental biology, and a mystery still being grappled with by scientists who hope ...
