Sharon L. Youmans, PharmD, MPH, and UCSF School of Pharmacy vice dean, is the newly elected Council of Deans Secretary, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP).
The council includes a select number of the nation’s leaders in academic pharmacy. Council activities focus on educational policies, professional program administration within academic institutions, and the ties between academic pharmacy and the community.
Sepsis occurs when the body responds to an infection with a mix of tissue-damaging inflammation and anti-inflammatory responses. This biological storm can lead to acute organ dysfunction (severe sepsis) and dropping blood pressure that does not respond to intravenous fluids (septic shock).
Reprinted courtesy of UCSF Magazine.
In the pediatric bone marrow transplant clinic, pharmacist Janel Boyle’s past and present collide.
She drifts past young patients—many of them infants and toddlers—and notes their beaming smiles and balding heads. Her gaze shifts to the parents, their expressions tense but hopeful.
Nearly every human bacterial infection—including some of the most serious, life threatening, and costly to treat—can take the form of a biofilm, in which bacteria aggregate into structured communities that enclose themselves within a secreted slime.
UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Tejal Desai, PhD, has been newly elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly known as the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
NAM membership is considered one of the highest honors in health and medicine. Elected by current members, the membership recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.
A new collaboration between Celgene Corp. and the Recombinant Antibody Network (RAN) will support the development of next-generation, antibody-based cancer therapies. The RAN is a consortium comprising researchers from the UCSF School of Pharmacy (UCSF Antibiome Center), the University of Chicago, and the University of Toronto.
UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member Shuvo Roy, PhD, has received a three-year $1 million grant to create surgically implantable capsules of donor pancreas cells to free type 1 diabetes patients from daily insulin injections and the disease’s potentially life-threatening complications. The work is being funded by JDRF, the largest charitable supporter of type 1 diabetes research.
Conan MacDougall, PharmD, MAS, BCPS, a faculty member in the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s Department of Clinical Pharmacy, and an award-winning teacher in the School’s doctor of pharmacy degree program, has been named a new member of the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators. He will be inducted, along with 18 colleagues, in a ceremony on September 28, 2015, on the UCSF Parnassus campus.
Renowned researcher and educator Matthew Jacobson, PhD, has been named the new chair of the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. His appointment by Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, will be effective January 15, 2016.
Jacobson will become the department’s 10th chair since its formation in 1958. He succeeds James Wells, PhD, who is stepping down from the post after leading the department since 2008.
Valerie Clinard, PharmD, has joined the UCSF School of Pharmacy as director of experiential education and as an associate professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy. She comes to us from Campbell University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in North Carolina, where she served on the faculty for over 10 years in the Department of Pharmacy Practice.
Andrej Sali, PhD, has been appointed associate dean of research of the UCSF School of Pharmacy, effective July 1, 2015. The appointment is in addition to Sali’s full professorship in the School’s Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences. As he continues with his own research, Sali will advise Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, and School leaders on pertinent research issues and opportunities and will represent the School in critical campus research decisions.
How does brain circuitry organize itself during development? In at least one case—the seemingly complex visual system of the fruit fly, which connects its 800-facet compound eyes to its brain—the answer lies in just three simple rules.
The 2015 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year is Rear Admiral Pamela Schweitzer, PharmD ’87. The recognition by the Pharmacy Alumni Association is given to the School graduate who has made outstanding contributions to the profession of pharmacy, to society, and/or to UCSF.
We are rapidly moving forward to develop a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) curriculum that will prepare pharmacists to excel in a changing health care marketplace. A recent interview with Sharon L. Youmans, PharmD, MPH, our vice dean, lays out our plans. What will be the impact of the new curriculum? Most importantly, how will it affect patients? As we consider the future of pharmacy education and practice, here is a scenario we are working to realize.
The UCSF School of Pharmacy’s top-ranked doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) curriculum is in the initial stages of its most significant transformation in two decades. Named the UCSF Bridges Pharmacy Curriculum Project, the effort is led by Vice Dean Sharon L. Youmans, PharmD, MPH, and is currently targeted to launch fully with students entering the program in 2017.
Concluding a year-long celebration of the 150th anniversary of the founding of UC San Francisco, the School of Pharmacy presented its own “Making History” event in Byers Auditorium on the Mission Bay campus on May 30, 2015.
Studies of pharmacist interventions during comprehensive medication reviews, the impact of new tools to aid drug selection from a hospital formulary, and a project ensuring that hospital patients receiving anti-clotting drugs are properly educated upon discharge took top honors at the Department of Clinical Pharmacy 17th Annual Spring Research Seminar.
The UCSF School of Pharmacy held its 2015 commencement on May 8 at Louise Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, conferring doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) degrees on a 125-member graduating class.
Addressing the large gathering including hundreds of graduates’ friends and family members, School faculty on stage, and specially invited guests, Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, remarked on the notable diversity of the graduates, more than a quarter of whom were born in other nations.
The annual UCSF School of Pharmacy Student Awards and Recognition Dinner, hosted by Dean B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, and sponsored by Ralph’s Inc., was held on Friday, May 1, 2015, at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus.
The event honored dozens of students whose excellence and leadership were recognized at the campus, state, and national levels with scholarships and awards. The following is a brief selection from the evening’s presentations.
Marcus Ferrone, PharmD, JD, a faculty member in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy, has been named the California Pharmacists Association (CPhA) 2015 Innovative Pharmacist of the Year.
The award, from the largest state association representing pharmacists, recognizes a member pharmacist for achievements such as significantly improving patient care, adding to the scope of practice, and inventing a new chemical composition.
Francesca Aweeka, PharmD, a faculty member in the School’s Department of Clinical Pharmacy, will co-lead a new five-year, $3.4 million study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to address one of the world’s most vexing health problems—preventing malaria, especially in the most vulnerable populations, pregnant women and young children in Africa.
For the 35th consecutive year, the UCSF School of Pharmacy has received more funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) than any other pharmacy school in the United States.
School researchers were awarded $31.8 million during the 2014 fiscal year, from October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2014.
School of Pharmacy alumnus Robert Gibson, PharmD '58, has been a tireless advocate for equality in education and in the profession of pharmacy, and is still active as a board member of the California Pharmacists Association Education Foundation.
The inaugural presentation of the Dean’s Innovation in Education Awards took place during the School of Pharmacy faculty meeting at Mission Hall on the Mission Bay campus on January 6, 2015.
Honorees receiving the award’s engraved glass apple and $1,000 were Jaekyu Shin, PharmD, and Marcus Ferrone, PharmD, JD, faculty members in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy; and Matt Jacobson, PhD, faculty member in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.
