MedicalAlumniM A G A Z I N E

spring 2011volume 52 | no 1

Register by April 30. To register online go to: www.regonline.com/ucsfalumniweekend. For more information call 415-502-8321 or email: maa@support.ucsf.edu.

ALSO INSIDE:

PRIZE-WINNING STUDENT

RESEARCHERS

EVOLVING CLERKSHIPS

ROIZEN’S ROAD TO WELLNESS

Stem Cell Science Soars

Contact us! Your letters are welcome. Write to: UCSF Medical Alumni Magazine, Letters to the Editor, UCSF Box 0248, San Francisco, CA 94143-0248. You may also email your letter to: maa@support.ucsf.edu.

features 3 2011 Dean’s Prize for Outstanding Student Research

Four young scholars with promising futures win coveted award.

4 Clerkships Evolve for a New WorldLongitudinal PISCES program helps students better understand their patients’ experience.

6 Stem Cell Science SoarsUCSF opens new stem cell building, a milestone for pioneering program.

12 The Road to WellnessFrom Oprah to bestsellers, Michael Roizen, MD ’71, goes all out to spread his message of health.

ON THE COVER: The recently opened Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building – headquarters for the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF. See story on page 6.

Insidedepartments

1 Editorial

2 News | MAA President’s Letter

14 Class Notes

16 In Memoriam

M A G A Z I N EMedicalAlumniSpring 2011: Volume 52, Number 1

EDITOR: Gordon Fung, MD ’79, MPH, PhD

MANAGING EDITOR: Anne Kavanagh

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Gary Bernard, Mark Boone, Mike Eccles, Anders Yang

WRITERS: Elizabeth Chur, Susan Davis, Anne Kavanagh, Kate Volkman

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Drew Altizer Photography, Brian Auerbach, Noah Berger, Bruce Damonte/Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects, Peter DaSilva, Elisabeth Fall, Mark Lydell/lydellphoto.com, Susan Merrell, Marco Sanchez, Serge Tkachov

DESIGNER: Laura Myers Design

Administrative Council 2010–2011

OFFICERS

Lawrence Hill, MD ’67, President; Donna Hoghooghi, MD ’98, President-Elect; H. John Blossom, MD ’70, Representative (Central California); Ronald P. Karlsberg, MD ’73, Representative (Southern California); Kenneth M. Bermudez, MD ’92, Secretary/Treasurer

COUNCILORS AT LARGE

Caley Castelein, MD ’99; Neal H. Cohen, MD ’71; Edward R. Conner, MD ’00; Timothy J. Crowley, MD ’80; Julie Jacobs, MD ’78; Robert C. Lim, MD ’60; Tomas Magana, MD ’95; Gary Mizono, MD; Naomi Nakashima, MD ’60; Harlan B. Watkins, MD ’63; William Kapla, MD, President, Association of the Clinical Faculty

PAST PRESIDENTS

Lawrence Lustig, MD ’91; Gordon L. Fung, MD ’79; David N. Schindler, MD ’66; Judith A. Luce, MD ’74; John Fletcher, MD ’57

STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE

Arul Thangavel, MS3

EX-OFFICIO

Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS, Dean, UCSF School of Medicine

UCSF School of MedicineMedical Alumni AssociationUCSF Box 0248San Francisco, CA 94143-0248Tel: 415/476-1591Fax: 415/476-3264Email: maa@support.ucsf.eduWebsite: www.ucsfalumni.org

© 2011 UCSF School of Medicine, MAA. All rights reserved.

We recently celebrated the Lunar New Year on campus. The Year of the Rabbit

ushers in so much activity at UCSF, it is hard to know where to begin.

One recent change that significantly impacts alumni is the reorganization of UCSF’s volunteer structure. This was the vision of Vice Chancellor of Development and Alumni Relations Carol Moss and her new team. They convened a task force of volunteer leaders, on which I represented the Alumni Association of UCSF (AAUCSF) and the Medical Alumni Association.

One of the key findings of the task force was that alumni were relatively splintered and not as engaged with or empowered by UCSF as they could be. There was a sense that the alumni were connected to UCSF through their schools, departments or sections – and not UCSF as a whole. There was also a sense that alumni were siloed in the way they interacted with UCSF. As a group spread among the AAUCSF and five separate school alumni associations, we were not able to achieve much recognition.

So work began to increase the visibility and voice of alumni as strong supporters of UCSF. We are a group connected not just by our passion for one of the world’s leading educational and research institutions, but by a bond that comes from being a

E D I T O R I A L

A More Empowered, Engaged Alumni Body

member of the family who spent time within the halls of UCSF.

The UCSF Foundation Board of Directors advises, manages, and governs campus fundraising and volunteer activities under the Chancellor’s leadership. Among the positive changes, the Board elected an alumni representative, Faustino Bernadett Jr., MD ’80, whose participation has elevated the interest of alumni with this influential body. Through the Board and Carol Moss, we now have direct input to the Chancellor. In addition, the Alumni Relations team now provides dedicated support within the dean’s office of each school, which will improve communications among faculty, staff and alumni. The Alumni Relations staff will also continue to work as a team to coordinate the schools’ alumni associations. Finally, the AAUCSF stepped up efforts to emphasize more collaboration and integration with all five schools, pursuing a campus-wide focus while continuing to support school-specific activities and projects.

I see tremendous benefits with these changes. First, the improved activities elevate alumni as a significant group of supporters of UCSF, while continuing to recognize that alumni contribute more than just financial resources; they contribute time, energy and

advocacy. It acknowledges the enormous contribution of alumni to UCSF’s reputation for excellence. The new structure also offers flexibility for alumni who want to remain involved primarily with their school, but who also want to be informed of activities throughout UCSF. There are also improved opportunities for alumni who choose to engage with UCSF beyond their degree school. And there is a structure now in place for those who want to give input on how to modify or improve the volunteer experience – especially for alumni.

Hopefully, you will see these positive changes reflected in your experience as a graduate. Please feel free to contact me with any comments or concerns.

Gordon Fung, MD ’79, MPH, PhDEditor, UCSF Medical Alumni Magazinegordon.fung@ucsf.edu

Gordon Fung

medical alumni magazine | 1

“The Year of the Rabbit ushers in so much activity at UCSF, it is hard to know where to begin.”

P R E S I D E N T ’ S L E T T E R

$33,643 and $45,888. Those are the projected fees

that UCSF students – in-state and out-of-state – will be paying in 2011-2012. And that is before taking into consideration the $500 million cut to the University of California system announced by Governor Brown recently.

Admittedly, it has been a long, long time since I graduated in 1967, but it is worth pointing out that my fees were a little over $200 per semester. Those of you who graduated between 1967 and the present paid figures in between, but I dare say that yours were closer to mine than to the fees paid by the Class of 2015.

Before the recent era, UCSF never lost any of the best applicants on the basis of financial aid to the likes of Harvard, Hopkins and Stanford, let alone Penn, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin. We always coupled a great education and the lure of the nation’s best city with an affordable price, even a bargain price for Californians. That is simply not true anymore. We are losing a few of the very best to our competitors among the great medical schools of the country.

When you make a gift to our Annual Giving Campaign, all of those gifts go toward education – mostly in the form of scholarships. But currently, that fund is distressingly small. Some 90 percent of medical students at UCSF receive financial aid, which is usually comprised of a combination of loans, grants and scholarships. The average scholarship a student receives is $10,336 per year – leaving him or her with an onerous debt at graduation. That debt on average is over $100,000, now more than Stanford, Harvard or Hopkins. The size of the debt frequently influences the graduate’s choice of specialties, hitting hard on the primary care fields.

As the soon-to-be immediate past president of the Medical Alumni Association, I ask you to dig deep to support our alma mater. Consider a charitable gift annuity – a contribution which pays you and, if you so choose, your surviving spouse, competitive interest for the rest of your lives. There are multiple ways to make a difference to those following us at our wonderful medical school to which we owe so much.

Thank you for your continued support of the UCSF School of Medicine!

Lawrence Hill, MD ’67Medical Alumni Association President

https://makeagift.ucsf.edu/medicaleducation

Please Be Generous

2 | spring 2011

N E W S

Vice Dean for Medical Education to Step Down Stellar career leads to international prize David Irby, PhD, has announced that he will step down as vice dean for education in the UCSF School of Medicine effective July 1, 2011, according to Sam Hawgood, MBBS, dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and vice chancellor for medical affairs.

Under Irby’s stewardship, medical education at UCSF has flourished and garnered national and international recognition, Hawgood noted.

In November, Irby was awarded the 2010 Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education. The purpose of the prize is to recognize and stimulate high-quality research in the field and to promote long-term improvements of educational practices in medical training. Irby was selected in particular for his finding that medical expertise is necessary, yet insufficient, in order to become a great teacher in medicine. He shared the prize with Richard K. Reznick, dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

After a sabbatical, Irby will return to work on specific educational initiatives.

“While I have accepted his decision with regret, I am delighted that David Irby will continue to play an active role in medical education here at UCSF,” Hawgood said. “It has been a great pleasure to work with David and his ‘dream team.’ What has impressed me the most about them is their passion for education, dedication to our learners and support of our teachers.”

UCSF Nobel Laureate Wins National Medal of Science

In a White House ceremony in November, UCSF Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, MD, UCSF professor of neurology and director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, received the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for science and technology. President Barack Obama told the recipients that they have “truly revolutionized the world in ways that are profoundly important to people in their day-to-day lives.”

Prusiner, one of 10 scientists honored, received the medal

for his discovery of and ongoing research on the prion, which causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or “mad cow” disease, and other related fatal neurodegenerative diseases in animals and humans.

Stanley Prusiner congratulated by President Obama.

David Irby

Lawrence Hill

2011 Dean’s Prize for Outstanding Student ResearchFour scholars won the prestigious Dean’s Prize for Outstanding Student Research, an annual contest open to all UCSF medical students. Their research was showcased at the 24th Annual Medical Student Research Symposium in January.

Margaret Cooke“I have seen many qualities in Margaret that will make her an outstanding physician-scientist. Her technical and communication skills are excellent, she is very thoughtful in data analysis and experimental design, and she takes full advantage of a diversity of perspectives and expertise to advance her projects.”Tamara Alliston, PhDDepartment of Orthopaedic Surgery

Vivien Sun“Vivien was an outstanding student to work with this summer and has all the attributes that will one day benefit her greatly in her chosen career path as a physician-researcher. Vivien conceived of this study herself, after undertaking an extensive literature review. This degree of independence and motivation is a laudable quality in a busy medical student.”Brie Williams, MD, MS Department of Medicine

A Structured Co-culture Model for Stable Chondrogenic Differentiation of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells in the Absence of Exogenous Growth Factors— Margaret Cooke (above left, with mentor Tamara Alliston)

How Safe Is Your Neighborhood? Perceived Neighborhood Safety and Its Association with Functional Decline and Mortality in Older Adults— Vivien Sun (above right, with mentor Brie Williams)

Elucidation of the Underlying Pathogenic Mechanism in a Novel Model of Age- Related Macular Degeneration: A Role for Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress— Debbie Kuo (above right, with mentor Douglas Gould)

Cathepsins in Pancreatitis: Imaging, Identification and Contribution to Disease— Victoria Lyo (above center, with co-mentors Nigel Bunnett and Kimberly Kirkwood)

Debbie Kuo“Debbie grasped concepts easily and integrated them with her previous knowledge to develop an interesting, original and important research project. Her strong knowledge of ophthal-mology, intellect, logic and hard work ethic allowed Debbie to quickly become an independently function-ing member of the laboratory.”Douglas Gould, PhDDepartment of Ophthalmology

Victoria Lyo“Victoria has shown herself to be exceptionally bright, self-directed and accomplished. She is the most focused, intelligent, independent and effective student with whom I have worked in 16 years on the faculty. She brings a tremendous aptitude for research and wealth of experience for someone of her years.”Kimberly Kirkwood, MDDepartment of Surgery

co-mentor: Nigel Bunnett, PhDDepartment of Surgery

S T U D E N T R E S E A R C H

medical alumni magazine | 3

Medical student Rebecca Falik is taking an innovative approach to her third-year clerkships.

Instead of registering for the traditional six clinical blocks (family medicine, medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry, neurology and surgery), Falik signed up for UCSF School of Medicine’s “Parnassus Integrated Student Clinical Experiences” (PISCES) program.

In PISCES, students like Falik, 28, spend an entire year at UCSF Medical Center and work one-on-one with faculty from 12 core medical and surgical specialties simultaneously, rather than going through their rotations one after another. This approach allows them to develop a more multidisciplinary understanding of the specialties, the patient experience and how UCSF Medical Center works.

“I like being at one place,” says Falik, “because I start to recognize the names of the clinics and the doctors that all my patients see, and I am comfortable with the mechanics of the computer system, the paperwork, etcetera.”

Each student also follows a cohort of patients (usually between 50 and 80), whom s/he tracks through their care and across various specialties and clinics, a feature designed to develop doctors with a deeper understanding of the patient experience. A pager system notifies students when their patients come to the emergency room, labor and delivery, hospital admissions, and operating room and clinics, so that the students can meet up with them at the hospital.

That was Falik’s experience with patient Helan Lee, 38. She accompan-ied Lee to her prenatal appointments for several months, went with her when her baby was delivered, and came to well-baby visits. “She was a great advocate,” Lee says. “She was very sweet and able to ask very

detailed questions for me. She was a big help.”

“This program gives students a real role in taking care of patients,” says Ann Poncelet, MD, a professor of neurology at UCSF and co-director of the PISCES program.

Origins of the programThe PISCES idea emerged from a series of curriculum working groups and retreats in 2004-2005, and from research into models at several other schools and campuses that have implemented similar “longitudinal clerkships” (for example, Harvard, South Dakota and UCSF Fresno). In 2007, a pilot program was launched at UCSF with eight students.

The hope was that a new kind of program could address some of the long-standing issues in traditional medical education. These include a shrinking role in patient care, fewer opportunities to assess undiagnosed patients, increased fragmentation of medical care among many different settings, and a lack of continuity between rotations.

“We’re at the front edge of a growing wave in medical school curriculum,” says Helen Loeser, MD, associate dean of curriculum for the school. “There are only a handful of other schools doing this nationally. We are finding it to be a very rich and effective model for learning.”

Sixteen third-year students are enrolled in the PISCES program in its fourth year, and the benefits are becoming clear. Take, for instance, the notion of staying in one medical center, rather than rotating through several. ”By spending a chunk of time in one setting, the students really get to know the institution,” Loeser says. “That means they can navigate the system better, which in turn allows them to better help their patients access care, whether it’s social services, community resources, specialist referrals or diagnostics.”

A “spiraling education”The year-long work in all 12 specialties helps students learn to assess patients even when the preceptor isn’t there, Falik says. “It’s what I call the spiraling concept of education,” she notes, “wherein we touch upon one subject and then revisit it in a deeper way as time passes, and then the spiral continues. This can help the skills I’m learning really stick.”

“For example, I might watch my preceptor perform a neurological physical exam. But then I get to do the exam the next time, with her watching. And when I find myself taking care of a patient outside of the neurology setting, I feel confident doing the neuro exam without my preceptor watching.”

The exact nature of the student-patient relationship varies. While Falik accompanied Lee in welcoming her newborn, third-year medical student Aubrey Gilbert, 31, was most helpful to patient Tracie Brodhun, 48, by answering questions via email and phone.

Brodhun recalls that she had just finished her consultation with her surgeon at UCSF, when he suggested that she might want to team up with Gilbert. “He told me she could answer my questions,” says Brodhun, whose

Clerkships Evolve for a New WorldBY SUSAN DAVIS

4 | spring 2011

M E D I C A L E D U C AT I O N : P I S C E S P R O G R A M

Medical student Rebecca Falik (top, right) examines a patient, observed by her preceptor, Kim O’Hair, NP. Inset, from left: Ann Poncelet and Helen Loeser

thyroid cancer had returned after 20 years. “And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s nice. But I really don’t think I’ll have any questions.’” Of course, she did end up having questions. And Gilbert was the perfect respondent. “Aubrey was just so accessible and approachable,” Brodhun says. “She’s an incredibly kind, warm person.”

Reflecting on the interactions, Gilbert says, “I was able to experience health care much more from a patient perspective. I was also able to see what work is like from an attending point of view.”

PISCES students have preceptors in each specialty. These one-on-one relationships help the students receive a more personalized education. “You get to maintain relationships with

had a heart condition. “Dr. Ellen Mowry thought this would be a great learning experience for me to follow the patient through all of these different clinics and trials in her life,” Falik says. “I met with the patient a couple of times, performing the neurological exam on her once, watching her get a thorough heart exam another time, and then I got to help deliver her baby, and help suture up her belly after her C-section.”

“Now I see her back in neuro for her MS check-ups, and she brings along her infant. I get to see him grow, and that is so wonderful and makes me feel like life is really a miracle, even in the midst of the hospital setting where there is so much illness and tragedy. In PISCES I can really follow the cycle of life, if I so choose.”

Evaluating outcomesWithout question, PISCES is not for every student. “It tends to attract students who are self motivated, self-starters and very organized,” Loeser says, “students who really like engaging with responsibility and might not need as much structure as others.” Adds Gilbert, “They also really have to be very outgoing and good at communicating.”

So far, “students in PISCES do just as well as students in the more traditional rotations with every single marker that we measure,” Loeser says. “But they actually score higher in terms of their sense of well-being and professional development in their third year. They know why they’re in medical school. In the more traditional third-year path, students suffer from constantly being at the bottom of the heap, of not knowing what to do, each time they start a new rotation.”

PISCES students are also getting more opportunities to see new patients in acute care and ER settings, where, Loeser notes, “they’re not already packaged up and ready for care. They are undifferentiated, which gives our students tremendous opportunities for learning to assess patients.”

Poncelet says she’s looking forward to the time when she hears patients walking into a clinic and saying “I want a student. The care is better when we have students.” At that point, she notes, “we would know that medical education and medical care are truly aligned.”

“We’re at the front edge of a growing wave in medical school curriculum. There are only a handful of other schools doing this nationally. We are finding it to be a very rich and effective model for learning.”— Helen Loeser, MD, associate dean of curriculum

giving and wise doctors,” Falik says.But it’s an equally good opportunity

for the faculty members. “Working with a student over one year can be far more rewarding than working with random students in a rotation,” Loeser says. “But it does take time and attention. These teachers have to be able to look at a student in a longitudinal way – ‘here’s where she is now, here’s where she’s headed, here’s what she needs to learn.’ It’s much more intensive, in terms of faculty development.”

Following the cycle of life

For patients, of course, having a medical professional who cares about them available pretty much night and day is invaluable. “Students often speak more in lay terms,” Poncelet says. “And they can help patients with transitions in care, including going from ER to specialists, or going home after a stay in the hospital. The students get to know the patients as people, not just patients. It can be very reassuring to have that kind of emotional support.”

Gilbert learned that first-hand while working with one internal medicine patient last fall. “He had a very difficult and abrasive personality and behavior,” she says. “He was actually barred from certain clinics based on his abusive treatment of staff.” But when she accompanied him to his first dialysis session, she discovered he was frightened. “He opened up to me and shared his feelings, and we had a long conversation over his three-hour dialysis session. By the end I understood a lot more about his history and some of the factors that were contributing to his outlook and approach to health care.”

“That has provided me pause whenever I have interacted with difficult patients since,” she continues. “I try to remember that everyone has traveled their own path to arrive where they are, and everyone has had different experiences contributing to their perspective and how they interact with the world.”

One of Falik’s most noteworthy patients was a young woman who had just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis – and who was pregnant and

medical alumni magazine | 5

There is a new arrival on the Parnassus campus. In view from Saunders Court, nestled behind

Health Sciences East and West is the recently opened Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building. It is the headquarters for the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF, one of the largest and most comprehensive programs of its kind in the United States.

The building is more than an architectural success. It is more than the dramatic research underway inside. It is a symbol of a new era for this exciting field.

Ambitious design

Approach the Rafael Viñoly-designed, award-winning building via a sloped bridge from the elevator bank on the ninth floor of Health Sciences West. Continuing up the walkway, Saunders Court grows smaller while the sky grows larger, finally opening up to a breathtaking view of the north half of San Francisco, the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge. Looking back reveals that the building is a series of four split-level floors with terraced green roofs under the canopy of eucalyptus trees on Mt. Sutro.

Each floor is a scientific neighbor-hood or “pod” marked by a color and is home to four or five investigators. At full capacity, the building will house up to 25 laboratories, a portion of the 140 member and affiliate laboratories of the stem cell program, which pursue seven pipelines of investigation: n Hematopoiesis: blood and

immune cellsn Reproductive: reproduction

and fertilityn Cardiovascularn Pancreas/diabetes and liver

New building a milestone for pioneering programBY K ATE VOLKMAN

S T E M C E L L R E S E A R C H & R E G E N E R AT I O N M E D I C I N E

n Musculoskeletal: bone, cartilage and muscle

n Neural: brain and nervous systemn Epithelial: gastrointestinal and skin

The building is designed to foster interaction and collaboration by making it easy for scientists to move between floors and share equipment, maximizing the chance encounter. The opportunity for a chance encounter is further maximized by just two of four break areas having coffee machines.

It all comes together to enable researchers to work closely on common scientific problems. Basic scientists and clinicians who normally would not be situated near one another work side by side. They share the goal of answering fundamental questions about the earliest stages of cell development and designing treatment strategies for diseases and conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, cancer, diabetes and birth defects.

For example, prior to moving into Pod A, fetal surgeon and biologist Tippi MacKenzie, MD, worked in Health Sciences West. As described in more detail later in this article, MacKenzie is researching applications for stem cell therapies on fetuses in utero. To do so, she works closely with stem cell biologists, immunologists and placental biologists – including Susan Fisher, PhD, whose lab was formerly located in Health Sciences East. Now their labs are next to each other, and MacKenzie says that the experience of having “the world’s expert on placental biology as my neighbor has been phenomenal.”

The new facility and its potential for this kind of collaboration has played a key role in recruiting preeminent faculty to the program, says Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF. “For example, UCSF was competing with Harvard for neurosurgeon Dan Lim, but when I presented him with the opportunity to have a lab in the

new building on the neuroscience floor with Arturo Alvarez-Bullya, David Rowitch and me, it was attractive enough that he wanted to stay.”

Life-changing scienceTo deliver stem cell therapies to the brain

Walking up the half-flight of stairs to the left of Pod D’s breakout area, enter the office of clinician-scientist Daniel Lim, MD, PhD.

As a basic scientist, Lim focuses on neural stem cell epigenetics – the study of how cells acquire and maintain specific cellular identities, for which he recently earned the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award and a grant from the Sontag Foundation. As a neurosurgeon who completed his residency here, Lim says, “My patients and work in the operating room are constant reminders of the real life challenges of bringing stem cells into the clinic. These questions are quite distinct from the molecular biology work in my lab, but the translational issues are very important and very real.”

Part of Lim’s practice is to operate on patients with Parkinson’s disease. Surgical therapy – which involves placing electrodes into deep brain structures – can ameliorate some of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, such as tremor and slowness of movement. However, the brain cells lost in this disease are not replaced, and in 10 years or less symptoms will return. “So there’s a lot of hope from these patients for what the future might hold,” says Lim. “They want to know that in five to 10 years there will be another therapy that will help them.”

There is promise for these patients. Scientists believe that within four to five years they will have a stem cell derived therapy for Parkinson’s disease ready for clinical trials. The therapy will involve transplanting human

6 | spring 2011

Stem Cell Science Soars

The cantilevered building perches on a 60 degree slope via concrete pillars drilled into bedrock and isolation bearings to absorb the shock of seismic activity.Officially opening the new Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration

Medicine Building on Feb. 9, 2011, are from left, Edythe and Eli Broad, Arnold Kriegstein, Judy Yudof, Ray Dolby, UC President Mark Yudof, David Kessler, Dagmar Dolby, Robert Klein, UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann and Dave and Natasha Dolby.

Neurons reprogrammed in the Lim lab

Daniel Lim with UCSF biomedical

engineer Tejal Desai

The terraced green roof functions as open

space for scientists and staff and provides

additional insulation. Water pollution is

reduced due to a storm water filtering system.

medical alumni magazine | 7

embryonic stem cells that have been coaxed into dopamine-producing neurons, the brain cells lost in Parkinson’s disease.

“Someday soon someone may ask me to transplant dopamine neurons into the brains of Parkinson’s disease patients,” Lim says. “But there has been an assumption that using a needle and syringe-like device will be sufficient. Let me assure you, it will not suffice.”

In preclinical studies in mouse models, a single transplant with a needle and syringe-like device was sufficient to treat Parkinson’s disease. But the target for transplantation in the human brain is 1,000 times larger than that of the mouse. So, Lim asks, how will neurosurgeons distribute

the cells in the much larger human brain? “We certainly don’t want to scale up the needle and syringe by drastically increasing the number of times we penetrate the brain,” says Lim. “That would be dangerous.”

The solution? Actually, Lim admits that he doesn’t have the decisive solution yet. But he is determined to solve the problem as a side project with collaborations across many disciplines. His approach began more than a year ago, when he recruited a group of UC Berkeley engineering students to understand the problem, develop novel concepts, and produce the first prototype of a device that can transplant cells to a large region of the human brain through a single initial penetration.

At the center of each pod is a break area and kitchen. Laboratories are to the right and offices up a half-flight of stairs to the left. The next pod’s laboratories are clearly visible down a half-flight of stairs.

Pancreatic buds as they emerge from the primitive gut in an early mouse embryo; cells expressing Rfx6 appear purple or white.

Mike German (right) with Matthias Hebrok, director of

the UCSF Diabetes Center

8 | spring 2011

S T E M C E L L R E S E A R C H & R E G E N E R AT I O N M E D I C I N E

To cure diabetes by growing beta cells

Descend two half-flights of stairs, cruise past the laboratories of Pod C and ascend a half-flight of stairs to the office of clinician-scientist Michael German, MD.

Like Lim, German also received a CIRM grant to develop a device for delivering stem cell derived therapies. He’s focusing on treat- ment of diabetes, especially type 1 diabetes.

In type 1 diabetes, patients suffer from high blood sugar because their immune system destroys the pancreatic beta cells that make insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar. The ideal cure would be to replace those beta cells.

Current treatment includes transplanting pancreatic islet cells, which already contain beta cells, from deceased donors into the livers of type 1 diabetes patients. This form of treatment is not a fully viable definitive cure because it creates two problems. The first is that there are not enough donor cells to go around. One million people in the United States live with type 1 diabetes, and there are only enough donor cells to treat 0.2 percent of them. The second problem is that transplanting cells, just like transplanting organs, requires suppressing the recipient’s immune system so that it won’t reject the transplant. And the drugs used for suppression are “pretty toxic,” says German.

To address these problems, German is working to both make an unlimited supply of pancreatic beta cells and a more effective system for delivering them. His lab is recapitulating the normal development pathways of embryonic stem cells into mature beta cells. “It’s like a road map in which you need to go through the right intersections to get where you’re going,” says German. “Not only will our destination – mature beta cells – give us a therapy, the journey is helping us to under- stand normal cell development and what goes wrong in people with diabetes.”

Although he and his lab are still one or two “intersections” away from arrival, they have achieved great success. Recently they discovered the gene Rfx6, which is instrumental in the final process of a stem cell moving from a pancreatic progenitor cell to a mature beta cell. Their findings, which were published in the prestigious journal Nature, showed that mice lacking Rfx6 failed to generate most of the normal cells in the pancreas, including beta cells. They also found that the absence of this gene in humans causes a complete absence of insulin, leading to a rare syndrome of neonatal diabetes in infants. “This demonstrates that in mice and in humans this gene is really required for the production of beta cells,” says German.

While German continues along the road toward making mature beta cells in vitro, he is simultaneously working with a group to develop a more effective system for delivering them. He and his lab have teamed up with Peter Stock, MD, PhD, director of the UCSF Pancreas Transplant program, Matthias Hebrok, PhD, director of the UCSF Diabetes Center, and Jeff Bluestone, PhD, UCSF executive vice chancellor and provost, and former director of the UCSF Diabetes Center. Together with ViaCyte, a biotechnology company in San Diego, Calif., they have joined forces on their CIRM grant to implant stem cells into patients via a durable, retrievable device. This method should significantly improve issues of immune suppression by requiring many fewer drugs than are used now. And if any problems arise, the device can be easily removed.

They expect to begin Phase 1 clinical trials in patients with type 1 diabetes in the next three to four years. Since they do not yet have stem cell derived beta cells to implant via the device, they will start with stem cell derived pancreatic progenitor cells. “We are confident that this method has tremendous promise,” says German. The pancreatic progenitor cells, which differentiate into glucose responsive beta cells after transplantation in vivo, have proven effective in treating rodents with chemically induced diabetes.

“While this first prototype is already vastly superior to the straight needle design, my goal is to bring together a team that will innovate something even more novel and efficient,” says Lim. He recently obtained funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to produce multiple prototypes and test them at the scale of the human brain. If successful, the device, which will be useful for a wide range of brain diseases, will be ready in three years.

Lim believes that by bringing together engineers like Amy Herr, PhD, at UC Berkeley and Tejal Desai, PhD, at UCSF with other stem cell scientists and neurosurgeons at UCSF, “I am confident we will fill this gap in the therapeutic pipeline,” he says.

Mouse embryos. The dark blue staining in the embryo on the right marks the Rfx6 gene expression during development, including in the gut, thymus, lung and pancreas.

medical alumni magazine | 9

To birth a healthier baby

Proceeding through Pod B and past the laboratories of Pod A, enter the office of clinician-scientist Tippi MacKenzie, MD.

As a pediatric and fetal surgeon, MacKenzie regularly performs surgery on fetuses in utero to correct severe anatomic anomalies such as spina bifida. The first fetal surgery was conducted at UCSF in 1981 and the institution’s reputation is what drew MacKenzie here after her training.

As a basic scientist, MacKenzie is studying how stem cell transplantation could be used to induce a life-long tolerance to donor tissue. For example, if a fetus displays congenital kidney anomalies, one of the potential treatments is to transplant a kidney from one of its parents after the baby is born. But if MacKenzie could transplant the parent’s blood stem cells into the fetus in utero, she could induce the baby to tolerate transplants from the parent, thereby avoiding the possibility of rejection and reducing the need for immunosuppressive drugs.

All of the possibilities have yet to be realized, however, not just because embryonic stem cell derived therapies are not yet ready for human trans-plantation, but also because many previous attempts to transplant blood stem cells into a human fetus have been unsuccessful. MacKenzie and her team have been investigating why.

For MacKenzie, unlike Lim and German, the question is not about a safe or effective delivery device. Techniques for blood stem cell transplantation into fetuses are well-established – a single injection into the fetus’ belly. Nor is the question about immunosuppression. In theory, stem cells can be injected into a fetus during the early second trimester when the fetal immune system is immature, therefore easily accepting the transplanted cells as self and not rejecting them. The question is why, given these techniques, blood stem cells are still rejected.

At long last, MacKenzie and her team have discovered an important piece of the puzzle – in mouse models, at least. It is the immune system of the mother

that prevents a fetus from accepting transplanted blood stem cells.

In all healthy pregnancies, cells normally travel from the mother into the fetus. “It’s an important part of the intricate way in which the mother and the fetus tolerate each other,” explains MacKenzie. But by transplanting blood stem cells into the fetus, the balance between mother and fetus is altered, and, at least in mice, invites more T cells – the major driving force behind an immune response – from the mother into the fetus, which leads to rejection of the transplant.

This can be overcome simply by transplanting cells either harvested from the mother herself or matched to her. MacKenzie and her team’s findings were published in the February issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. As next steps, they are studying how cells travel between the mother and the fetus in human pregnancies to confirm whether their findings will apply to clinical fetal intervention.

“If fetal stem cell transplantation works in humans,” says MacKenzie, “it’s really the holy grail of trans-plantation – to induce tolerance to a particular donor.” It could open up the field to a slew of diseases that are treated by postnatal transplantation. It is likely to also have application to diseases like sickle cell disease, meta-bolic diseases, immunodeficiencies and muscular dystrophy that can be diagnosed in utero, but cannot be treated with surgery – before or after birth. “Imagine, if you could intervene during fetal development and replace those mutated cells with normal cells, you could potentially cure the disease before the baby is even born,” she says.

Truce on the horizonExiting the building through the double glass doors from Pod A, climb the stairs to the green roof and sit down to ponder the bigger picture of stem cell research.

While stem cell science offers pro- found possibilities for human health, the research has been embroiled in political controversy because the cells are derived from human embryos.

On August 9, 2001, President George W. Bush banned funding research on any stem cell lines created after that date. But in March 2009, President Barack Obama reinstated federal funding for many stem cell lines created after and for some of those created before the Bush announce- ment. Then in August 2010, a court injunction was issued to halt all federally funded human embryonic stem cell research. The University of California, including the center’s director, Arnold Kriegstein, filed amicus briefs and led the fight against the ruling. The U.S. Court of Appeals responded by ruling that federal financing of embryonic stem cell research could continue while the court considers the judge’s order. No further decisions have been announced.

Since 2004, however, stem cell science in California has been inde-pendent of national politics. That was the year California voters approved Proposition 71, a $3 billion stem cell research initiative, which created CIRM and allowed for state funding of human embryonic stem cell research. CIRM has granted a large portion of those funds to UCSF for scientific research and $34.9 million for con- struction of the new stem cell facility. The building was also funded by two gifts from Ray and Dagmar Dolby. Their first gift of $16 million came in 2006 and their second gift of $20 million was announced in January. The university has $12.5 million left to raise for the building. The program was also funded by a $25 million gift in 2008 from The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

Kriegstein believes that sometime soon the political controversy surrounding human embryonic stem cell research will become a non-issue. That’s in part because the science is moving so quickly, but also because the ability to make induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are made from adult skin, will dramatically reduce the need for embryonic stem cell lines.

One of the great advantages of iPS cells is that scientists can make stem cell lines from patients with specific diseases and use them to study those diseases in human cells instead of in animal cells. As a result, they can both understand the mechanisms of the disease and treat the disease in

10 | spring 2011

S T E M C E L L R E S E A R C H & R E G E N E R AT I O N M E D I C I N E

culture. “The likelihood that a drug for a human disease tested in human cells in culture will respond as well in a patient is so much greater than if you cured the same disease in a mouse,” says Kriegstein.

Furthermore, human stem cell lines – iPS or embryonic – can be used by drug companies to screen drugs for toxicity. “This can save drug companies a lot of money and save a lot of lives,” says Kriegstein. “And while these are not stem cell therapies, health care is improved through the use of stem cells.”

Stirring, move down the stairs and return to the bridge. Starting across it sparks the realization that this Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building is more than an impressive structure; it is more than the life-changing science conducted inside; and it is more than a showpiece in the battle for stem cell research. It marks the beginning of a new era of stem cell science for UCSF, California, the nation and the world.

Take a tour... at UCSF School of Medicine Alumni Weekend, May 6 – 7, 2011SEE BACK COVER FOR MORE INFORMATION

Tippi MacKenzie with one of her young patients in the

intensive care nursery

Arnold Kriegstein in Pod D

A bridge connects the new building with the Medical Sciences building and the UCSF Medical Center and Benioff Children’s Hospital on Parnassus Avenue.

The 600-foot-long addition to the Parnassus campus slides

along Mt. Sutro like a snake.

medical alumni magazine | 11

M I C H A E L R O I Z E N , M D ’ 7 1

While a student at UCSF, Michael Roizen survived on a steady diet of chuck steak

and Spaghettios, topped off with Diet Dr. Pepper.

These days you are more likely to find him leading the charge to ban sugared beverages from the cafeterias at the Cleveland Clinic, where he is chair of the Wellness Institute. Or working to eliminate food fryers from the clinic’s 73 campuses. Or helping to launch a weekly farmers market.

“It was clear I knew nothing about nutrition as a medical student,” he laughs.

Encouraging better eating at the clinic is just one small part of Roizen’s all-consuming mission in life: motivating people to change behaviors so they can live healthier. It fuels his work at the Wellness Institute, his New York Times bestselling books, the dozen companies he has founded, his appearances on TV from “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to “Charlie Rose,” and his one-on-one patient care.

Little in Roizen’s hurly-burly days in the Class of ’71 hinted at his future path. The students threatened to strike unless UCSF agreed to admit more women. They gave up lunch hours for more clinical training. They studied in Golden Gate Park while listening to free rock concerts amid an ever-present haze. “A number of those Sundays got me through Anatomy and Histology,” he jokes.

“UCSF was wonderfully stimulating,” he says. “And what made it so great was that although you were competing with the rest of the world, you were totally made to feel as though you were on the same team.”

Wellness was also far from the medical arena that first attracted him: the intensive care unit. He thrived on the immediacy, the fast and concrete results. He wanted to run an ICU so pursued a residency in internal medi-cine at Harvard’s Beth Israel Hospital and anesthesiology at UCSF – with a stint in the Public Health Service at the National Institutes of Health in between.

Roizen then joined the faculty at UCSF and was soon tapped to head the cardiovascular anesthesiology group. It was during his pre-operative visits that he would discover his larger calling.

Real motivationAs an anesthesiologist, he wanted his patients in the best possible condition for surgery. Many were overweight, or smokers, or had high blood pressure, yet would not heed dire warnings about the risks to their health.

Roizen had been hammering on one patient, a 49-year-old smoker, for a year to quit. The patient was facing surgery for hardening of the arteries in his leg. During a pre-op visit, Roizen told the patient his pack-a-day habit added eight years to his physiological age, making him 57, not 49. Distressed, the patient said no male in his family had lived to age 58.

Thinking quickly, Roizen said, “If you stop smoking, you’ll get one year younger in three months, two years younger in eight months, and so on.” The message hit a nerve. The patient quit that day and recently turned 73.

Age, Roizen realized, was something everyone could grasp. He began using the concept with his patients at the University of Chicago, where he had been recruited to chair the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care after nine years at UCSF.

One was a 47-year-old entrepreneur who was not taking his blood pressure medication correctly. “I told him that made him have the energy of someone seven years older,” says Roizen. That’s powerful data, the patient replied. He asked if Roizen could calculate similar numbers for other factors affecting length or quality of life.

Yes, Roizen told him, “but I’d need the help of a statistician, an epidemi-ologist and some research associates.” The entrepreneur whipped out his checkbook, wrote a check for $25,000 and told him, “Get started. I want the answer in six weeks.”

Roizen’s grounding at UCSF helped immeasurably with the next steps. “I learned all about collaboration there.

And that if you had a problem, you could just go ask the expert on the faculty.” So he tapped into that expertise at the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and the Centers for Disease Control.

The team developed a battery of questions to compute biological age based on how a person takes care of his or her body. Roizen was armed and ready to spread his gospel of health.

Once again, Roizen’s UCSF roots came into play. The entrepreneur patient had been a classmate of Roizen’s at the School of Medicine. But he left because he wanted to change the health of large populations and thought medical school was too slow a route, according to Roizen. He helped Roizen found RealAge, Inc., in 1994.

The Road to WellnessBY ANNE K AVANAGH

12 | spring 2011

Roizen’s all-consuming mission in life: motivating people to change behaviors so they can live healthier.

The first RealAge self-test debuted in 1998 on the company’s website. It identified 127 comprehensive factors based on a review of 25,000 studies that can add or subtract years from a person’s life. It also offered customized action steps for improving or reversing the aging trajectory. Regular exercise, for example, could trim nine years off one’s biological age and eating breakfast daily three years.

But the website was not the only tool in Roizen’s arsenal.

A bestselling author is born – again and againPop culture back then was not a place most doctors ventured. Roizen, however, saw it as a powerful vehicle for delivering his message. And the way to penetrate pop culture, he reasoned, was to write a New York Times bestseller, prompting his wife, Nancy, to ask, “Why do you want to kill yourself?” He was already working 65 hours a week as department chair. “Because I found something that can change the health of the world,” he enthused.

So write a book he did. Earlier, Roizen had authored a bestselling medical book, “Essence of Anesthesia Practice.” He approached the same publisher with his new work, “RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?” Their reply now hangs framed in his office: “Mike, stick with medicine. Even if you are on Oprah, you won’t sell more than 7,000 copies of this book.”

Working his Chicago connections, he made it on Oprah. The book zoomed up the New York Times chart to No. 1. It even knocked “Harry Potter” from the top spot for a week on Amazon.

But he faced skepticism from some in the medical community. “Roizen’s gone commercial,” he heard. And, “Where’s the peer review in publishing a lay book?” His colleagues came around, he says, when they saw he was getting people to quit smoking, control their blood pressure, floss, eat more fruits and vegetables. When he lectured at a national family practice meeting, physicians lined up for him to sign their book. “Docs don’t wait 30 seconds for a free pen,” he says. “The potential of changing

patients by motivating them is what the medical community wanted.”

Three more RealAge books followed, one of which, “The RealAge Diet: Make Yourself Younger with What You Eat,” co-authored with John La Puma, MD, also became a New York Times bestseller.

In 2003 Roizen received a call from Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Columbia University. That initial contact blossomed into a productive partnership of two like-minded, media savvy physicians. Together they wrote “YOU: The Owner’s Manual,” also a New York Times No. 1 bestseller. A series of successful YOU books followed, along with blogs and radio shows. Roizen frequently appears on the “Dr. Oz” television show, and the two are creating a new show for PBS. Oprah calls them the “You Docs.”

Their books feature cartoons and breezy language, and their appearances are filled with humor. “The key is we’ve changed the words to let people know that medicine isn’t sour and dour and ugly. Health is something that can be wonderful and vital and encouraging. We try to make it understandable and emotional to motivate people. They don’t change based on data; they change based on emotion.”

With all their work they strive to be scientifically valid, edgy and fun. “I think of UCSF as teaching me those three points,” he says. “Everything had to be scientifically valid, but medical school was a lot of fun. And because of the era we were there – and where it was located – it was cutting edge. I use those in everything I do.”

Healthy habits, healthy countryIn 2004 Roizen was recruited by the Cleveland Clinic to chair its division of anesthesiology, critical care medicine and comprehensive pain management. Three years later he was appointed chief wellness officer, the first such position in a major health care institution in the U.S., and chair of the Wellness Institute.

He oversees the institute’s eight programs, which aggressively advocate healthy living for clinic patients, employees and the community. Employees enjoy free yoga classes and those in the employee health plan free gym memberships. The institute runs a weekly farmers market, programs in schools promoting healthy eating and community smoking cessation workshops. The clinic cafeterias offer healthy food choices and no trans fats. And that’s just a smattering of activity.

Roizen wants the Cleveland Clinic to serve as a model for how to change four mostly controllable factors: tobacco, food choice and portion size, physical inactivity and unmanaged stress. Seventy percent or more of U.S. medical costs stem from those four factors, he notes. The spiraling cost of health care has led to the U.S. losing its manufacturing base, he believes, and will lead to job losses in the service industry and education.

“My mission at the Cleveland Clinic is to change those four factors. We can drive down employee health care costs, and teach employers in Northeastern Ohio to do the same … We need to get serious about this discussion on a national level,” he says.

“That’s why I continue to write, why I started all my companies. Everything has one focus: to motivate people to change behaviors so that they can live healthier, with less disability, and with less cost to society, so that Americans can be more competitive for jobs.”

He plans to keep on pursuing his vision of wellness for the clinic and the country until at least until age 72. Given that he follows doctors’ orders – he hasn’t touched red meat in years, eats only whole grain pasta, walks 10,000 steps a day – it may be years before he hits that real age milestone.

medical alumni magazine | 13

Roizen’s books have sold millions

of copies worldwide.

1980s■n Edmond Kay, MD ’80, abandoned

his beloved family practice last year and became the director of hyper-baric medicine for HealthForce Partners. He writes, “My marriage to Marian Craighill’s sister ‘Wistar’ has turned out to be the best thing I ever did, and our daughter Alyssa is a joy to behold.”

■n Nancy L. Orchard, MD ’82, joyfully welcomed two wonderful grandchildren into her family. Serena’s little girl Meadow was born in October 2009, and Rosemarie’s little boy Davin was born in April 2010.

■n Frazier T. Stevenson, MD ’84, recently made the move from nephrologist and educator at UC Davis to associate dean for education at University of South Florida in Tampa. He writes, “Interesting to move from teaching to helping colleagues teach better and improve the curriculum. No gator bites yet.”

■n Patricia “Trish” Putman, MD ’86, retired from internal medicine in 2006. She lives in Griffin, Ga., with her husband, Jim Barlow, and their four children, Lauren, 18, Leah, 16, Lily, 13 and Luke, 11, in addition to a menagerie of dogs, cats, birds and eight horses.

■n Chris Earl Stookey, MD ’86, recently released a mystery novel, “Terminal Care.” Playing a prominent role is a medical research center located “on the hill above Golden Gate Park” in San Francisco. The book is available at Amazon.

■n Sheri S. Dickstein, MD ’89, works part time for the California State University Channel Islands Student Health Center and for the Ventura Family Practice Residency program. She married Ira Silverman, an ob-gyn. Her daughter Lexie is 8. She’s sorry to miss the 20th reunion, but hopes to make it to the 25th.

1960s■n Joseph C. Avakoff, MD ’61 (below),

writes, “It is good to be retired and having practiced medicine during the golden age of medicine. That being when the doctor wore rubber gloves to protect the patient, not like now when the doctor wears rubber gloves to protect him/her from the patient.”

■n Ian C. MacLean, MD ’61, received The Krusen Award, the highest honor of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, in 1998 for outstanding achievements in patient care, education, research and service to the community. He and Virginia built a home on an orange ranch in Ojai.

■n Surl Nielsen, MD ’61, and Tricia celebrated 50 years in 2008. Much of their travel budget is taken up by flights to Northern Virginia to see their son David and his family, and to Athens, Ga., to see their daughter Kristin and her husband. He hopes to see you at reunion.

1970s■n David M. Allen, MD ’74, wrote a

new book critiquing the direction of mental health care. “How Dysfunctional Families Spur Mental Disorders: A Balanced Approach to Resolve Problems and Reconcile Relationships” is for professionals and lay readers alike and is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

ClassNotesSEND US YOUR CLASS NOTE – Your classmates want to know what’s going on in your life. Share your information at www.ucsfalumni.org; mail it to Alumni Services, UCSF Box 0248, San Francisco, CA 94143-0248; or email your news and high-resolution photo to alumni@support.ucsf.edu. For best print quality, your photo resolution should be 300 pixels per inch or larger. To include as many alumni as possible, class notes published in this magazine are edited for space. To read the full text of each note, please visit www.ucsfalumni.org.

■n Robert A. Gotshall, MD ’61, worked for U.S. Public Health Service Hospitals in Baltimore and Seattle until 1982. He spent the next 20 years at Group Health practicing neurology, teaching and conducting research in cerebrovascular disease. Now retired, he and Ann (below) like that their two daughters and families live nearby.

■n Gary Gabriel Kardos, MD ’61, in 2006 returned to the UCSF Division of Nephrology where he attends at the VA Hospital. When he sees you at reunion, he and his wife will have just returned from a cruise through the Panama Canal.

14 | spring 2011

1990s■n Deborah B. Nadel, MD ’90,

practices psychiatry with a mix of psychotherapy and psychopharmacology in Santa Monica. She married Daniel Stern, who has worked as a children’s book writer and illustrator, and as a financial planner. They have two children, Benjamin, 10, and Lily, 7.

■n Patrick James Thomas, MD ’90, performs orthopaedic surgery in Montana. When he’s not with his wife and two young children, he enjoys hunting, fishing and farming.

■n Hossein Jadvar, MD ’94, is now a tenured associate professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at University of Southern California. He’s also director of radiology research, focusing on PET imaging of prostate cancer. He lives with his wife, Mojgan Maher, DDS, and two daughters, Donya and Delara, in historic Pasadena.

■n Mark Richman, MD ’97, is patient safety officer and clinical information technology officer at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. He also serves on the board of directors for the nonprofit Activities for Retarded Children. To celebrate his wife, Ginny, completing her PhD, they are traveling to Asia, South America and Spain.

Greetings from the Medical Education Development and Alumni Relations Team

We have some new faces and titles to announce on the Medical Education Development and Alumni Relations team. Please join us in welcoming and congratulating Gary Bernard, Maura O’Donnell, Anders Yang,

Michael Eccles and Mikeal Levi. They look forward to seeing you at Alumni Weekend May 6-7, 2011!

Anders Yang is the new chief advancement officer for medical education and senior director of development (alumni). He comes to UCSF with more than 15 years of experience in higher education, having worked at Harvard University and UC Berkeley. He is an honors graduate of both institutions, receiving his law degree from Harvard and his undergraduate in economics from Berkeley. Anders also studied at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. ayang@support.ucsf.edu

Gary Bernard is no stranger to the Medical Education team. He first came on board as the alumni reunion campaign director, organizing the 2005, 2006 and 2007 reunions. Working with the leadership of the Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved (PRIME-US), he has helped raise more than $2 million for programmatic and scholarship support. Gary currently serves as director of alumni development. gbernard@support.ucsf.edu

Michael Eccles came on board in 2007 as the reunion campaign manager and has seen UCSF’s returning alumni through three very successful reunions. He was recently promoted to director of alumni relations, where he provides opportunities for alumni to reconnect with their classmates, UCSF and its faculty and deans. “It is my goal to show our alumni, no matter where they live, all the wonderful and amazing things that happen at UCSF every day,” says Michael. meccles@support.ucsf.edu

Maura O’Donnell started working for UCSF’s development and alumni relations office in 2003 as administrative assistant on the School of Nursing team. In 2007, she was promoted to development and alumni relations coordinator for the School of Dentistry, and served as interim director of development and alumni relations for that school in 2008. Maura joined the Medical Education team in July 2010 as the annual fund/reunion giving coordinator. modonnell@support.ucsf.edu

Mikeal Levi has served as development support assistant since September 2010. He assists the Medical Education team with class reunion campaigns, alumni class giving and donor relations. His prior experience at UCSF dates to 2003, where he spent five years in the Department of Neurology and one year in the Department of Medicine. mlevi@support.ucsf.edu

■n Khanh-Van Le-Bucklin, MD ’98, reports, “Life has been great since graduation!” She is the pediatric residency director at UC Irvine, the proud mother of three awesome children, founder of TwinsDoctor.com, and author of “Twins 101: 50 Must-Have Tips for Pregnancy Through Early Childhood From Doctor M.O.M.”

medical alumni magazine | 15

From left: Gary Bernard, Maura O’Donnell, Anders Yang, Michael Eccles and Mikeal Levi

ALUMNI

Eric F. Colby, MD ’33

John H. Doval, MD ’39

H. Stewart Kimball, MD ’39

William S. Neal, MD ’39

Ernest E. Simard, MD ’39

Nathan Solter, MD ’40

Stephen J. Popovich, MD ’41

Elizabeth Lodge Rees, MD ’41

Robert B. Engle, MD ’42

Norman L. Haugen, MD ’42

Bernard S. Pogorel, MD ’42

Howard J. Weinberger, MD ’42

Arnold J. Schneider, MD ’43

Elliot Rapaport, MD ’46

Lee N. Clark, MD ’48

Leon Rosen, MD ’48

Rachael Koken Reed, MD ’49

Harry R. Bratt, MD ’51

George W. Smith, MD ’51

Hiroshi Kuwata, MD ’52

Masashi Uriu, MD ’52

Dwight H. Murray Jr., MD ’54

Harold N. Zemelman, MD ’54

Robert G. Stanek, MD ’55

Gunther H. Schmitt, MD ’56

Donald E. Silvius, MD ’57

Saul M. Bernstein, MD ’63

Carolyn L. Blight, MD ’63

Robert C. Scott III, MD ’74

Charles A. Weber, MD ’78

FACULTY, HOUSESTAFF

E. Trent Andrews, MD

Claire D. Borkert, MD

David L. Cram, MD

Charles J. Epstein, MD

Kenneth I. Gottlieb, MD

William S. Kiyasu, MD

Thomas A. McCarthy, MD

Ruben Meyer, MD

Steven N. Parks, MD

Harold Rosegay, MD, PhD

Ernest H. Rosenbaum, MD

I N M E M O R I A M E L L I O T R A PA P O R T, M D ’4 6

Honoring a Renaissance Cardiologist, Alumnus and Faculty ExtraordinaireBY ELIZ ABETH CHUR

The UCSF community lost an esteemed physician, scientist, editor, alumnus and devoted faculty leader with the death of Elliot Rapaport, MD ’46,

on Sept. 5, 2010, at age 85.Rapaport was a gifted violinist, and debuted with

the Los Angeles Philharmonic at age 12. He graduated from the UCSF School of Medicine in 1946 and joined the faculty in 1957. He established the Division of Cardiology at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) in 1960, serving as its chief for 32 years.

“He built it from the ground up to become one of the leading cardiology divisions in the country,” says Peter Ganz, MD, the division’s current chief. “All the credit for what this cardiology division is really belongs to Elliot.”

Rapaport also served as associate dean of UCSF at SFGH from 1985 to 1998 and as a teacher and mentor to many, including Ganz. “With his encyclopedic memory, he was an incredible teacher,” says Ganz. “Very few people knew more about cardiology that Elliot.” Rapaport

was named UCSF Medical Alumni Association Alumnus of the Year in 1994.

One of the most prominent cardiologists of the 20th century, Rapaport developed an assay for creatine kinase, a cardio-specific test still used today to diagnose heart attacks. He also helped develop the thermodilution method for measuring blood flow in arteries.

He served as president of the American Heart Association and the World Heart Federation, was the editor of Circulation for five years, and received some of the most prestigious awards in cardiology. Rapaport also lectured internationally and worked to support cardiology organizations in numerous other countries.

But for a fateful phone call, UCSF might have missed out on all his contributions. Ganz relates the story that

when Rapaport was a promising young violinist, he received a call from famed conductor Leopold Stokowski, who wanted to recruit him for the All American Youth Orchestra. Rapaport thought someone was playing a joke and hung up on the maestro. Music’s loss turned into medicine’s gain.

“All the credit for what this cardiology division is really belongs to Elliot.” — Peter Ganz, MD

16 | spring 2011

Kate and David Thorburn recently celebrated the marriage of their 27-year-old daughter, Emily. The happy occasion might not have happened, they feel, were it not for UCSF.

When Kate was pregnant with twins Emily and Eric, she was hospitalized twice at UCSF for premature delivery. Then, after a mad dash from their Turlock, Calif., home, she almost delivered Eric in the ER parking lot. “The staff definitely knows how to move quickly there!” she says. Next, complications threatened Emily’s life, prompting an emergency C-section. “If we had not been at UCSF, we would not have had our twins,” says Kate, a nurse. “There’s no doubt in my mind. My care was superlative.”

And that’s just part of the story.

During the birth of their first child, Kate developed Rh incom-patibility – when a pregnant woman has Rh-negative blood and the baby in her womb has Rh-positive blood. Because of the problems this can cause in subsequent pregnancies, the Thorburns were told it would be very difficult for them to have any more children. But with the help of UCSF, they were able to have five more kids – four of whom were born at UCSF Medical Center.

UCSF is grateful to the many alumni who have given back to the School of Medicine

…including those like Kate, BS ’75, and David Thorburn, MD ’77“We feel it was not just the clinical care but also the

research by excellent scientists at UCSF that helped save our children’s lives,” adds David, citing Louis Diamond, MD, as an example. The renowned professor of pediatrics was a pioneer in Rh incompatibility research and treatment.

UCSF’s worldwide impact spurs gift of endowed chair.The couple had long wanted to make a significant gift to UCSF. The two met on the Irving Street elevator at Parnassus when both were students, Kate at the School of Nursing and David at the School of Medicine. For years they have donated to both schools.

This year they were able to accomplish that dream. The pair donated more than $500,000 to establish the David E. Thorburn, MD, and Kate McKee Thorburn Endowed Chair in Perinatal Medicine and Genetics at the School of Medicine. “UCSF has a history of attracting very bright, innovative people,” says Kate. “By giving to UCSF, we are not only helping patients at UC, but we know those discoveries will impact patients worldwide.”

Closer to home, gratefulness for family lies at the heart of their gift. “All of our kids turned out healthy, and they’ve all graduated from college,” says David. “We feel UCSF played a very crucial role in their lives.” — Anne Kavanagh

Kate and David Thorburn (right of the bride) with their brood at daughter Emily’s 2010 wedding. Daughters Anna and Molly are to the left, and sons Scott, Eric and John are to the right. (Photo courtesy Mark Lydell)

For more information on making an endowed gift, please contact the Office of Gift & Endowment Planning at 415/476-1475 or email giftplanning@support.ucsf.edu.

Register by April 30. To register online go to: www.regonline.com/ucsfalumniweekend. For more information call 415-502-8321 or email: maa@support.ucsf.edu.

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PAIDSacramento, CA

Permit No. 333

0906UCSF School of MedicineMedical Alumni AssociationUCSF Box 0248San Francisco, CA 94143-0248

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

UCSF School of Medicine

Alumni Weekend 2011May 6 – 7, 2011

Friday, May 6A Six-Hour Special CME Course (Six CME credits available):

Medicine in the 21st Century: Systems, Technology and the Human Touch

The Dean’s Evening Welcome Reception

Saturday, May 7School of Medicine All-Alumni Program

Tours of Parnassus Campus

Alumni Luncheon

Reunion Class Parties