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The
UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women's Health (COE)
is one of the six vanguard national centers designated by the
PHS Office on Women's Health. The Director of the UCSF COE is
Nancy Milliken, MD, a member of the WHISPR Advisory Board. The
UCSF COE is committed to developing partnerships with individuals
and organizations to foster and support activities geared toward
improving the health and well-being of women and girls across
diverse communities. A goal of the UCSF COE research unit is to
forge strong partnerships with the community which will: 1) ensure
that research addresses issues of relevance to the community;
2) facilitate the development and implementation of strategies
for the recruitment of diverse women into research studies; and
3) enhance the dissemination of information.
Recognizing the importance
of multidisciplinary research, the COE developed a Women's
Health Researchers' Directory. Approximately 400 women's
health researchers from UCSF, as well as other research institutions
in the San Francisco Bay Area, comprise this directory. The directory
can be utilized by WHISPR scholars to identify potential collaborators
for new or ongoing research projects. WHISPR scholars will also
be invited to attend the Bench-to-Bedside
forums sponsored by the COE which serve as a mechanism for
researchers to engage in dialogue with one another about a given
topic and to allow for an in-depth evaluation of the most up-to-date
information.
The
Division of Research is the research department of The Permanente
Medical Group, a 3500 member multispecialty medical group which
is the exclusive provider of clinical services to the 2.9 million
members of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Northern
California. The DOR was founded in 1961 and has conducted externally
funded epidemiologic, clinical and health services research continuously
since that time. Approximately half of the DOR's annual budget
of $21 million comes from NIH funding. Additional support is derived
from the CDC, AHCPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, numerous
disease-oriented foundations, from industry sources, and from
core funding by the medical group. Currently, more than 40 full-time
scientists, including both MD's and Ph.D.'s comprise the DOR investigator
staff, a number of who devote all or large parts of their research
careers to the study of women's health.
The UCSF-Stanford
Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) was established as a
joint venture between UCSF and Stanford University in 1997. The
UCSF-Stanford EPC is one of twelve designated in the United States
and Canada. The EPC provides an infrastructure and focal point
for the conduct of high-quality systematic literature reviews
(meta-analyses), supplemental syntheses, technology assessments
and generation of evidence reports.
UCSF has two GCRCs
that provide skilled research nursing, nutritional, and laboratory
support for investigator-initiated peer-reviewed protocols designed
to study human pathophysiology and to evaluate innovative therapies.
The GCRC at Moffitt Hospital
includes 11 inpatient beds, outpatient facilities, core laboratories,
a research kitchen, biostatistical support, and a computerized
data management facility. The GCRC
at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) has similar amenities,
as well as an integrated clinical database of all patients cared
for at SFGH and its associated primary care clinics that can be
used for clinical trials and outcomes research. An example of
the collaborative research and training potential with the GCRCs
is the recent NIDDK funding for a multicenter trial of growth
hormone or thalidomide to prevent wasting in AIDS patients with
acute infection; Dr. Schambelan (Director of the GCRC at SFGH)
is PI, Dr. Hulley is Director of the Coordinating Center, and
Dr. Kirsten Johansen, a past fellow from our Advanced Training
in Clinical Research Program who was subsequently recruited to
the UCSF faculty in the Division of Nephrology, is project director.
The
Institute for Health Policy Studies is a multidisciplinary
research institute based in the School of Medicine, directed by
Dr. Hal Luft that includes more than 100 faculty and research
staff with backgrounds in medicine, anthropology, public health,
epidemiology, and pharmacology. Institute faculty have considerable
experience with, and access to, large health related databases.
Postdoctoral training at the Institute for Health Policy Studies
is made up of multiple training programs within one basic fellowship
structure. It includes the Health Services Research Training Program
funded by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, the
CMRI Fellowship funded by California Medical Review, Inc., the
Pew Health Policy Program funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts,
and the Hewlett International Fellowship funded by the William
and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
The UCSF
Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program was initiated in 1993.
Its goal is to provide graduate students with an understanding
of mammalian tissue and organ biology at all levels: molecular,
cellular and systemic. Particular emphasis is placed on the study
of human diseases and animal models of disease. The goal is to
teach at the graduate level many of the subjects presented at
the textbook level in a medical curriculum, and to enable our
trainees to understand and conduct research across the broadest
spectrum of contemporary biomedical science. To do this, BMS has
tapped the resources of faculty in both clinical and basic science
departments to fashion a novel curriculum that integrates molecular
and cellular biology with histopathology and pathophysiology.
The BMS faculty consists
of 130 members drawn from clinical and basic science departments.
Approximately one third of the membership holds joint appointments
in one or more of the PIBS
(Program in Biological Sciences) graduate programs. Research
areas of the faculty include: growth factors and cellular growth
regulation, signal transduction, cell-cell interactions, inflammation,
thrombosis and hemostasis, lipoproteins and atherosclerosis, hematopoiesis,
cancer biology, angiogenesis, reproductive biology, human genetics,
bacterial and viral pathogenesis and molecular parasitology. The
Program sponsors a weekly Journal Club at which both students
and faculty present current research papers.
The UCSF
Coordinating Center (CC), directed by Dr. Cummings, specializes
in coordinating multicenter studies within the domains of women's
health, aging, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis. Many
of the large and unique databases from these studies are described
under Research Databases.
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