Plastic surgeon was pioneer in field of craniofacial biology.

Bernard Sarnat

Dr. Bernard G. Sarnat, D.D.S., an eminent plastic surgeon and research scientist who made pioneering contributions to the understanding of craniofacial development and the causes of facial deformities, died Oct. 21 in Los Angeles of respiratory failure. He was 99.

Sarnat joined the UCLA School of Dentistry in 1969 as an adjunct professor of oral biology and in 1974 received a joint appointment in the UCLA School of Medicine’s division of plastic surgery. He also operated a private practice as a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills and was associated with Cedars–Sinai Medical Center for more than 20 years, first as chief of plastic surgery and later as a senior research scientist.

Sarnat’s groundbreaking studies of how biology influences medical and dental treatment led to major improvements in the field. He was one of the first researchers to use the stain known as alizarin red S to document the pattern of growth in bones and teeth. He was particularly concerned with craniofacial development and the biological circumstances that lead to deformities of the facial structures, especially as they affect surgical procedures.

“Dr. Bernard Sarnat was a true surgeon–scientist,” said Dr. James Bradley, professor of plastic surgery and holder of the Bernard G. Sarnat, M.D., Endowed Chair in Craniofacial Biology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “His quest to answer questions in the field of craniofacial biology led to landmark discoveries that are used to benefit countless children today.”

Sarnat’s generous nature was exemplified by the numerous lectureships he endowed, including the Bernard G. Sarnat International Lectureship in Bone Biology at UCLA, which since its inception in 1984 has presented the research of scores of internationally renowned investigators.

In 1999, Sarnat provided funds for the establishment of the Bernard G. Sarnat Endowed Chair in Craniofacial Biology at the Geffen School of Medicine, for use by the division of plastic surgery in conducting research in the area of craniofacial biology, with an emphasis on the etiology and prevention of craniofacial deformities. He established a similar endowed chair at the University of Chicago.

Sarnat was born in Chicago in 1912, a child of immigrant parents from Russia, where his two older siblings were born. He earned his medical degree from the University of Chicago and a master’s of science degree and doctor of dental surgery degree from the University of Illinois. After World War II, he pioneered an early model for distance-education by setting up a telephone network to simultaneously broadcast a series of lectures on dental topics to 260 cities and more than 12,000 students.

Sarnat helped establish the Plastic Surgery Research Council, a preeminent plastic surgery research group, more than 50 years ago. The author or co-author of more than 220 scientific journal papers and books, Sarnat lectured extensively at universities and professional societies throughout the U.S. and the world. His research earned wide recognition, and he was honored with more than 25 prestigious awards from around the globe.

During his career, Sarnat was recognized as a caring, skillful and compassionate plastic surgeon and was nicknamed the “Dean of Plastic Surgery” by his colleagues.

Sarnat retired from surgical practice in 1991 but was still working hard through early 2010 to publish his book “Craniofacial Biology and Craniofacial Surgery” (World Scientific Publishing Co., 2010), which encompasses more than 60 years of basic science discovery. As recently as spring 2011, he was still in his office, putting the finishing touches on academic works.

Sarnat died just short of his 70th wedding anniversary, which would have been Christmas Day.

He is survived by wife, Rhoda, of Los Angeles; son Gerry of Portola Valley; daughter Joan of Berkeley; grandchildren Zoe, Eli and Emma Sarnat, and Jascha and Michael Hoffman; and great-grandchildren Elliot and Simon Aron.

CareNow clinic delivers health care of last resort.

Four-year-old Nayeli Valdez lay back in a dental chair Friday morning, gazing up at the cavernous ceiling of the L.A. Sports Arena during her very first trip to the dentist.

She was one of an estimated 1,200 people at the arena receiving free medical, dental and eye care that day at the CareNow/LA health clinic, to which UCLA sent scores of volunteer health care providers and students.

While UCLA dentist Edmond Hewlett cleaned Nayeli’s teeth and filled a cavity, her father Francisco Valdez said through an interpreter that the clinic was his only option for dental care.

“He’s very happy that they were able to be seen,” the interpreter said. “They’re from a low-income family, so they can’t afford stuff like this.”

UCLA Dentist Edmond Hewlett treats a 4-year-old girl.

It was one of many wrenching cases for Hewlett that day. He wanted to do more to help Nayeli, who had “a mouthful of cavities.” Although Hewlett filled one, the others would need attention soon, he said. For the UCLA dentist, helping people like Nayeli was one of the joys — and pains — of volunteering at the clinic.

“On the one hand, it’s gratifying, and on the other hand, you see how much more need there is, and we can’t do enough,” said Hewlett. “It breaks your heart.”

It was a sentiment repeated by several of the more than 70 UCLA health care providers — physicians, dentists, ophthalmologists and more — volunteering at the CareNow/LA free clinic from Oct. 20 to 23. They and hundreds of other L.A. area doctors filled cavities, provided mammograms, screened patients for cancer, glaucoma and cataracts, and donated many other services.

The four-day clinic, which CareNow described as the largest free health care clinic in the country, served an estimated 5,000 patients who waited in line for hours earlier in the week to claim one of the coveted appointments.

Michelle Bholat, UCLA

The clinic brought much-needed assistance to people who had fallen through the cracks, said Dr. Michelle Bholat, the vice chair of the UCLA Department of Family Medicine. She estimated that more than half of those she had seen said they had been incarcerated, making it harder for them to get work and health coverage. Bholat recalled one such patient in her early 30s who recently lost her job and health insurance. The woman had high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.

“She was the typical patient at the clinic, the one who’s falling through the cracks, and if we don’t help her, in two years we’ll see her in the emergency room for kidney failure or a stroke,” Bholat said. The physician was able to give her some important screening tests and connect her to clinics that could provide follow-up care. But that’s not enough, she said.

“We really have a crisis on our hands,” Bholat said. “This clinic is fantastic, but we need care that’s sustainable.”

Patients were touchingly grateful to her and to her colleagues, she noted.

“Everyone said they were so impressed by our bedside manner,” Bholat said. “So many of them said this was the first time they felt like they had a personal physician — even in an arena with thousands of other people.”

Ravi Dave, UCLA

UCLA cardiologist Dr. Ravi Dave (pronounced Da-vay) spent his day helping patients like Edmund Dominguez, a 53-year-old whose blood pressure was so high that Dave warned him it was only a matter of time until he had a stroke if he didn’t take medication.

Treating patients in such serious need of care makes him feel like he’s really contributing, Dave said. When he works in UCLA hospitals, his patients are somewhat self-selecting, he said — only patients with insurance come in.

“Normally we see people who are doing things right and who have plenty of resources,” Dave said. “Today is special because we get to help the people who need help the most. It’s a little concerning because we’re seeing the big problem with health care in America. With so many resources, how are we finding so many people here today who have nowhere else to turn?”

But there was a silver lining, he noted: For Dave’s students, who normally see relatively healthy patients, the free clinic gave them months’ worth of experience examining different health problems in a few days.

Virginia Lalata was one of hundreds at the clinic on Friday who came for glasses and other eye care. After using hand-me-down glasses for years, she now needed a new prescription. “Without this, I don’t know what I’d do,” she said.

Lalata was one of about 500 vision patients over the weekend who received follow-up screenings from ophthalmologists in UCLA’s Mobile Eye Clinic for cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration and other eye disorders. UCLA selected 10 lucky patients for free eye surgery at the Jules Stein Eye Institute, said Faye Oelrich, the mobile clinic’s program manager.

“We’re seeing so many people whose vision has been blurry for years,” Oelrich said. “One of our most touching cases was a young woman who has had a crossed eye since childhood, which you could tell she was very self-conscious about. She came to tears when we told her we could correct her eye with free surgery.”

That wasn’t the only case of tears, Oelrich continued.

“I had another woman yesterday who has needed cataract surgery for years,” she said. “She wouldn’t have been able to pass the eye exam at the DMV, even with glasses, but she can’t afford surgery. She didn’t speak much English, but broke down sobbing when she understood we would give her the surgery, and said, ‘I’m crying because I’m so happy.’”

Several of the two dozen ophthalmologists volunteering at the clinic signed up for extra shifts, Oelrich said. “The work is so gratifying,” she said.

Dr. Laura Syniuta, an ophthalmologist with the mobile clinic, agreed.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to make a difference to people with no other options right now,” Syniuta said. “I’m so proud of my colleagues.”

Clinical trial will test a new diagnostic approach for the disorder, which affects Venus Williams and millions of others.

David Wong, UCLA

In August, tennis star Venus Williams withdrew from the U.S. Open, saying she was suffering from fatigue and other symptoms related to Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that results in the loss of the ability to produce saliva and tears. Her announcement focused public attention on this malady, which affects nearly 4 million Americans.

While women are nine times more likely than men to develop Sjögren’s, the disorder affects virtually every racial and ethnic group. Most patients develop symptoms after age 40, including dry eyes, dry mouth and often joint pain and chronic fatigue. And because of their paucity of saliva and the antibacterial chemicals it contains, patients may also develop tooth decay and cavities.

While much is known about the symptoms of Sjögren’s, the disease is complex and poorly understood, and in some cases, it can take more than six years to be diagnosed.

The UCLA School of Dentistry has now received a $2.8 million grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health, to support a multi-center clinical trial of a diagnostic test that uses patients’ saliva to determine whether they have Sjögren’s syndrome. This simple, non-invasive test will permit a diagnosis within minutes, rather than the weeks currently required when using blood or other tissue samples.

The project will be led by Dr. David Wong, associate dean for research and the Felix and Mildred Yip Endowed Professor in Dentistry at the UCLA School of Dentistry. For Dr. Wong and his colleagues, who have been conducting research on using saliva as a diagnostic tool for biomarkers of oral cancer, early-stage pancreatic cancer and other maladies for several years, this is an important step in moving from the research realm to actual clinical trials and, eventually, to use by medical and dental practitioners.

“This clinical trial will make it possible to validate the effectiveness of salivary diagnosis and move us a step closer to eventual FDA approval and clinical product development,” Wong said. “The establishment of scientifically credible biomarkers for this chronic autoimmune disease that are not invasive, painful or embarrassing is our goal.”

Clinical trials will be conducted at three major rheumatology centers, at University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, the University of Minnesota and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. Centers will enroll patients exhibiting sicca symptoms of dry eye and dry mouth and will perform the saliva biomarker assay based on a panel of highly discriminatory salivary biomarkers developed at UCLA. Researchers will benchmark the outcome with the current clinical practice of six clinical tests, including serology and a lip biopsy, to diagnose Sjögren’s syndrome (AECC 2002 criteria).

“The UCLA School of Dentistry is very proud to be at the forefront of this international effort to advance the field of saliva diagnostics from the research laboratory to clinical trials,” said No-Hee Park, dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry. “The prospect of early detection of Sjögren’s syndrome, and possibly other serious illnesses, in the future through this methodology is truly exciting.”

The UCLA School of Dentistry is dedicated to improving the oral health of the people of California, the nation and the world through its teaching, research, patient care and public service initiatives. The school provides education and training programs that develop leaders in dental education, research, the profession and the community; conducts research programs that generate new knowledge, promote oral health and investigate the cause, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of oral disease in an individualized disease-prevention and management model; and delivers patient-centered oral health care to the community and the state.

First-year UCSF students learn about other health professions.

UCSF dental student Vanessa Antolinez and medical student Andrew Lechner

The 475 future doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses and physical therapists in UCSF’s Millberry Union gym had just met but they already had a lot to talk about. They discussed what they’d order for their last meal, when and where they’d go if time travel were an option, and what they’d ask an omnipotent being if they had only one question to pose.

These “ice breakers” helped kick off Interprofessional Health Education Day, a mandatory event for all first-year students in UCSF’s health professions. It was designed to implant the notion of teamwork, a concept that is widely endorsed but often elusive. By introducing students early on, they can get acquainted with each other and their chosen fields in a relaxed way that will ease interactions in clinical settings later on.

“This is a really exciting opportunity for all of you to get to know each other a little better, and to work together and to model what we hope here at UCSF is a new way of providing high-quality health care to patients that so deserve it,” said Joseph Castro, Ph.D., vice chancellor for student academic affairs and a faculty member in the Department of Family and Community Medicine.

He also told the crowd that UCSF has established the Center for Innovation in Interprofessional Health Education and that the “world renowned” Scott Reeves, Ph.D., a sociologist who specializes in health education research from the University of Toronto, would be arriving in November to lead it.

The young people who filled the gym on Sept. 28 were assigned to one of 60 teams, each named after a San Francisco street, that included as much of a professional mix as possible, given the uneven distribution of students: 151 from the School of Medicine, 123 from the School of Pharmacy, 88 from the School of Dentistry, 77 from the School of Nursing and 36 from the physical therapy program.

“The idea is to learn now what other people do instead of when you’re on the job,” said Jessica Manley, a third-year physical therapy student and member of the development team that organized the event. “It’s so you’re on the same page as everyone else and can focus on patient care rather than turf wars. You learn where your expertise begins and where it ends. It all becomes less nebulous.”

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UCLA findings may offer a new non-invasive biomarker to diagnose and track the disease.

James Farrell, UCLA

FINDINGS:
A UCLA study has found variations in the types of bacteria found in the saliva of patients with pancreatic cancer and pancreatitis, compared with healthy controls. The findings may offer a new non-invasive biomarker to diagnose and track the development of these diseases. Pancreatic cancer is extremely deadly — only 5 percent of patients survive five years after diagnosis.

Previous studies have highlighted periodontal disease, which is related to inflammation of the gums, as playing a possible role in the development of systemic diseases such as heart disease. The current study demonstrates a possible link between this type of inflammation and pancreatic cancer and pancreatitis.

IMPACT:
The findings add to growing evidence that saliva may be a credible biomarker source to track and diagnose non-oral diseases. The study also offers new research directions for focusing on inflammation as a contributor to pancreatic diseases. 

AUTHORS:
Dr. James Farrell, M.D., associate clinical professor of digestive diseases and director of the Pancreatic Diseases Program at UCLA, and Dr. David Wong, D.M.D., D.M.Sc., UCLA’s Felix and Mildred Yip Professor of Dentistry, associate dean of research at the UCLA School of Dentistry and director of the UCLA Dental Research Institute, are available for interviews.

FUNDING:
The National Institutes of Health funded the study.

JOURNAL:
The research appears in the Oct. 12 online edition of the peer‑reviewed journal Gut. A copy of the full study is available from UCLA media officers.

UCSF event held in honor of the late Charles Epstein, a pioneer in the study and treatment of Down syndrome.

(From left) Neil Risch, Ophir Klein, Francis Collins and Lauren Weiss

Personalized medicine and new gene discoveries in human disease were a focus of a daylong symposium hosted by the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics on the Mission Bay campus on Oct. 3.

The now-annual symposium was convened to honor the late Charles J. Epstein, M.D., a pioneer in the study and treatment of Down syndrome and other genetic diseases. Epstein’s advocacy led to the establishment of medical genetics as a field of specialized medicine. He died in February as a result of pancreatic cancer.

Epstein trained many leading geneticists, including several of the symposium speakers. Other speakers, such as Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), were long-time friends and associates.

Collins, this year’s Charles J. and Lois B. Epstein Visiting Professor, gave a talk titled “Achieving Charlie’s Vision: The Science is Finally Catching Up with the Clinic.” Collins, who headed the Human Genome Project from 1993 to 2008, said that Epstein in his Down syndrome research pioneered the discovery of genetic and biochemical abnormalities that cause disease symptoms four decades ago, “when there were very few genes mapped to any chromosome.”

“Over the course of 40 years he brought together the clinical aspects of genetics and the research aspects in a way that has profoundly changed our understanding for all time and brought us into an era when clinical genetics, I think, has a remarkable future,” Collins said.

Through the Human Genome Project, researchers completely spelled out the DNA sequence of an entire human genome for the first time. That milestone, achieved in 2003, required more than a decade and nearly $3 billion.

With ever-improving technology and analytic tools, the cost of reading out an individual’s genome has continued to plummet while sequencing has sped up enormously. Today, Collins said, “We are on a trajectory toward the $1,000 genome.”  In the not-so-distant future the cost of obtaining an entire read-out of an individual’s DNA for use in personalizing medical care might no longer be prohibitively expensive.

Within a year the NIH will make available for research purposes a database containing all the protein-encoding genes for 75,000 individuals, including complete genomic DNA sequences for many of them, Collins said. Making this data available to researchers should greatly aid efforts to identify genetic causes of disease.

Collins described newer NIH grant competitions that put young scientists, including geneticists, on the fast track so that they can quickly begin directing more creative research in their own laboratories. Two symposium speakers, Ophir Klein, MD, PhD, and Lauren Weiss, PhD, are each recipients of one of these grants, called the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.

Klein discussed his research on stem cells in teeth and the intestinal tract. His work is leading to basic discoveries about how stem cell populations guide the fate of cells and tissues during development. Weiss described populations studies aimed at identifying genetic mutations that may be responsible for many cases of autism.

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“I love this city, and I love this campus.”

UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann addresses first-year students at orientation day.

Good food and drink and respectably loud party music set the tone for the orientation of hundreds of first-year students gathered in the Millberry Union gym on Sept. 19.

They were there to have fun but also to explore campus services and student groups, which set up tables on three sides of the gym. The financial aid table was quite popular, as were tables set up by several interprofessional student groups. Major sponsors of the orientation event included the Office of Student Life and Campus Life Services.

The entering class includes 160 new UCSF Graduate Division students working toward a Ph.D., 149 first-year medical students, 88 new students earning dentistry degrees, 123 first-year Pharm.D. students, 29 nursing students entering doctoral programs and 184 nursing students beginning a master’s degree curriculum.

Jose Molina

“I love this city, and I love this campus,” said first-year dentistry student Jose Molina. “UCSF is big in Fresno, and that’s where I’m from.” Molina, whose wife also is completing her training as a dentist, first came to UCSF for the Doctors Academy when he was a junior in high school — part of a career pipeline program sponsored by the Latino Center for Health Education and Research and UCSF.

Molina was drawn to attend the UCSF School of Dentistry by the research, campus organizations, focus on diversity, and outdoor activities — although he also has joined a futsal (indoor soccer) league. “I feel connected to the university, and they certainly have made me feel welcome since I have been here,” he says.

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“You don’t conquer Everest, you conquer yourself.”

Lindley Zerbe, UCLA dental student

Conjure a portrait in your mind’s eye of a man who has climbed Mount Everest. Whom do you see? Someone larger than life, fearless, a testosterone junkie — the loudest person in the room everywhere he goes?

That’s not the picture Lindley Zerbe presents. What you notice first about Zerbe, 33, a fourth-year student at the UCLA School of Dentistry, is his forthright gaze. He is mild-mannered and soft-spoken. You have to lean in to hear him tell the story of how he came to climb the tallest peak on our planet. Keep listening, and you are struck by how thoughtful he is.

“People, when they hear what I’ve done, tell me all the time, ‘Man, you conquered Everest!’” Zerbe says. “But I tell them that you don’t conquer Everest, you conquer yourself.”

Climbing Everest, which lies at the border of China, Tibet and Nepal, was not Zerbe’s lifelong ambition. Born and raised in Carmel, he was, he says, “your typical California boy. My twin brother is a surfer. I was a cross-country runner. We used to camp, hike, rock-climb and ski growing up, but I never once thought about training for something like Everest.”

Upon earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in earth systems at Stanford University, Zerbe took a position as an associate scientist with the Centre for Remote Sensing, Imaging and Processing at the National University of Singapore (NUS). His arrival coincided with the university’s daring plan to commemorate its centennial in a big way. Why not show the world what NUS was made of by training a team of faculty, students and alumni to represent the island country in doing the unthinkable: scaling the highest mountain in the world?

Zerbe first learned about the bold idea by way of a mass email. Instantly, he knew he had to go. He called his parents back home in California, then put his name on the list. A strenuous two-year preparation process ensued. Singapore’s special forces put the candidates through a series of physically and mentally challenging training exercises which winnowed 100 hopefuls down to 30, then to 10 and finally to a group of five men who would make the attempt.

As fate would have it, Zerbe’s spur-of-the-moment decision to climb Everest also led to another unexpected turn in his life’s course. Early in his mountaineering training, as the NUS team came together on climbs of Pakistan’s Gasherbrum II and Cho-Oyu, on the China–Nepal border, Zerbe volunteered to be the group’s medic.

“On a climb in Pakistan, I helped a fellow climber who was in extreme pain with a broken crown. I re-cemented it for her,” he says. “On later training trips, on our descents, we would use our excess supplies to treat local people. It meant a lot to me to be able to help kids in particular. Medical care was in short supply in many parts of Nepal, Tibet and Pakistan, but access to dental care was even scarcer. Those are the experiences that made me decide to apply to dental school.”

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UC San Diego chemists discover most naturally variable protein in dental plaque bacterium.

Colored regions in this molecular model of TvpA show the highly variable parts of the protein

Two UC San Diego chemists have discovered the most naturally variable protein known to date in a bacterium that is a key player in the formation of dental plaque.

The chemists, who announced their discovery in this week’s early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say they believe the extreme variability of the protein they discovered in the bacterium Treponema denticola evolved to adhere to the hundreds of different kinds of other bacteria that inhabit people’s mouths. They call the protein they discovered “Treponema variable protein,” or TvpA for short, and estimate that it is a million to a billion times more variable than the proteins that play a primary role in vertebrate immune systems — the only other known natural system for massive protein variation.

“In Treponema denticola, we found a protein we call TvpA, that varies considerably more than proteins of the immune system and, to our knowledge, this protein is the most variable natural protein described to date,” said Partho Ghosh, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego who headed the research effort.  “We don’t know what it does in this bacterium, but our hypothesis is that it enables it to adhere to the biofilm, commonly known as dental plaque, that exists in people’s mouths.”

Ghosh explained that dental plaque varies from person to person in the kinds of bacteria that adhere to the teeth to form this biofilm. Because plaque grows in a sequential way and because T. denticola is one of the last key players in the formation of plaque, Ghosh said the bacterium has no idea what kinds of other bacteria will be present to adhere to.

“We suspect that by varying TvpA, T. denticola is able to find a TvpA variant that is able to adhere to whichever bacterium is already present in the biofilm,” Ghosh said.

Ghosh and Johanne Le Coq, a postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory now working at the Spanish National Cancer Center in Madrid, determined the structure of their newly discovered protein and its extreme variability using a powerful X-ray “microscope” at the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. Their research project was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of General Medical Science and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Funds to help 70% of UCSF’s professional students.

UC San Francisco students on financial aid can breathe easier after university officials identified nearly $2 million to offset the recent statewide tuition hikes.

The UC Board of Regents on July 14 approved a 9.6 percent tuition increase that, together with a previously approved 8 percent hike, will cover approximately a quarter of the $1 billion shortfall resulting from a state funding cut of $650 million and more than $350 million in additional mandatory costs. That brings the total tuition increase to $1,068 per UCSF student for the 2011-12 academic year.

UC President Mark G. Yudof issued a letter [PDF] to students and parents about the tuition increases.

“UCSF strives to recruit and retain the most talented and diverse students,” said Joseph Castro, Ph.D., vice chancellor for student academic affairs. “We recognize that the most recent tuition increase will create a hardship for many of our students, especially those who are struggling financially during this economic downturn, so we have secured funds to help offset some of those costs.”

In an effort to alleviate the burden of rising fees, UCSF has increased financial support 4 percent since 2009, while grant and fellowship funds have increased 7 percent. Private support for education at UCSF, including for student aid, increased by 29 percent, to $26 million, according to Castro.

However, increasingly prospective students are being offered more financial aid from private institutions as well as guarantees that costs will not rise over their years in medical school.

And while UCSF remains one of the most diverse medical schools in the UC system and the most diverse public medical school in the state, progress on achieving a diverse student body has been slowed by steadily rising costs and intense national competition for such students. In fact, a recent survey by the UCSF School of Medicine of admitted students who enrolled elsewhere found more than 60 percent of underrepresented students said that insufficient financial support was the primary reason for their decision not to choose UCSF.

“I think it’s great that UCSF is able to help the students who are most affected by the tuition increase,” said Frank Anthony Myers Jr., a second-year student in the School of Medicine. “Attending medical school is already a challenge without additional financial burdens.”

“The UC system is very special to me and I know that many other students feel the same but the tuition increases and budget cuts hurt,” said Josh Biddle, a UCSF medical student and president of the Associated Students of the University of California. “I appreciate that UCSF has found a way to cover the current tuition increase for those of us who receive full financial aid, and I hope that they will continue to stand with us as we fight for the excellent and affordable education that has always been the hallmark of the UC system.”

The funds will cover the total tuition increase for any students eligible for full financial aid funding. Approximately 70 percent of the university’s 1,500 professional students qualify, according to Castro. Tuition offsets are coming from a number of sources across campus, including financial aid funds that had been set aside in anticipation of an expected mid-year fee increase, in January, that did not occur, he said.

Additionally, the Graduate Division will be covering the increase in tuition for all graduate students receiving fellowship support as well as any graduate student who is eligible for full financial aid funding.

UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, M.D., M.P.H., has cited increases in student fees as the principal factor in UCSF’s decision to launch its first comprehensive fundraising effort in support of education, according to John Plotts, senior vice chancellor of finance and administration.

The chancellor and her husband, Nicholas Hellmann, M.D., have helped kick off this philanthropic effort with a $1 million challenge gift, providing $250,000 matches for each of UCSF’s four professional schools, Plotts said in a July 14 email the UCSF community. As the schools secure matching donors, this will create four separate $500,000 chancellor’s endowed scholarship funds — the first of their kind at UCSF. Details of the educational fundraising initiative will be forthcoming this fall.

Multimedia stories provide preview of what the next decade may bring.

Nine UCSF scientists invite you inside their work.

UCSF has a long history of pioneering biomedical research and a bold vision for advancing health worldwide. But what does that really mean in the near future and beyond?

Hailing from a wide spectrum of disciplines, nine UCSF scientists invite you inside their work to learn what the next decade may bring to the world of medicine.

Will dentists of the future help you grow new teeth? Will neurologists someday ‘print’ information directly into the brain? And will regular eye exams enable detection of diseases such as Alzheimer’s?

Direct from those who live and breathe it every day, find out what’s next in science.

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UCLA’s Peter Moy will hold the Nobel Biocare Endowed Chair in Surgical Implant Dentistry.

Peter Moy, UCLA

The UCLA School of Dentistry has named noted oral and maxillofacial surgeon Dr. Peter K. Moy, a leading authority on dental implants, the first holder of the Nobel Biocare Endowed Chair in Surgical Implant Dentistry.

Nobel Biocare, a world leader in the development of innovative restorative dental solutions, established the chair in 2006 with the intention of enhancing the dental school’s training and education programs in implant dentistry.

A dental implant is a device — most commonly a titanium screw placed in the jawbone — that can be used in combination with a prosthetic to replace a missing tooth. Over time, the titanium becomes embedded in new bone growth to offer a permanent solution that mimics the look, feel and function of natural dentition. Dental implants also can be used to support the placement of dentures, bridges or crowns or to stabilize orthodontic treatment.

UCLA’s dental school was among the first in the country to introduce education and research programs in implant dentistry, as well as to incorporate implants in clinical practice.

“Nobel Biocare is committed to working with world-leading institutions such as the dental school at UCLA to advance the discipline of implant dentistry,” said Thomas Reddy, vice president of professional relations for Nobel Biocare, North America. “The activities of this chair will be far-reaching and ultimately yield improvements in the standard of restorative dental care around the world.”

A sought-after lecturer on implant surgical concepts in national and international forums, Moy has played a major role in the advancement of the dental implant field. He has published on the subject of computer-guided implant surgery and established risk factors for dental implant success.

As chair, Moy will deepen his involvement in the training of UCLA’s dental students and residents, faculty colleagues, and other oral health care practitioners, nationally and internationally.

“It is an honor to be asked to lead the school’s implant dentistry program,” Moy said. “Working with my colleagues, my goal is to make UCLA a world-recognized center for excellence in the practice of dental implant therapies and surgical techniques, and in the training of that practice.”

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