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For the first time, researchers have linked autism in a mouse model of the disease with abnormalities in specific regions of the animals’ chromosomes.

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Specific DNA once dismissed as junk plays an important role in brain development and might be involved in several devastating neurological diseases, UC San Francisco scientists have found.

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Treating patients with cells may one day become as common as it is now to treat the sick with drugs made from engineered proteins, antibodies or smaller chemicals, according to UC San Francisco researchers. They outlined their vision of cell-based therapeutics as a “third pillar of medicine” in an article published online April 3 in Science Translational Medicine.

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By stimulating one part of the brain with laser light, researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at UC San Francisco (UCSF) have shown that they can wipe away addictive behavior in rats – or conversely turn non-addicted rats into compulsive cocaine seekers.

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The Li Ka Shing Foundation has pledged $2 million to support UC San Francisco’s efforts to advance Precision Medicine, an emerging field aimed at revolutionizing medical research and patient care.

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UC San Francisco has named a highly accomplished pharmacist and clinical scientist, B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, to lead the nation’s premier School of Pharmacy, continuing the school’s focus on shaping the course of the therapeutic sciences, pharmacy education, patient care, and health policy.

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Scientists at UC San Francisco have discovered how memory recall is linked to decision-making in rats, showing that measurable activity in one part of the brain occurs when rats in a maze are playing out memories that help them decide which way to turn. The more they play out these memories, the more likely they are to find their way correctly to the end of the maze.

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Visits to the ER are not always for true medical emergencies – and some policymakers have been fighting the problem by denying or limiting payments if the patient’s diagnosis upon discharge is for “nonemergency” conditions.

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A UC San Francisco team has developed an ambitious online cardiovascular study using mobile smartphones, with the goal of enrolling one million people from all over the world to improve heart health.

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Screening for breast cancer every two years appears just as beneficial as yearly mammograms for women ages 50 to 74, with significantly fewer “false positives” – even for women whose breasts are dense or who use hormone therapy for menopause.

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The immune system’s T cells, while coordinating responses to diseases and vaccines, act like honey bees sharing information about the best honey sources, according to a new study by scientists at UC San Francisco.

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UC San Francisco’s School of Medicine ranked fourth nationwide in both research and primary care education this year, according to a new survey conducted by U.S. News & World Report.

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Scientists at UC San Francisco have found a more precise way to turn off genes, a finding that will speed research discoveries and biotech advances and may eventually prove useful in reprogramming cells to regenerate organs and tissues.

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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released a new report, Making Health Care Safer II, which identifies the top 10, evidence-based patient safety strategies available to clinicians.

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A UC San Francisco team has developed a tool that can help determine – and perhaps influence – senior citizens’ 10-year survivability rates.

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A team of scientists and clinicians at UC San Francisco has discovered how to detect abnormal brain rhythms associated with Parkinson’s by implanting electrodes within the brains of people with the disease.

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Combining hospital MRIs with the mathematical tool known as network analysis, a group of researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley have mapped the three-dimensional global connections within the brains of seven adults who have genetic malformations that leave them without the corpus callosum, which connects the left and right sides of the brain.

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It’s a basic, reasonable question: How much will this cost me? For patients in the emergency room, the answer all too often is a mystery.

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Lower-income patients want to communicate electronically with their doctors, but the revolution in health care technology often is not accessible to them, due to inadequate health information services within the health care clinics they frequent, according to a survey by UC San Francisco researchers.

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When a young child has surgery, parents rely on doctors and nurses for advice on how to prepare and support children during the procedure and immediately afterwards. But once that child gets home, parents are left with little guidance on how to best help their children cope with pain.

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A team of researchers at UC San Francisco has uncovered the neurological basis of speech motor control, the complex coordinated activity of tiny brain regions that controls our lips, jaw, tongue and larynx as we speak.

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Gene wars rage inside our cells, with invading DNA regularly threatening to subvert our human blueprint. Now, building on Nobel-Prize-winning findings, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered a molecular machine that helps protect a cell’s genes against these DNA interlopers.

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Over a span of nearly 20 years, California’s tobacco control program cost $2.4 billion and reduced health care costs by $134 billion, according to a new study by UC San Francisco.

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The UCSF School of Pharmacy has partnered with Safeway Inc. to help Safeway customers quit smoking, by connecting them with specially trained pharmacists to learn about smoking-cessation programs and other resources.

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Parents are more accepting of their teenage daughters using birth control pills than any other form of contraception, including condoms, according to a recent study from UC San Francisco (UCSF). The most effective contraceptive methods, the implant – a matchstick-sized rod that is inserted in the arm to prevent pregnancy – and the intrauterine device (IUD), were acceptable to a minority of parents.

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Mothers who are exposed to particulate air pollution of the type emitted by vehicles, urban heating and coal power plants are significantly more likely to bear children of low birth weight, according to an international study led by co-principal investigator Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, MPH, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive sciences at UC San Francisco along with Jennifer Parker, PhD, of the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Among older women, getting a mammogram every two years was just as beneficial as getting a mammogram annually, and led to significantly fewer false positive results, according to a study led by UC San Francisco.

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Women with harmful mutations in the BRCA gene, which put them at higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, tend to undergo menopause significantly sooner than other women, allowing them an even briefer reproductive window and possibly a higher risk of infertility, according to a study led by researchers at UC San Francisco.

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The spread of breast cancer to distant organs within the body, an event that often leads to death, appears in many cases to involve the loss of a key protein, according to UC San Francisco researchers, whose new discoveries point to possible targets for therapy.

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Technological advancements in medicine have allowed patients suffering from musculoskeletal conditions such as hip and knee pain to regain mobility and live relatively pain-free. But some “high risk” surgical devices that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are not required to go through clinical trials, where a product is tested to determine its safety and effectiveness.

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Two heads are better than one, as the saying goes – and a new study by a duo at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) demonstrates how having two attending surgeons in the operating room during spinal surgeries can benefit patients in multiple ways.

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First trimester abortions are just as safe when performed by trained nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified nurse midwives as when conducted by physicians, according to a new six-year study led by UCSF.

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Many people who suffer from chronic kidney disease progressively lose their kidney function over time and eventually develop a condition called end-stage renal disease – the complete failure of the kidneys – placing them in need of lifelong dialysis or a kidney transplant.

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Two UCSF teams have received a total of $16 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study new ways to significantly reduce childhood mortality and disease in developing nations.

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Researchers in California and Switzerland have discovered that melanomas that develop resistance to the anti-cancer drug vemurafenib (marketed as Zelboraf), also develop addiction to the drug, an observation that may have important implications for the lives of patients with late-stage disease.

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The National Cancer Institute has awarded the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center a $36 million grant to fund cutting edge research programs and clinical trials over five years.

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The most comprehensive retrospective study ever conducted comparing how the major types of prostate cancer treatments stack up to each other in terms of saving lives and cost effectiveness is reported this week by a team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

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A new patient-friendly online resource called PREPARE (www.prepareforyourcare.org) has been developed to help people make complex medical decisions. The website was developed by researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical Center, UCSF, and NCIRE - The Veterans Health Research Institute.

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Study shows patients who give their doctors high marks in communication more likely to fill prescriptions.

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UCSF study examines role of key molecule in body’s metabolism, which eating at odd times can upset.

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Hospital MRIs may be better at predicting long-term outcomes for people with mild traumatic brain injuries than CT scans, the standard technique for evaluating such injuries in the emergency room, according to a clinical trial led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH).

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The pelvic exam, a standard part of a woman’s gynecologic checkup, frequently is performed for reasons that are medically unjustified, according to the authors of a UCSF study that may lay the groundwork for future changes to medical practice.

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Stroke the soft body of a newborn fruit fly larva ever-so-gently with a freshly plucked eyelash, and it will respond to the tickle by altering its movement—an observation that has helped scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) uncover the molecular basis of gentle touch, one of the most fundamental but least well understood of our senses.

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Severe acute kidney injuries are becoming more common in the United States, rising 10 percent per year and doubling over the last decade, according to a retrospective study at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

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A tiny, translucent zebrafish that glows green when its liver makes glucose has helped an international team of researchers identify a compound that regulates whole-body metabolism and appears to protect obese mice from signs of metabolic disorders.

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The risk of developing pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) following insertion of an intrauterine device (IUD) is very low, whether or not women have been screened beforehand for gonorrhea and chlamydia, according to a joint study of nearly 60,000 women by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research.

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DNA sequences obtained from a handful of patients with multiple sclerosis at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center have revealed the existence of an “immune exchange” that allows the disease-causing cells to move in and out of the brain.

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Scientific studies have suggested that a wandering mind indicates unhappiness, whereas a mind that is present in the moment indicates well-being. Now, a preliminary UCSF study suggests a possible link between mind wandering and aging, by looking at a biological measure of longevity.

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A comprehensive survey of genital injuries over the last decade involving mishaps with consumer products like clothing, furniture, tools and toys that brought U.S. adults to emergency rooms reveals that such injuries are common and may be preventable, according to doctors at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

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A mother’s willingness to sacrifice her own health and safety for the sake of her children is a common narrative across cultures – and by no means unique to humans alone. Female polar bears starve, dolphin mothers stop sleeping and some spider moms give themselves as lunch for their crawly babies’ first meal.