 | Home News Events Cores Science Funding Programs Partners Links | | Center News CFAR in the News- Dr. James S. Kahn: UCSF Expert Points Out Potholes on the Road to Digitized Health Records - UCSF Today, March 10, 2009
With a newly approved $19 billion boost from the federal government, electronic medical records may soon become the norm in the United States - a development advocates say is long overdue.
But considerable technical and policy barriers still exist between the current recordkeeping systems and what patients say they want and need, according to UCSF health policy expert James S. Kahn, MD.
In an article in the March/April issue of the journal Health Affairs, Kahn argues that the relatively slow adoption of personal electronic health records (PHRs) is largely due to the fact that up to now, consumers have "had PHR options but no PHR that did everything they needed to manage their health and wellness."
Kahn is a UCSF professor of medicine, associate director of the UCSF Positive Health Program based at SF General Hospital, and staff scientist at the AIDS Research Institute. He also serves as director of the mentorship program at the UCSF-GIVI Center for AIDS Research.
- Dr. Warner C. Greene in the San Francisco Chronicle: A New Call to Defeat the AIDS Virus - SFGate.com, March 6, 2009
Scientists at major medical centers in the U.S., the drug industry and AIDS advocates are calling for a new research effort to defeat HIV once and for all. In a sense, the call for a collaborative effort to eliminate HIV/AIDS is a voice from beyond the grave of advocate Martin Delaney of San Francisco's Project Inform, who died six weeks ago of liver cancer.
Before he died, Delaney had joined the scientists in meetings to draw up plans for what they are terming a "collaboratory," the coordination of years of research in a new venture with an unpredictable payoff. In their challenge to investigators worldwide, the U.S. scientists have published a review paper in the journal Science with Delaney listed as co-author.
Its authors include Douglas D. Richman of UC San Diego, Warner C. Greene of UCSF's Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology, Daria Hazuda of Merck, Roger J. Pomerantz of Johnson & Johnson and David M. Margolis of the University of North Carolina.
Their paper is entitled "The Challenge of Finding a Cure for HIV Infection." - Dr. Monica Gandhi: Using Hair to Manage HIV/AIDS and Predict Treatment Success - UCSF News Office, March 3, 2009
UCSF researchers have found that examining levels of antiretroviral drugs in hair samples taken from HIV patients on therapy strongly predicts treatment success.
The findings, published in the February 20 issue of AIDS, note that the levels of antiretrovirals found in the hair of patients on treatment correlated strongly with levels of HIV virus circulating in patients' blood.
"High levels of antiretrovirals in hair correlated with success in HIV viral suppression in treatment and did so better than any of the other variables usually considered to predict response," said the study's primary investigator, Monica Gandhi, MD MPH, assistant professor of medicine at UCSF's Positive Health Program at San Francisco General Hospital. See also the Recent Publications box at right for the abstract and citation. - Dr. James S. Kahn's CFAR Mentoring Program Is Recognized in a New Publication - UCSF News Office, February 26, 2009
An innovative mentoring program at the UCSF-Gladstone Institute for Virology and Immunology Center for AIDS Research is providing vital support for the development of the next generation of HIV/AIDS researchers and clinician scientists.
Described in an article published in the American Journal for Public Health appearing February 26 in the First Look section of the AJPH website, the program focuses on overcoming challenges faced by early-career investigators through several novel mechanisms. See also the Recent Publications box at right for the abstract and citation. - Dr. Joseph M. McCune in the New York Times: Transfer of Mother's Cells Molds Baby's Immunity - New York Times, February 2, 2009
Researchers have long wondered how pregnant women might shape their fetuses' development - by protecting them against later disease, perhaps, or instilling an appreciation of Mozart. Now a group at UCSF has discovered a surprising new mechanism by which women train their fetuses' budding immune systems: the mother's cells slip across the placenta, enter the fetus's body and teach it to treat these cells as its own. - Dr. William L. Holzemer: HIV Stigma Plagues Nurses in Developing Countries - UCSF Today, January 22, 2009
For a number of years, the UCSF School of Nursing has been leading the way in examining the impact of stigma as it relates to nurses who care for HIV patients in developing countries.
"We are learning that HIV stigma impacts people's decision to get HIV-tested, decisions to disclose their HIV status, adherence to HIV medications and their day-to-day quality of life," said William L. Holzemer, RN, PhD, professor and associate dean of international programs and Lillian and Dudley Aldous Endowed Chair in Nursing Science in the School of Nursing. "HIV stigma also impacts the quality of work life for nurses, as they are perceived by some to be contagious, since they work with HIV-positive patients." - Dr. Don Ganem: In a Human Virus, New Method to ID MicroRNA Targets Proves Its Value - UCSF Science Cafe, January 21, 2009
MicroRNAs are a very important, newly recognized type of molecule naturally encoded within the human genome. MicroRNAs, or miRNAs, help determine which gene products are produced in a cell. Some miRNAs have been found to act abnormally in cancers, and a few years ago miRNAs were found in disease-causing viruses. A research team led by UCSF virologist Don Ganem, MD, has recently reported a powerful, new approach in the scientific journal Nature Genetics.
Ganem, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at UCSF, demonstrated the new approach by using the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, the causative virus of an AIDS-associated cancer that was first cultured by Ganem more than a decade ago. - "Outside-the-Box" AIDS Vaccine Discovery LOI Selection - UCSF-GIVI CFAR, January 20, 2009
UCSF-GIVI CFAR is pleased and proud to announce the candidates who will represent our Center for the full application to the NIH. They are Mario Santiago (Apobec3+ Non-infectious retrovirus Particles as B-cell immunogen) and Trevor Burt (Demonstrate In-utero exposure of the fetal rhesus macaque to SIV induces a tolerogenic immune response).
Congratulations and best wishes to both investigators! - Dr. Robert Grant Testifies as Part of Panel at Congressional Hearing on PrEP - amFAR, December 17, 2008
Dr. Robert Grant, Betty Jean and Hiro Ogawa Endowed Investigator at GIVI and Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF, one of CFAR's investigators, was recently part of a panel at a Congressional hearing on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). The purpose of the hearing was to present information and ask questions relevant on the eve of a possible consumer product using antiretrovirals to prevent HIV-infection in populations most at-risk. Panelists agreed that PrEP's greatest benefit would most likely be as part of a "comprehensive HIV prevention tool box" - including HIV testing, condoms, partner reduction, syringe exchange and methadone treatment, male circumcision, ART, and PMTCT. - Dr. James S. Kahn Receives the 2008 ARI Award for Outstanding Mentoring - ARI, December 3, 2008
The AIDS Research Institute at UCSF is proud to announce that James S. Kahn, MD, has been awarded the 2008 ARI Award for Outstanding Mentoring. Dr. Kahn has since its inception in 2004 directed the UCSF-GIVI CFAR Mentoring Program, and has more recently become associate director of the UCSF CTSI Mentoring for Mentors Program. In addition to his institutional mentoring leadership, he has personally mentored many pre-doctoral and post-doctoral students as well as faculty at UCSF and visiting international faculty. - Dr. Steven Deeks Receives the 2008 Sarlo Award - ARI, December 3, 2008
The AIDS Research Institute at UCSF is proud to announce that Steven Deeks, MD, has been awarded the 2008 Sarlo Award for Teaching Excellence. Dr. Deeks is a professor in the Department of Medicine at UCSF and a faculty member in the Positive Health Program at SFGH. He has been engaged in HIV research and clinical care since 1993 and is a recognized expert on the immunopathogenesis of HIV and management of drug-resistant HIV. Dr. Deeks co-directs the Population and Clinical Sciences Core of the UCSF-GIVI CFAR and the UCSF SCOPE cohort. In addition to his clinical and translational investigation, Dr. Deeks maintains a large primary care clinic for HIV-infected patients.
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