About Us: Facts and Figures
The University of California San Francisco and the
UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
Rankings
The professional schools of UCSF are among the top in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report graduate school and other rankings. The schools also rank at or near the top in research funding from the National Institutes of Health. In 2010, the UCSF School of Medicine remained second among all medical schools and first among public institutions, receiving NIH funding of $422.1 million. In
that year the Schools of Nursing and Dentistry ranked first in NIH funding, and the School of Pharmacy remained first in its field in NIH support, as it has for 31 consecutive years.
UCSF also consistently ranks among the top US biomedical research institutions in the level of federal funding that is cancer-specific. In 2009, UCSF ranked seventh in appropriated total research support to US institutions from the National Cancer Institute; the UCSF total was $68.5 million annually. UCSF in 2009 also received nearly $8 million in cancer-specific funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Together, the appropriated NCI funding and the ARRA funding brought the annual NCI funding total to $76.2 million in FY2009, placing UCSF eighth among NCI- funded institutions.
Current grant funding to UCSF investigators for cancer research projects from all sources totals more than $243 million annually. This total includes funding from the NCI as well as from other areas of the NIH, the American Cancer Society, and other agencies and industry partners.
Among the 66 NCI-designated cancer centers nationwide, the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center ranks sixth in the size of its NCI Cancer Center Support Grant, and first among the 10 NCI-designated cancer centers located in California.
The 2011-2012 U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Hospitals” survey ranked UCSF eighth for cancer care—and first among California cancer-care providers. The survey placed UCSF’s cancer care among the top 10 in the nation for the seventh consecutive year.
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Institutional Memberships and Accreditation
Since 1998, UCSF has been a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of 21 of the world’s leading cancer centers.
The Cancer Center is also a member of the Association of American Cancer Institutes, comprising leading US research centers whose efforts involve a comprehensive and multidisciplinary program of cancer research, treatment, patient care, prevention, education, and community outreach.
Cancer programs at UCSF have been continuously accredited since 1933 by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons, and UCSF is among a select group of institutions that have achieved the highest level of CoC accreditation. The CoC is a consortium of professional organizations dedicated to reducing the morbidity and mortality of cancer through education, standard-setting, and monitoring of quality, multidisciplinary patient care. CoC-approved programs diagnose and treat 80 percent of the individuals who are diagnosed with cancer each year.
Cancer Center Investigators
The Cancer Center’s more than 350 members and associate members—faculty investigators in laboratory, clinical, and population-based research—exemplify the value of attacking the cancer problem through collaborative, interdisciplinary research. Cancer Center members represent dozens of departments and institutes in the UCSF Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, and Nursing.
Cancer-related research and clinical care are significant priorities for UCSF overall; approximately one-quarter of the university’s full-time faculty members work in cancer research or patient care.
Members exemplify extraordinary scientific distinction as measured by prestigious national and international honors. Among the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center’s members are two winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (J. Michael Bishop, MD, 1989; Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD, 2009). Current Cancer Center members also include three winners of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic or Clinical Medical Research; eight Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators; 12 members of the National Academy of Sciences; 19 members of the Institute of Medicine; 18 Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and four Fellows of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Cancer Center Membership >
Members with Extraordinary Scientific Distinction >
Cancer Diagnoses and Clinical Research
In 2009, 6,107 individuals were newly diagnosed with cancer at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Diagnoses spanned all categories of cancer, in both adult and pediatric patients. Among the largest categories of cancer diagnoses were prostate (794 cases), breast (606 cases), brain and nervous system (600 cases), cutaneous melanoma (394 cases), and lung cancer (322 cases).
In 2008, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center clinical research investigators led 424 therapeutic research protocols, which represented NCI cooperative-group studies, protocols with pharmaceutical industry sponsorship, and institutional protocols initiated by UCSF investigators. A total of 601 cancer patients were newly enrolled in these research studies in 2008.
Impact of Biomedical Research
Leading biomedical research universities such as UCSF are engines of discovery that launch new ideas into the private sector for further development. An estimated 90 life-science start-up companies have been spawned or spun off from UCSF labs. Overall, the University of California has received more patents than any other university in the world, and UCSF is ranked first for active patents in the University of California system. Among UCSF patents are many of the UC system’s top revenue producers, including hepatitis B vaccine, yeast expression vector, a technique for delivering medicines to the body’s cells, a form of recombinant DNA used for the production of therapeutic agents, and magnetic resonance imaging.
Public-private partnerships can help speed the advancement of biomedical research and move discoveries from bench to bedside. UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center investigators have developed creative partnerships with dozens of life-science companies in the Bay Area and beyond. Current initiatives totaling millions of dollars in research funding include strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Novartis, Genentech, SurroMed, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Celera Diagnostics, and Predicant Biosciences.
