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

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 UCSF.

UCSF is a health-sciences research powerhouse – a premier academic medical center that values not only the physician who designs clinical trial protocols for promising experimental drugs, but also the talented lab scientist who unearths nature’s secrets on the molecular and cellular levels.

As the year comes to a close, HDFCCC director Frank McCormick extends a thank you to our donors for a year of philanthropy.

VIDEO: View the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center Showcase 2012 opening plenary session.

Drugs and medical devices tend to appear more beneficial in scientific papers if they were manufactured by the company that sponsored the study, showing that who pays for the clinical trial has a direct impact on the reported outcome, according to a new analysis by researchers at UCSF and the Cochrane Collaboration.