As 2025 comes to a close, we offer deep gratitude to our clinical teams, scientists, staff, and community partners for their dedication, and we thank our patients and their families for entrusting their care to UCSF.
The milestones below reflect what our collective efforts can achieve when compassion, science, and community come together.
Video Highlights
Advancing Our Mission
Innovation and Partnership
- Launch of the Weill Cancer Hub West — A visionary $100 million matching gift invests a total of $200 million over the next decade, and brings together the HDFCCC and the Stanford Cancer Institute
- Art for Recovery exhibits patient art at SFMOMA — First of its kind display at SFMOMA showcases creativity and healing amid cancer
- UCSF Health Clinical Care expansion through SF — A new chapter for community hospitals in San Francisco -- UCSF Health expands care at UCSF Health Hyde Hospital (formerly Saint Francis) and UCSF Health Stanyan Hospital (formerly St. Mary's)
- Breaking ground on a new UCSF Advanced Cancer Center — a major expansion in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood that will boost proton therapy access on the West Coast
Advancing Targeted Treatments
- ‘Every Time I Relapsed, There Would Be a New Course of Therapy’
- From Undruggable to Unstoppable: A New Cancer Cure Target Emerges
- How to Thwart Cancer: Drug the Cells It Uses to Grow and Shapeshift
- UCSF Performs First Application of RSI-MRI with Robotic HiFU for Prostate Cancer
- Improving Management and Treatment of Thyroid Cancer
- Science Clears the Way to Treating the Trickiest Bladder Cancers
- UCSF Study Finds a Better Way to Screen for Breast Cancer
Investing in Future Breakthroughs
Patient Symposia and Educational Workshops
UCSF faculty and scientists engaged with patients to decode the latest research studies and implications for treatment.
Awards and Achievements
Through national and internal appointments, awards, and unique accolades, Cancer Center members were recognized as national leaders in cancer research in 2025.
Among noteworthy appointments this year Krishna Komanduri, MD was invited to participate in the White House Cell and Gene Therapy Forum; Eric Small, MD, began his appointment as ASCO president for 2025-2026; Thomas Kornberg, PhD and Raul Andino-Pavlovsky, PhD were elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS); Shawn Hervey-Jumper, MD, was named 2025 president elect of the Society for NeuroOncology; Katherine Van Loon, MD, MPH, and Sam Brondfield, MD, were named Fellows of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (FASCO).
A range of awards and honors were bestowed on our faculty as well. Frank McCormick, PhD, FRS, was awarded $1 Million Inaugural Stephenson Global Prize Award for innovation in pancreatic cancer research; Sue Yom, MD, PhD, and Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff, PhD, received a 2025 Innovation Award from the Radiation Oncology Institute (ROI) — the ASTRO Foundation; Kevan Shokat, PhD, was named winner of the 2026 Centenary Award by the Biochemical Society; Ana Velázquez Mañana, MD MSc, received the 2025 Healio Disruptor Award; Julie McCluggage, RN, OCN, CRN-BC, was the first nurse in UCSF history to earn the rigorous Clinical Research Nurse-Board Certified (CRN-BC) credential, and HDFCCC president Alan Ashworth, PhD, FRS, received a 2025 Susan G. Komen Foundation Leadership Grant.
Our Community Advisory Board celebrated its 20th year of ensuring that community voices, priorities, and advocacy remain central to the Cancer Center's work. UCSF Medical Center was again among the top ten U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals for Cancer, and on the Honor Roll for cancer, neurology/neurosurgery, and recognized nationally in multiple specialties.
>View the full list of our members' awards and honors received in 2025
In Memoriam:
It is with great sadness that we mourn our cherished friends and colleagues.
Looking Ahead
As we close out 2025, we reaffirm our center’s mission not only to treat cancer — but to prevent it, and to ensure that all communities benefit from scientific progress.
We remain ever grateful to our patients, families, donors, community partners, and members of the cancer center team.