The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has awarded the 15th AACR-Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lectureship to Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD

The AACR-Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lectureship was established in 2004 to acknowledge an individual whose outstanding personal innovation in science and whose position as a thought leader in fields relevant to cancer research has had, and continues to have, the potential to inspire creative thinking and new directions in cancer research. The recipient of this award is selected annually by the AACR President.

Though cancer immunotherapy has become a promising standard-of-care treatment—and in some cases, perhaps a cure—for a wide variety of different cancers, it doesn’t work for everyone, and researchers have increasingly turned their attention to understanding why.

The cause of the pancreatic inflammation plaguing a rural California family has been a medical mystery since it was first described 51 years ago. Now genetic sleuth-work by researchers from UCSF and University of Chicago has solved the mystery: pointing to a novel gene mutation as the cause of the family’s inherited pancreatitis.

UC San Francisco researchers have for the first time transformed human stem cells into mature insulin-producing cells, a major breakthrough in the effort to develop a cure for type 1 (T1) diabetes. 

Replacing these cells, which are lost in patients with T1 diabetes, has long been a dream of regenerative medicine, but until now scientists had not been able to figure out how to produce cells in a lab dish that work as they do in healthy adults.

Suneil Koliwad has been appointed Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at UCSF Health, taking over from David Gardner, who retired after a long and distinguished career. 

Mark Anderson has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, which was established in 1970 to acknowledge highly regarded professionals in the diverse areas of medicine.

Assistant Professor Martin Valdearcos’ project "Targeting hypothalamic microglia to regulate glucose homeostasis" will investigate the role of microglia during early life, a critical period for brain development in relation to the regulation of hypothalamic function, the region of the brain that controls energy and glucose homeostasis.