News & Events

In another demonstration of the Department of Surgery 's commitment to global health and outreach, UCSF transplant surgeon Andrew M. Posselt, M.D., Ph.D. , recently travelled to Cali, Colombia to help lay the groundwork for a laparoscopic donor nephrectomy program at the Fundacion Clinica Valle del Lili, a leading...

The UCSF Transplant Program will have a strong presence at the World Transplant Congress (WTC), to be held July 26–31, 2014 at Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco. The WTC brings together the members of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS), The Transplantation Society (TTS) and the...

UCSF's Kidney Transplant Program has ranked number one in the country for transplant volume, according to the newest data just released by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR). The program, led by John Roberts, M.D., Chief of the Transplant Service and Division of Transplant Surgery at UCSF...

"Researchers studying the effects of immune suppressant drugs on transplant patients with HIV have made a surprising discovery: A drug intended to hobble the body's defense system may actually help destroy dormant reservoirs of the virus that causes AIDS In a paper published this week in the American Journal of...

UCSF News reports on the work of Qizhi Tang, Ph.D., and other UC San Francisco researchers to develop new organ transplant strategies that better prevent rejection of donated organs. The research of Dr. Tang, Associate Professor in the Division of Transplant Surgery, and Director of the Transplantation Research...

A recent paper in the journal Nature, reported by UCSF News by a research team including Associate Professor Holger Willenbring, M.D., Ph.D. and Senior Resident Jack Harbell, M.D., a former postdoctoral fellow in the Willenbring lab, reports a new method of cellular reprogramming with potential for treating liver...

UCSF News, reporting on the 14th World Congress of the International Pancreas and Islet Transplant Association (IPITA), highlighed improving results in islet cell transplantation: For the worst cases of type 1 diabetes, islet transplantation already has freed hundreds of people from complete dependence on insulin...

"The sun wasn't up at 5 o'clock Wednesday morning, but a new day had already dawned for Matthew Ouimet. Matthew, a 2-year-old Antioch boy who had waited 15 months for a life-sustaining kidney and liver transplant, had his new organs. Dr. John Roberts took the lead on the liver transplant, and Dr. Peter Stock, who...

" Dr. (Nancy) Ascher excels in her role as Chair of Surgery, not only for her inexplicable foresight, but because she stays connected to trainees and students. This year, Dr. Ascher received the Francis Moore Excellence in Mentorship in the Field of Transplantation Surgery Award from the American Society of...

"It was 1975 when Nancy Ascher, MD, PhD, chose surgery, a specialty shoulder-deep in men. Then again, so was medical school - Ascher was one of 20 women in her class of 180. After her residency, she blew past every gender barrier to become the first woman to perform a liver transplant, garnering enough speed to...

The annual Pediatric Transplant Picnic was held at McNears Beach in San Rafael, CA on Saturday, August 24, 2013, from 10 am - 4 pm, a celebration in honor of children who have been patients in the transplant program and their families. Attendees were treated to music, dancing, kayaking, face-painting, piñatas, and...

Dr. Minnie Sarwal discusses the omics approach to transplant monitoring and the potential use of sensitive and effective biomarkers for diagnosiing and treating disease. Rapid progress in high throughput molecular screening and in bioinformatics tools have provided the scientific community with new tools for...

Alfonso Garcia and his parents pose with the UCSF medical team that cared for him during his 2010 life-saving liver transplant. From left: mother Marta Garcia; Emily Perito, MD; nurse practitioner Susan Diaz, MSN; Garcia; Philip Rosenthal, MD; and father Oscar Garcia. Alfonso Garcia still carries around a baseball...

ABC News reports on the improved chance of having successful organ transplants in patients undergoing bariatric surgery: Gone may be the days of limiting bariatric surgery just to helping patients lose weight. Indeed, these weight loss surgeries, in all forms, do just as the name describes. But a slew of new...

21-month old Matthew Ouimet was born with primary hyperoxaluria Type I, a rare liver condition that causes buildup of oxalates in the body which damages the kidney. Matthew first experienced renal failure at 4 months old. On both the kidney and liver transplant waiting lists, he now undergoes four-hour dialysis...