Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research 15Th Anniversary Celebration
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Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research 15th Anniversary Celebration IN MEMORY OF MARION O. SANDLER Unconventional Wisdom: Advancing scientific discovery by breaking the rules MAY 23, 2013 Today, no other program in the world supports scientists like the Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research (PBBR). A beacon for the most courageous among UC San Francisco investigators, PBBR uses private philanthropy to fund only those ideas that challenge conventional wisdom and could never qualify for funding from increasingly conservative grant sources like the National Institutes of Health. This unique program dares our scientists to dig deeper, ask tougher questions, and invent novel approaches that defy the A sustained and solid attack is needed for opening up new types of status quo. Please join us in research. Support from the Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research gives interdisciplinary work a critically important jump start, celebrating the scientists and allowing new directions for collaborative groups not generally funded by federal research funds. I am profoundly grateful to the Sandler family, supporters who have made and to UCSF’s entire community of philanthropists, who make this PBBR’s success possible. visionary program possible. Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD UCSF professor of biochemistry and biophysics Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2009 EVENT PROGRAM OPENING REMARKS VIDEO TRIBUTE IN MEMORY OF Keith Yamamoto, PhD MARION O. SANDLER Director, Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research PBBR FOUNDING PHILANTHROPIC PARTNER Executive Vice Dean, UCSF School of Medicine UCSF Vice Chancellor for Research REMARKS Herbert M. Sandler UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM: Co-Founder, Sandler Foundation ADVANCING SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY BY BREAKING THE RULES CLOSING A CONVERSATION MODERATED BY Chancellor Desmond-Hellmann Michael Krasny, PhD Host, KQED Forum r RECEPTION TO FOLLOW FEATURING PANELISTS Joseph DeRisi, PhD Professor, UCSF Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, 2004 MacArthur Fellow Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH The Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research provides a model for UCSF Chancellor, Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished Professor how to empower scientists to take calculated risks and reach for the stars, Alfred Gilman, MD, PhD enabling them to make the transformative discoveries that are the real Regental Professor Emeritus, UT Southwestern Medical Center engines of scientific advance. It is a much needed antidote to the current research funding mechanisms that reward conservative research and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1994 avoid risk-taking, and penalize young investigators. As a grateful recipient Anita Sil, PhD, MD of one of the program’s grants back in the late 90s, I applaud UCSF for Associate Professor, UCSF Department of Microbiology and Immunology preserving and expanding this important funding mechanism. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne, PhD The Rockefeller University president and head of the Laboratory of Brain Development MODERATOR Michael Krasny, PhD Many of the most important scientific discoveries were Michael Krasny, PhD, is host of He is the recipient of many initially met with disbelief and even scorn. In such cases, KQED’s award-winning Forum, awards and honors, including philanthropic support is often critical so that scientists on a news and public affairs the SY Agnon Gold Medal the verge of a breakthrough can continue their work. The program that concentrates for Intellectual Distinction, world needs more fearless researchers who won’t take on the arts, culture, health, the Eugene Block Award for “no” for an answer. business, and technology. Human Rights Journalism, the Since 1970, Dr. Krasny has Inclusiveness in Media Award There are far too many people ready to tell young been a professor of English at from the National Conference scientists to give up on a new idea because it seems San Francisco State University for Community and Justice, and too ambitious, unproven, or audacious. Bold ideas are the very endeavors that the Program for Breakthrough and is a widely published a Koret Foundation Fellowship. Biomedical Research cherishes. UCSF is fortunate to scholar and critic, as well as a He has also been named have visionary funders like the Sandler family and former regular contributor to best talk show host by Focus others who understand the importance of high-risk Mother Jones magazine and magazine, a number of Bay research that can flourish when given the right a fiction writer. Dr. Krasny has Area newspapers, the San support. For this reason, PBBR provides much more interviewed many of the leading Francisco Publicity Club, and than just funding for our faculty – it also provides an newsmakers and cultural Citysearch. Dr. Krasny received even scarcer resource: scientific freedom. icons of our time, including his BA (cum laude) and MA Saul Bellow, former President degrees from Ohio University, Stanley Prusiner, MD Jimmy Carter, Cesar Chavez, where he is a member of UCSF professor of neurology Director, Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases Noam Chomsky, Francis Crick, Phi Beta Kappa, and his PhD Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1997 John Kenneth Galbraith, Newt degree from the University of Gingrich, Jane Goodall, V.S. Wisconsin. Naipaul, Rosa Parks, Robert Redford, Salman Rushdie, Carl Sagan, Susan Sontag, Gloria Steinem, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. PANELISTS Joseph Susan DeRisi, PhD Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH Joseph DeRisi, PhD, is a viral diseases. In 2004, he Susan Desmond-Hellmann, She was listed among Fortune professor and vice chair of the was chosen for a MacArthur MD, MPH, became the ninth magazine’s “top 50 most Department of Biochemistry Fellowship for his development Chancellor of UCSF in August powerful women in business” and Biophysics, and a Howard of the technology that was 2009. An oncologist and for seven years and, in 2010, Hughes Medical Institute used to identify the SARS renowned biotechnology was inducted into the American Investigator. He employs an virus. In addition to being the leader, Dr. Desmond-Hellmann Academy of Arts and Sciences interdisciplinary approach to first Sandler Fellow at UCSF, a holds the Arthur and Toni and elected to the Institute his work, combining genomics, Searle Scholar, and a Packard Rembe Rock Distinguished of Medicine. In March 2013, bioinformatics, biochemistry, Fellow, Dr. DeRisi has received Professor appointment at Dr. Desmond-Hellmann and bioengineering to study the Heinz Award in Technology, UCSF. Prior to joining UCSF, was appointed to the board parasitic and viral infectious the Economy, and Employment, she spent 14 years at of directors of Facebook, diseases in a wide range of and was named an Eli Lilly Genentech. From 2004-2009, Inc. She also serves on the organisms. Dr. DeRisi was one and Company Research Award she served as president, board of directors of Procter of the early pioneers of DNA Laureate. He received a BA in Product Development. In this & Gamble, on the board of microarray technology and biochemistry and molecular role, she was responsible for directors of the Albert and whole genome expression biology (1992) from the Genentech’s pre-clinical and Mary Lasker Foundation, and profiling, and is nationally University of California, Santa clinical development, process as a trustee of the Howard recognized for his efforts Cruz, and a PhD in biochemistry research and development, Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. to make this technology (1999) from Stanford University. business development, and Desmond-Hellmann completed accessible and freely available. product portfolio management. her clinical training at UCSF Today, he uses this approach Dr. Desmond-Hellmann is the and is board-certified in to study the activity of the full recipient of numerous honors internal medicine and medical range of malaria genes and and awards. In November 2009, oncology. She holds a master’s has generated provocative Forbes magazine named her degree in public health from insights in many emerging one of the world’s seven most the University of California, “powerful innovators,” calling Berkeley. her “a hero to legions of cancer patients.” PANELISTS Alfred Anita Gilman, MD, PhD Sil, PhD, MD Alfred Gilman, MD, PhD, was characterized, and purified Anita Sil, PhD, MD, began her Biology, Developmental born in New Haven, Connecticut a set of guanine nucleotide- academic career as a Harvard Biology, and Genetics. She in 1941. He received his binding regulatory proteins University undergraduate, then completed her MD at BS (summa cum laude) in termed G proteins, for which studying biochemistry and UCSF and immediately started biochemistry in 1962 from he won a 1994 Nobel Prize. working in the laboratory her own lab as a Sandler Yale University, and his MD and His observations provided for of Jack Strominger. She Fellow studying the basic PhD in pharmacology in 1969 the first time a firm molecular then followed in her family’s biology of the fungal pathogen from Case Western Reserve basis for understanding certain footsteps by entering medical Histoplasma capsulatum. Dr. Sil University. He completed his signal transduction processes school at the University joined the UCSF faculty in the postdoctoral training in the present throughout nature. He of Michigan, but became Department of Microbiology and Laboratory of Biochemical was also the primary editor enamored with the idea of Immunology in 2003, where Genetics at