UCSF Cutbacks Hinder Cancer Research

The incoming chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco said Tuesday the state's budget crisis will mean making some ``tough decisions'' for one of the country's leading medical schools.

Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann takes over in August as head of the university, which has an annual budget of $2.5 billion and ranks as San Francisco's second-largest employer.

Desmond-Hellmann told The Associated Press following the opening of a new cancer center Tuesday that she and the outgoing chancellor, Dr. J. Michael Bishop, have been in discussions about how to respond to likely funding cuts as the state struggles to close its budget deficit.

``Some things that the university has ambitions to do will either not happen or come slower because of this,'' Desmond-Hellmann said. She said they had not determined what specific programs or services would face cutbacks.

The grim economic forecast did not stop the opening of the $135 million center at UCSF's Mission Bay campus that more than doubles the size of the university's cancer research facilities.

The five-story Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Building will allow more cancer researchers to collaborate under one roof, which could speed discoveries and treatments, university officials said.

The 160,000-square-foot building will house more than 400 scientists who will focus on the treatment of brain, breast and prostate cancer as well as cancer's underlying causes.

Cancer research has long been a specialty at UCSF. Bishop and fellow researcher Dr. Harold Varmus won a Nobel Prize in 1989 for their discovery of cancer's genetic roots.

The center was funded in part by a $35 million donation from San Francisco Bay area philanthropist Helen Diller and $20 million from the Atlantic Philanthropies.

Desmond-Hellmann comes to UCSF after serving as president of product development at Genentech Inc. Under her leadership, the biotechnology giant brought to market some of the world's top-selling cancer drugs, including Avastin, Herceptin and Rituxan.


(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)