Research Overview

UC San Francisco is leading revolutions in health – and those revolutions often start in the lab. From basic science to clinical research, we are constantly pushing scientific boundaries and earning worldwide recognition for our discoveries.

A key element of UCSF’s research success is its deeply ingrained culture of collaboration. Scientists regularly reach across disciplines and beyond the borders of UCSF to advance knowledge in basic science and formulate new strategies for treating disease – insights that would be elusive in laboratories focused only on a single research approach.

This collaborative spirit and its echo effect yield life-changing results: Our faculty members are uncovering ways to prevent and treat a wide array of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, neurological disorders, cancer, diabetes, genetic disorders, and immunological and infectious diseases.

The caliber of UCSF’s research is world renowned. Our faculty have won nearly every leading prize in the health sciences, from Nobel Prizes to National Medals of Science. For nearly a decade, UCSF has earned its place as the top-funded public academic institution by the National Institutes of Health.

Innovative Strategies for Health

By bringing together a variety of perspectives and backgrounds through UCSF’s cross-disciplinary research and industry partnerships, our teams are constantly renewing and advancing the fields of medicine, pharmacy, dentistry and nursing.

We’re pushing forward specifically in these areas:

Basic science investigation: Basic science is a crucial anchor of UCSF’s research efforts. Our unparalleled commitment to and curiosity about understanding the underpinnings of biology holds promise for far-reaching impacts on human health. The $100 million Discovery Fellows Program, the largest endowed PhD program in the history of the University of California, supports our emerging basic scientists.

Translational research: Our clinicians and physician scientists are consistently pioneering ways to apply our scientific discoveries to real-world treatments. We also nurture start-ups for scientists so that they can bring medical inventions to market, and we’ve partnered with leading biotechnology and technology companies such as Genentech, Pfizer, GE and Samsung to leverage the best public and private sector expertise to solve the biggest problems in health.

Precision medicine: UCSF has played a seminal role in developing this emerging field. Precision medicine aims to harness vast amounts of molecular, clinical, environmental and population-wide data to transform the future of health diagnosis, treatment and prevention for people worldwide. We continue to lead at both the policy level and through new approaches to large-scale genomics and data-driven research. Learn more about precision medicine at UCSF »