HONG KONG, Dec. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, is visiting Hong Kong this week to speak at the University of Hong Kong Centenary Lecture, and identify potential areas of collaboration between the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and leading Hong Kong universities.
Desmond-Hellmann is present with UCSF Professor and Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, UCSF Professor and Shaw-Prize recipient Yuet Wai Kan, MBBS, DSc, Prof. Margaret Tempero and Regis Kelly, PhD, Director of California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences. They introduce the background of UCSF and highlights of the programs.
Desmond-Hellmann, who was the president of product development at the world's first biotechnology company, Genentech, Inc., has brought her understanding of drug development to UCSF, already widely known for its prominence in biological innovation. UCSF ranks second worldwide in the number of U.S. life sciences patents it holds. It was home to the discovery of recombinant DNA, which forms the basis of biotechnology, and has launched more than 75 life science companies, including Genentech.
At the press conference, Desmond-Hellmann points out that UCSF has been dedicating efforts to life science research, while Hong Kong has no university solely for such purposes, which makes her believe that UCSF is a favorable choice. She adds that mainland China has enormous potential for the development of life science, and hopes that more students will be drawn to UCSF through her exchange with Hong Kong academia. Regis Kelly agrees, stating that Hong Kong students are brilliant and have good potential for science research. By introducing UCSF to local university graduates, he hopes they can enter the top American health sciences-focused university for their further development in the field.
About University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
UCSF is the leading health sciences-focused university in the United States and the largest public recipient of scientific funding through the U.S. National Institutes of Health. UCSF has four Nobel laureates, the nation's premier School of Pharmacy, world-renowned graduate science programs, and schools of Medicine, Nursing and Dentistry that all rank among the top four in the country. It is also home to the UCSF Medical Center, which has annually been named one of the country's top 10 hospitals by U.S. News & World Report for more than a decade.
UCSF is educating growing numbers of international health science students and scholars, primarily as postdoctoral scholars. The university currently has more than 187 postdoctoral scholars from Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, or roughly 18 percent of all UCSF postdoctoral scholars.
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