July 2018

Angela Galvis, MBA

Operations Admin

As the Operations Administrative Assistant, I provide administrative support to the Department of Clinical Pharmacy. This includes project coordination, meeting facilitation, event planning, assisting the accounting team with procurement, onboarding new faculty and staff, and completing general office tasks. Additionally, I act as the backup for the executive analyst and assist in scheduling and managing meetings for the Department Chair. As the office manager, I ensure the efficient operation of our three department locations: Parnassus, Mission Bay, and Zuckerberg San Francisco General, where our Drug Research Unit (DRU) lab is located.

Creating the tools to build a Human Cell Atlas

If it’s hard to take an accurate census of the 325 million people living in the US, it’s even more daunting to survey the 37.2 trillion or so cells that make up the human body. The brain alone, for instance, contains nearly 90 billion neurons, which can be classified into over a thousand distinct cell types. But these numbers are informed estimates—the true diversity of cells in the brain, let alone throughout the body, remains out of reach.

Update from the Dean – July 2018

Health at the molecular level: Decoding cellular signals, A trigger for tissue repair, Seeding tomorrow’s science. The future of custom care: Tracking cancer drug resistance, Treating malaria and tuberculosis, Quantitative Biosciences Institute’s culture of inclusivity, The genetics of asthma. Ensuring the best possible care: Using the right drugs, Keeping up with the testing boom. Update on the new PharmD curriculum: Welcoming our new students at the end of July. And more.

Drilling down to the details of opioid signaling

Despite using opioids for centuries for pain management, we still don’t have a complete understanding of how drugs like morphine and oxycodone actually work. And that’s a problem for patients, who must weather side effects that can range from nausea and constipation to cognitive impairment, addiction, and, at high doses, even death.