Recognized as one of the world leaders in pediatric research and treatments, our department prides itself on our innovative techniques, state of the art medical care, expertise, and world- reknowned faculty and researchers. Our dedication to discovering and developing new treatments to combatting ailments afflicting our young is a crucial part of the research and patient care training.

Apply Research to Health Care

The Pediatric Clinical Research Center (PCRC) at UCSF has a forty-year history of translating ideas and discoveries into clinical practices that save children’s lives. It is one of the original PCRCs established with support from the National Institutes of Health and one of just nine nationwide.

Among the treatments first evaluated at the PCRC were AZT (aziothymidine), which prevents mother-to-newborn transmission of HIV, artificial "surfactant" to lubricate and help open the lungs of newborns in respiratory distress, human growth hormone produced through genetic engineering ( approved by the FDA just six years after UCSF researchers discovered the gene), and lifesaving combination therapies for neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer.

Clinical researchers at the PCRC have tested not only drugs, but also daring new procedures and innovative medical devices, including continuous positive airway pressure to better mechanically ventilate newborns and novel surgical procedures to repair or forestall organ abnormalities that result from chronic diaphragmatic hernia -- a birth defect that results in life-threatening organ abnormalities.

Speciality Research News and Articles

Childhood and Teen Obesity: Tips from the WATCH at UCSF	Adolescent Medicine
Fighting Leukemia in Cyber Space	Hematology/ Oncology