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The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center combines basic science, clinical research, epidemiology/cancer control and patient care in San Francisco, California.

History
The first attempt at coordinating cancer at UCSF was a collaboration between the UC School of Medicine, the city and county of San Francisco and the National Cancer Institute in 1947 with the Laboratory of Experimental Oncology.

Following on the LEO's heels, the tradition of cancer-related research at UCSF owes much to the vision of David A. Wood, MD, who in 1948 was appointed as the first director of the UCSF Cancer Research Institute. Wood felt that the key to curing cancer is "the multidisciplinary approach, both clinical and basic scientists working together."

The Cancer Center achieved status in December 1999 as an NCI-designated "comprehensive cancer center," the highest of three designations. In November 2007, the Center was renamed the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center in tribute to Bay Area resident Helen Diller.

Locations
Cancer care and research is carried out across the UCSF system in San Francisco. Primary areas of service include: Mission Bay in Potrero, Mount Zion in the Western Addition neighborhood, Parnassus near Golden Gate Park, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in the Mission neighborhood, and San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Richmond district.

UCSF cancer treatment expanded from Parnassus and Mount Zion campusus to Mission Bay in 2015 with the opening of the Bakar Cancer Hospital. The UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital at Mission Bay accommodates the Center's Pediatric Oncology Program.

A new Precision Cancer Medicine Building is being built at the Mission Bay campus to unify outstanding researchers and clinicians to deliver novel, personalized treatments to cancer patients. Construction will commence in 2017, and the facility will open to patients in 2019.

Notable Faculty
UCSF's long tradition of excellence in cancer research includes the Nobel Prize-winning work of J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus, who discovered cancer-causing oncogenes and Elizabeth Blackburn, who co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere.

Frank McCormick, whose work targeted ways of treating cancer based on alterations in the Ras pathway, as well as other oncogenic drivers and tumor suppressors, led the HDFCCC from 1997 to 2014.

Alan Ashworth, part of the team that discovered the BRCA2 gene in 1995, began leading the center in 2015. Other notable faculty include Laura van ʻt Veer, Peter Carroll, Lawrence Fong, Mignon Loh, Mitchel Berger, Hope Rugo, Laura Esserman.