Stanford University School of Medicine
The Stanford School of Medicine is devoted both to promoting the health of our community and to the advancement of the frontiers of clinical medicine. As the oldest medical school in the western United States, we have an illustrious history of providing innovative, skilled patient care. Now with more than 750 full-time faculty in the life sciences and in virtually every specialty and subspecialty, our clinical science departments offer leading-edge diagnostics and therapies to patients. Intrinsic to our mission is the recognition that only through the early adoption of novel approaches to fundamental biological problems, such as cancer and heart disease, can we offer the high level of care that our patients so richly deserve. Highlights of some of our breakthrough contributions to clinical care include:
- The first use of a linear accelerator in the Western Hemisphere to treat cancer
- The first successful human heart transplant in the United States
- The first successful heart-lung transplant in the world
- The first curative combination-chemotherapy regimen for Hodgkin’s disease
- Development of genetically engineered vaccines to enhance the immune response to some types of lymphomas
Through collaborations with laboratory researchers, we also actively translate very basic discoveries into diagnostic and therapeutic applications at the bedside. Our biomedical scientists were the first to synthesize biologically active DNA in a test tube, setting the stage for the genetically engineered, biologically active therapies now used worldwide. More recently our bioscientists developed microarray technology that allows researchers to determine which genes are active in diseases as diverse as cancer and rheumatologic disorders.
With an eye to the enormous promise of translating laboratory discoveries into treatments for patients, we are now establishing five institutes to facilitate collaboration between scientists and clinicians in the most crucial fields of human disease: stem cells; cancer; neurosciences; immunology, transplantation biology and infections; and cardiovascular disease. We expect to derive from these efforts the much-needed breakthroughs to cure the maladies that have plagued the world’s population for millennia.
One of the most important parts of our research enterprise is translating our fundamental discoveries into technologies, treatments and policies that improve the world in which we live. This is accomplished through collaborations between basic scientists and clinicians from a broad range of disciplines, with crucial input from our colleagues across the full breadth of Stanford University. The small size of our faculty, our location on the undergraduate university campus and the fact that many faculty members and administrators live on or near campus creates a collegial atmosphere in which these types of interdisciplinary efforts flourish.