A monthly newsletter from UC San Diego Health Sciences | June 2025 Issue
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Advancing Vision Health and Innovation
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On June 11, we celebrated a significant milestone for our UC San Diego campus and Health Sciences with the grand opening of the Viterbi Family Vision Research Center at Shiley Eye Institute.
This 5-story, 100,000-square-foot building is visionary both in its ambition to reshape the future and in its literal focus on restoring and enhancing human sight. It also underscores how our campus leads as the region’s only academic medical center, uniting innovative research, medical education and outstanding patient care to better serve our community and the world.
The field of ophthalmology continues to advance at an extraordinary pace, and nowhere is this progress more evident than at UC San Diego. Over the past year, we’ve celebrated advances in treatments for complex retinal diseases, the development of novel tools for glaucoma management and pioneering applications of artificial intelligence in vision care. Our Shiley Eye Institute — a world-class destination for the prevention and treatment of blinding eye diseases — handled 156,671 patient visits and performed 7,555 surgeries.
With a striking glass façade, itself inspired by the interplay of the eye and light, the building will serve as a gateway to the medical campus and hub for interdisciplinary ophthalmologic research and care on the La Jolla Campus at UC San Diego Health.
The new facility’s modern research labs will further translate emerging discoveries into effective treatments by bringing together:
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- Wet and dry laboratories for vision research
- A suite dedicated to precision ophthalmology and clinical trials, particularly with stem cell and gene therapies
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The newly established Hanna and Mark Gleiberman Center for Glaucoma Research that is focused on restoring vision of those with glaucoma blindness
- Conference facilities for community and patient education
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Made possible by a donation in 2018 from philanthropist Andrew J. Viterbi, the center honors Viterbi’s father and ophthalmologist, Achille Viterbi. The landmark gift established the new center and created six new endowed chairs to help attract talented faculty to UC San Diego. The department was renamed the Viterbi Family Department of Ophthalmology in recognition of this truly transformative gift, marking the first named academic department at UC San Diego.
This is a major milestone — not just in brick and mortar, but in momentum. Our Viterbi Family Research Vision Center will shape a future where restored sight is a possibility for more people than ever before.
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John M. Carethers, MD
Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences
Distinguished Professor of Medicine
Adjunct Professor of Public Health
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The six-year project, awarded through ARPA-H, will create new technology to match patients with breast, lung or colon cancer to optimal courses of therapy. Read Story»
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Metformin, a common diabetes drug, increased the likelihood of reaching an age of 90 or older in one study. Read Story»
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One of the nation’s first, the School of Medicine Medical Scientist (MD/PhD) Training Program strives to bridge two worlds: the clinic and the lab. Read Story»
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UC San Diego Health is a leader in transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which can reset brain networks to combat treatment-resistant depression. After the birth of her son in 2024, Katharine Unetic was desperate to feel joy about her family but felt consumed by depression and panic. The TMS treatment provided by the UC San Diego Health interventional psychiatry clinic was life-altering. "We are world leaders in TMS and other areas of interventional psychiatry,” said Cory Weissman, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry. Read Story»
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The celebration of her new position with the American Geriatrics Society began with the first pitch at a Padres game and reflection on a career grounded in care for older adults. Read Story»
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"Behind Every Breakthrough" Video Exclusive |
University of California San Diego is a leader in clinical trials among U.S. academic health systems. In this Q&A, Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute Director David “Davey” Smith, MD, talks about the importance of clinical trials and how federal funding impacts them. Read Story»
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“Physical exercise is the low-hanging fruit of prevention. It’s also the most robust, so it’s really important in terms of staving off cognitive decline.”
— Sarah Banks, PhD, director of neuropsychology, UC San Diego Health Center for Brain Health & Memory Disorders, in discussing Alzheimer’s prevention — and how women could hold the key to future treatments
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