University of California Audio Podcasts (Audio)

Americans constitute 4.6% of the world's population and consume 80% of the world's opioids and 99% of the world’s hydrocodone. There are five times more Americans with opioid substance use disorder than addicted to heroin. How did we get here and what can we do about it? Series: "UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine presents Mini Medical School for the Public" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 30801]

Each year in the United States, firearm violence results in approximately 30,000 deaths and 75,000 nonfatal injuries to patients seen in hospital emergency departments. Dr. Garen Wintemute, Director of the Violence Prevention Research Program and UC Davis, discusses new research on the epidemiology of firearm violence, including mass shootings. Then, Dr. Amy Barnhorst explores the relationship between mental illness and firearm violence, and discusses firearm legislation that is aimed at people with mental illnesses. [Public Affairs] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 30986]

Parkinson's disease (PD) affects more than a million people in the US. Jeanne Loring, professor and the founding director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, discusses current research and potential future therapies for PD. In 2012, a partnership of scientists, clinicians, PD patients, and patient advocates was formed to develop a therapy for PD using patients' own skin cells that can be transformed into dopamine neurons, which can then be transplanted to their brains to restore lost cells. With further support from the foundation and granting agencies, the research and clinical partners hope to transplant cells to the first patient in about three years. This kind of partnership is unprecedented, and is inspiring for both the researchers and the patients, who are working together to develop the first effective therapy for PD. Series: "Exploring Ethics" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 30484]

Christopher Owens, MD, Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, UCSF. Series: "UCSF Vascular Surgery Symposium" [Health and Medicine] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 30910]

Pros and cons of surgical bypass. Series: "UCSF Vascular Surgery Symposium" [Health and Medicine] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 30911]

Ehrin Armstrong, MD, VA Eastern Colorado Healthcare System. Series: "UCSF Vascular Surgery Symposium" [Health and Medicine] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 30914]

Charles Eichler, MD, Division of Vascular Surgery, UCSF. Series: "UCSF Vascular Surgery Symposium" [Health and Medicine] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 30923]

This panel of women with successful careers in media looks at some of today's leading women writers, directors, and producers. Panelists include: Starshine Roshell (moderator), Jane Espenson (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Once Upon a Time, Warehouse 13), and Anne Cofell Saunders (Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, Chuck, The Small Ship, Revolution). Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31019]

Barbara Taylor of the National Marine Fisheries Service Southwest Fisheries Science Center, who participated in the last effort to save the recently extinct Chinese River Dolphin, or Baiji, gives a detailed chronicle of her involvement in documenting the decline of earth’s most endangered marine mammal, the Vaquita, found only in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico. Their primary threat is death in gillnets, which until very recently supplied shrimp to the U.S. market. The catastrophic 80% decline since 2011 results from illegal sales of endangered totoaba swim bladders to China. Series: "Jeffrey B. Graham Perspectives on Ocean Science Lecture Series" [Science] [Show ID: 30921]

Get an overview of how bones heal and research advances that may provide new solutions. Series: "UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine presents Mini Medical School for the Public" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 30987]