Laboratory Medicine

The Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco is dedicated to clinical service, research and teaching.

The Department of Laboratory Medicine oversees the Clinical Laboratories at UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights, UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, China Basin,  Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, Berkeley outpatient cancer center, San Mateo cancer clinic, San Francisco VA Health Care System and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. The Clinical Laboratories perform a large menu of diagnostic laboratory tests in hematology, immunology, microbiology, transfusion medicine, genomics, metabolism, toxicology and chemistry. Each hospital is served by a clinical laboratory at their site, with an additional central laboratory located at our China Basin facility.

The Department has over 40 faculty engaged in biomedical research. The research interests of the faculty include hematology/ thrombopoiesis, sexually-transmitted diseases, transfusion related disease, immunology/AIDS, neurovirology, cancer genetics and cytogenetics, molecular mechanisms of hypertension, metabolism and obesity. Research faculty within the Department are located at the six affiliated hospitals as well as at the China Basin facility. Each faculty research group is staffed by students, post-doctoral research fellows and technical staff, with most of the faculty participating in the major research Programs at UCSF.

The major Teaching mission of the Department is directed to residents in the combined, ACGME accredited, Anatomic and Clinical Pathology Program run jointly with the Department of Pathology. Each year 12-15 residents rotate through the different sections of the Clinical Laboratories at the various hospitals and gain hands-on experience in interpretation and utilization of diagnostic tests. Additionally, faculty in Laboratory Medicine are actively involved in teaching with the School of Medicine as well as graduate (PhD) level teaching in the basic science programs.