SUBJECT:	Vice Chancellor - Health Sciences and Dean of the
	School of Medicine

I am pleased to announce that a committee of the UC Board of Regents has recommended full Board approval today of the appointment of our new Vice Chancellor - Health Sciences and Dean of the School of Medicine, David Brenner, M.D. The administrative appointment is effective February 1, 2007; his professorial appointment is pending review of the Committee on Academic Personnel.

Dr. Brenner, 53, is presently Samuel Bard Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Physician-in-Chief of New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. He is a distinguished physician-scientist who began his academic career at the University of California, San Diego. As Vice Chancellor, Dr. Brenner will lead the UC San Diego School of Medicine, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, UCSD Medical Center and UCSD Medical Group. He will have oversight of more than 900 health sciences faculty physicians, pharmacists and scientists; 7,500 staff; more than 600 medical and pharmacy students, and a health system that annually cares for approximately 125,000 patients.

Dr. Brenner is a leader in the field of gastroenterological research, specializing in diseases of the liver. He is widely known and respected as a translational scientist whose work bridges the laboratory and the clinical setting. He has focused on understanding the molecular pathogenesis of fibrotic liver disease and the genetic basis of liver disorders as the foundation for improving prevention and treatment of diseases of this organ. An outstanding clinician and teacher, Dr. Brenner also has served for five years as Editor-in-Chief of Gastroenterology, the premier journal in the field.

After earning his M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine and completing his residency at Yale-New Haven Medical Center, Dr. Brenner was a research associate in the Genetics and Biochemistry Branch of the National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. He first came to UC San Diego in 1985 on a fellowship in gastroenterology, later joining the faculty of UC San Diego School of Medicine, and serving as a physician at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System. He became a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences and a Clinical Investigator in the VA system. He left UC San Diego in 1992 to become Professor and Chief of the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he continued to earn accolades for his patient care and research contributions. He was recruited to chair the Department of Medicine at Columbia in 2003.

His professional associations include the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, for which he is the secretary, the American College of Physicians, and the American Gastroenterological Association, for which he is chair of the Research Policy Committee, and the American Clinical and Climatological Association. He is also on the board of directors of two philanthropic foundations, the AlphaOne Foundation and the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation.

Dr. Brenner replaces Edward W. Holmes, M.D., who left the position in October 2006.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Brenner back to UC San Diego.

Marye Anne Fox Chancellor