Grand Rounds: Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UCSF, QB3 and the Rosenman Institute

Steven Hetts, MD is Chief of Interventional Neuroradiology at the UCSF Mission Bay Hospitals, where he provides cutting-edge, minimally invasive endovascular therapy for children and adults with stroke, cerebrovascular disease and tumors, including retinoblastoma. He founded the Interventional Neuroradiology services at San Francisco General Hospital and the San Francisco Veteran’s Administration Hospital, where he served as Chief until 2015. Throughout his career, Dr. Hetts has maintained an active clinical practice at UCSF Parnassus, treating patients with stroke, brain aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, dural arteriovenous fistulas, spinal vascular malformations, and tumors including meningioma. Dr. Hetts is also the founding Co-Director of the UCSF Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia Center of Excellence wherein he and his colleagues provide care for patients with vascular malformations of the brain, severe nosebleeds (epistaxis), and arteriovenous malformations of the lung and other organs. Dr. Hetts received his MD from Harvard Medical School and his undergraduate degree from Harvard College. He completed his medical internship at Stanford and his diagnostic radiology residency, diagnostic neuroradiology fellowship, and interventional neuroradiology fellowship at UCSF, where he joined the faculty in 2008.

As Co-Director of the Interventional Radiology Research Laboratory, Dr. Hetts is involved in translating basic science and engineering research into clinical applicability. The main theme of his research is development of novel image-guided endovascular devices and techniques for the treatment of stroke, tumors, vascular malformations, and other conditions accessible through the blood vessels or skin. He has been the principal investigator on an NIH-sponsored project to develop remote-controlled endovascular catheters for use in interventional MRI. This could revolutionize stroke treatment, allowing doctors to visualize living versus dead brain tissue in real-time during their surgeries. He is also the principal investigator on an NIH-sponsored project to develop an endovascular filtration device to reduce systemic toxicity during intraarterial chemotherapy for a variety of tumors. Such a device could not only reduce the side-effects of chemotherapy, but also enable better tumor control and, in some cases, cure. Dr. Hetts’ research projects have received over $4.5 million in federal and foundation funding and he was appointed chair of an NIH study section evaluating innovative neurological technologies in 2016.

With colleagues in the IR Research Lab, Dr. Hetts helped form a startup company, ChemoFilter, to develop endovascular filtration devices. This company was nominated for Medical Device Startup Company of the Year in the First Annual California Quantitative Biology Awards in 2015 and was acquired that year by Penumbra, Inc, an Alameda-based maker of endovascular devices. In 2015, Dr. Hetts was named a Fellow of the Rosenman institute at QB3 and advises other UCSF faculty and affiliates on developing translational research to bring innovative ideas to patient care.

Dr. Regis B. Kelly is the Director of one of four California Institutes for Science and Innovation, created by the California Legislature to strengthen the academic foundation of its technology-based industries. QB3 is the only one of the four devoted exclusively to biology and to the life science industries. It is an innovation center made up of over 200 quantitative biologists at three northern California campuses (UCB, UCSC & UCSF) working at the interface of the physical and biological sciences and a team of professionals converting its discoveries into practical benefits for society.

From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Kelly served as Executive Vice Chancellor at the University of California in San Francisco, where his major responsibility was the new Mission Bay campus.

From 1995 to 2000, Dr. Kelly served as Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF; from 1988 to 1995, he was the Director of UCSF’s Cell Biology Graduate Program; and from 1992 to 2000, he was the Director of the Hormone Research Institute at UCSF. He has published extensively in the areas of cell and neurobiology.

Dr. Kelly received his undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in 1961 and his Ph.D. in Biophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 1967. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford, Dr. Kelly was an instructor in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard. He has served as Chairman of the Bay Area Scientific Innovation Consortium (BASIC) and on the Boards of the Malaysian Biotechnology Industry Advisory Board, the Scleroderma Research Foundation, Bridge Pharmaceuticals, the San Francisco Mayor’s Biotechnology Advisory Group and the San Francisco China Desk, among others. He is also a General Partner of Mission Bay Capital venture fund.