From Bench to Bedside: Putting Radiology Research to Work

“I wanted to be at UCSF because I wanted to see research solve problems.” Enrique Menendez, MD, is the director of research administration in the UCSF Department of Radiology. “I was excited to be able to help research give us more accurate ways of treating people.”

Dr. Menendez oversees the radiology department’s approximately 100 annual research projects. “Resources flow into some of the most exciting medical possibilities in the world. Our Alzheimer’s Disease NeuroImaging Initiative (ADNI) has presented globally accepted recommendations for Alzheimer’s that support critical early diagnosis. Sharmila Majumdar and Thomas Link lead the Musculoskeletal Quantitative Imaging Research group, which works with a range of our own experts in numerous departments, and with UC Berkeley.”

UCSF’s collaborative, translational approach takes radiology research from bench to bedside for conditions like traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer.

“The radiology researchers at UCSF are unique, because we are a clinical department that provides a service: Interpreting radiologic images for patients in our clinics and hospitals. But there is also this significant amount of research by these world-renown PhDs and MDs.”

Enrique Menendez, MD, is director of research administration in the UCSF Department of Radiology. In 1990, he received his medical degree from the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. Before joining UCSF in 1993, he served as a research assistant at Stanford University. From 2008-2013, he served as site manager for the Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.