While returning to UC Riverside to serve as the keynote speaker for the 2024 graduation ceremony, UCR alumnus Peter Igarashi, MD, paused to reflect on his experiences as a student in the Division of Biomedical Sciences at UCR, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year.

Igarashi, who grew up in Southern California with a physicist father and social security claims representative mother, was drawn to medicine as a field that combined science and service. He joined the first class of medical students in the UCR/UCLA Program in Biomedical Sciences in 1974.

Igarashi remembers working with then-Biomedical Sciences Program Director Ernst Noltmann on biomedical research that set the stage for his medical career. Decades later, as dean of the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, he continues to carry forward UCR’s commitment to the community. “‘Science and service to people’ is the mantra that I tell my students now,” he explained.

“I know that there was a desire among all the faculty, even back in the 1970s and 80s, to eventually create a four-year medical school at UC Riverside, which is a really ambitious goal,” Igarashi added. “I think all of us who were involved early on in the program were delighted to see that happen.”

The UCR School of Medicine, which celebrated its own 10-year anniversary in 2023, is just one accomplishment that’s come from Biomedical Sciences over the last five decades. “When we look at this anniversary of Biomedical Sciences, we're looking at the vision of the folks more than 50 years ago about commencing this route that led to this School of Medicine, that led to this mission of focusing on serving our community,” said Monica Carson, PhD, chair of Biomedical Sciences and the S. Sue Johnson Presidential Endowed Chair in Glial-Neuronal Interactions. “The 50-year point is to recognize where we've been, where we are now, and where we’re going to go,” she added. “It's really to just bring consciousness and awareness of the wonderfulness and the rarity of our community.”

The yearlong anniversary celebration featured a variety of campus events, including panels, health and wellness presentations, the Grand Rounds series, a symposium, and more that brought together alumni along with past and current faculty and staff.

UCR/UCLA Program alumna Carolyn Russo, MD, now medical director of the Affiliate Program and associate director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, returned for the Grand Rounds to present on her work to expand access to care for children with cancer and increase the number of researchers who are underrepresented in science.

Russo said that she’s committed to diversity in part because of her own experience as an underrepresented first-generation college student who felt unprepared for her UCR courses. “I'm grateful to UC Riverside for the education, and especially for the mentoring that I received there,” she said, recalling how her professors knew every medical student by name and would call them at home if they missed class. “If I can help someone else who's in my situation today enter this incredible field of medicine, I think that's a great thing.”

“It's wonderful for the community that Riverside has a medical school,” Russo added. “I'm thrilled that…it's been a successful program.”

The anniversary celebration culminated in the 50th Anniversary Symposium in May. The event included scientific presentations and panel discussions that drew on former and current faculty and alumni. It also featured presentations from Biomedical Sciences alumni who shared photos and stories from their time at the school along with their recent research, such as Christine Dauphine, MD, director of the Breast Clinic in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, who presented “A Research Journey to Examine Health Disparities in Breast Cancer Care.”

Edna Yohannes, executive director of Development at the SOM, noted the commitment many alumni retained to the SOM’s mission of serving the underserved. “They really took the mission of the School of Medicine and applied it to their day-to-day work,” she said. “You can still see the values of our mission in their presentations and in how they approach their work, so that was very heartwarming,” she added, highlighting the ease with which alumni reconnected to the school. “They're involved in different threads of the medical field, but they still had one thing in common in terms of service, excellence, commitment, and passion for their work.”

Yohannes urged all alumni to engage with the SOM to continue to shape its future, including by attending events, presenting their research, and mentoring current students.

While the official 50th anniversary celebration has come to an end, Carson also encouraged alumni and others associated with the department to continue sharing their stories and memories of the school to preserve for the future. “They started something at a time when it was a difficult vision and under-resourced,” Carson said. “Everyone here are legends as we go into our next 50 years.”