Science Market Update

Despite 400 million years of evolutionary success, amphibians are dying out, thanks to habitat loss, increased levels of UV radiation, invasive species, climate change, emerging infectious diseases, and agricultural contaminants. These factors all make the frog's life and that of his fellow cold-blooded tetrapods harder and harder. Realistically, it's nearly impossible to address most of the factors contributing to his endangerment in the time frame needed to stave off extinction. 

The $62.5 million Linus Pauling Science Center on the corner of 29th and Campus Way in Corvallis, Oregon, is having its grand opening on Friday, October 14, 2011.  The new 105,000-square-foot building will house the Linus Pauling Institute, chemists from the College of Science, and contain classroom and laboratory space for students and researchers studying chemistry, biology, and the life sciences.  It is the largest donor-supported building project in the history of Oregon State University.  In addition to providing building funds, some 2,600 other donors have made gifts totaling more than $21 million to support the educational and research programs that will be housed in the building.

Oregon Health and Science University recently announced that they have accumulated enough funding to fully begin construction of the new life sciences building on Portland's South Waterfront.

New science research at the University of Oregon has led to the development of a revolutionary genome sequencing technique. This new scientific breakthrough involved extensive research by top genomics researchers at UO.

Thanks to the stimulus package, the University of Oregon in Eugene was awarded a record $135.6 million in new competitively awarded external funding in 2010.

Top researchers at the University of Oregon have received $1 million in new research funding from the W.M. Keck Foundation to apply the study of genomics to the progression of cancer. The new genomics science research is being led by Hui Zong of the UO Institute of Molecular Biology and William Cresko of the UO Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

All three major Oregon research universities (the University of Oregon, Oregon State, and Oregon Health and Science University) received record amounts of new funding during fiscal year 2009-2010. This record increase will likely spur the development of new programs and encourage new research innovation in Oregon.

Oregon State University Scientists Rich Carter, a professor of chemistry, and Hua Yang, a postdoctoral research associate have developed a new organic catalyst. This "organocatalyst" could make drug production worldwide more environmentally friendly, cost effective, and efficient.

The Oregon University System plans to build a new life science building on Portland's South Waterfront. The building will be shared by Portland State, The University of Oregon, Oregon State, and OHSU. The main tenant will be OHSU which plans to house several of its science research programs in the new space.