Dr. Carlos Bustamante came to the United States from Peru on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1975. He studied and received his degree at the University of California Berkeley, where he worked with his mentor, Ignacio Tinoco, in Biophysics. He returned to UC Berkeley as a professor of Molecular and Cell Biology in 1998 and has continued his groundbreaking work on single-molecule manipulation studies as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator leading a vibrant lab group with branches in the QB3 Institute, Berkeley Lab (LBNL), and the Physics Department at UC Berkeley. Now Dr. Bustamante is being honored with the 2012 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science, which is awarded each year to an outstanding foreign-born scientist working in the US. The honor is accompanied by $100,000 and a unique trophy (see right, courtesy of the Vilcek Foundation).
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Tags: Bioscience research, University of California Berkeley, cell biology, Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Southwest, California, National Lab
When Cornell and Technion won the big city-sponsored competition for a major new science campus in New York City recently, that didn't mean other competing programs lost out. After all, there's a surprising amount of fallow real estate that the city owns, and where science innovation is concerned, the more the better in the 5 boroughs. Cornell will develop a campus on Roosevelt Island, but New York University's proposal to expand its Polytechnic Campus in Brooklyn is also taking off.
Tags: Northeast, New York, New York City, Science research hub, Brooklyn
Thanks to a longtime Minnesota philanthropist and the State of Minnesota, neuroscience and diabetes researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic are looking at millions in research grant funding from two new programs:
Tags: Midwest, 2012 Research Funding, University of Minnesota, Diabetes, Minnesota, Mayo Clinic, Neuroscience, Funding, new research grants
Tags: Biomedical expansion, cardiovascular research, Alabama, University of Alabama Birmingham, Southern Region
"There has been a feeling in the field that exercise 'talks to' various tissues in the body, but the question has been, how?"
Tags: Northeast, Joslin Diabetes Center, cell biology, Massachusetts, Boston, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
The perfect laboratory probably only exists in theory. The most meticulously-designed lab space, outfitted without sparing expense, will be ideal only until needs change, focus shifts, or growth is required. That's why lab planners are abandoning perfection for flexibility, and the form that flexibility takes is often modular. Modular labs can be whole buildings or rooms fabricated off-site and installed to spec, or they can be labs within a solid structure that have been designed with modular concepts to allow for future reconfiguration.
Tags: New research facilities, new science wet labs, San Diego, laboratory, San Diego Biotechnology
Acquiring the 28-building, 2.1 million sf former Pfizer complex on the north side of its Ann Arbor campus, renamed the North Campus Research Complex (NCRC), was a coup for the University of Michigan in 2009. (Read our earlier blog on the NCRC.) While some labs were filled quickly, planning, retrofitting, and moving into that much space doesn't happen overnight, so administrators developed a master plan for occupancy. That timeline has the complex reaching capacity by the end of this year, 2012, and they are ahead of schedule.
Tags: University of Michigan, Midwest, New research facilities, new science wet labs, 2012, Ann Arbor, BioResearch Product Faire Event, MI, UMich
Stem cell research at the University of California Los Angeles' Jules Stein Eye Institute has led to a limited clinical trial that has produced astounding results for two patients with a form of macular degeneration that had progressed to the point of causing near blindness. A short time after receiving stem cell injections the two women began to regain vision, enabling them to function independently in ways they couldn't before the procedure. The story was broadcast on NPR and other media sources with some restraint (it was a small study, with only two patients so far), but obvious excitement (it worked!). On the part of the researchers, the trial procedure held limited expectations for success, in part because the quantity of stem cells they utilized was fairly small. The results were all the more wondrous for coming as a real surprise, not least of all for the patients themselves.
Tags: University of California Los Angeles, Stem cell research, Southwest, California, Los Angeles, UCLA
The first overhaul to the University of Wisconsin, Madison's biochemistry facilities was completed in 1998, with the opening of a 200,000sf modern Biochem Addition building. But that was only Phase I. In a game of musical labs, the addition allowed biochemists to abandon their older buildings, which were taken over temporarily by the Microbiology Department until their new building was completed in 2008. Then Biochem Phase II began. Phase II included renovating the stately original 1912 biochemistry building and its 1937 wing, plus adding a six-story tower next door to house 20 research labs, auditoriums, a vivarium for research rodents, and instructional labs. The $112M Biochem Phase II complex is now complete and researchers are moving into their spacious new and renovated quarters on the Henry Mall.
Tags: Midwest, Biomedical expansion, New research facilities, 2012, WI, University of Wisconsin, UWisc, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Madison, scientific sales
