The tighter funding gets, the more likely it is that young investigators pursuing big ideas will get passed over and science grant money will stay with safer, more established projects. Fortunately there are exceptions to that general rule, including a new program established by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation specifically to support select pioneering research projects that aim to unlock fundamental questions in biology. They recently awarded investigators from 5 prestigious US universities a total of $7.5M to pursue basic questions about the origins and mechanisms of cellular behavior. One of those 5 Distinguished Investigator awards, for $1.6M, is going to quantitative biologist and recent hire Suckjoon Jun, who works in physics and molecular biology at the University of California San Diego. His project title is "Cell-size control and its evolution at the single-cell level," and includes developing methods to perform long-term directed single-cell evolution experiments, as well as single-cell on-chip manipulation, sequencing, and mathematical modeling.
Tags: 2014, CA, University of California San Diego, 2013, cell biology, Southwest, California, University of California, Cell Research, San Diego, SDVS, Funding, UCSD, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase
Since its first lemonade stand was set up in 2000 by a little girl with cancer, the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) has raised over $60M to support pediatric cancer research at institutions across the United States. That's a lot of lemonade. While lemonade stands are still a staple of the organization's activities, celebrity support and large fund raising events like the recent "Lemon Ball" (which raised a record $825K) allow ALSF to leverage the kind of funds that really make a difference. In a recent round of funding awards, the University of California San Francisco's Benioff Children's Hospital was named a Center of Excellence by the foundation and given $1.75M to speed translational research programs and training over the next five years. Chief investigator on the grant is Dr. Katherine Matthay, chief of pediatric oncology at Benioff. She says of the ALSF award in a recent news release:
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The Brain Activity Map project could be the next big federal life science research endeavor, with no less a goal than the mapping of the entire living brain and all its neuronal activity. Like the Human Genome Project of the 90's, the not insignificant financial outlay is being presented as an investment that will net even bigger returns, both in terms of new technology and a vastly increased understanding of the mind. President Obama is expected to include the multi-billion dollar, decade-long funding in his upcoming budget proposal, and neuroscience research was a topic he addressed specifically in his recent State of the Union address.
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Tags: 2014, CA, University of California San Diego, 2013, Southwest, California, University of California, Autism, Neuroscience, San Diego, SDVS, UCSD, UC San Diego, Research, La Jolla, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, Southwest Region
You might expect the barrage of brilliant lab-on-a-cell-phone inventions that come out of the Ozcan Nano/Bio Photonics Lab at the University of California Los Angeles to eventually dwindle, or perhaps only leave us moderately impressed after a while, but that's not the case. Less than three weeks into 2013, the Ozcan Research Group published on their development of a new optical microscopy platform which uses liquid nanolenses that self-assemble around tiny objects (in the sub–100-nanometer range), allowing it to detect viruses and nanoparticles. That paper was published online in the journal Nature Photonics and was the subject of a recent UCLA research news release. Also this month, the Royal Society of Chemistry published the paper Cost-effective and Rapid Blood Analysis on a Cell-phone. And the international society for optics and photonics, SPIE, announced a new annual award for 2013: the Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award. One guess who its first recipient is? Not a shabby way to start the new year at all.
Tags: 2014, CA, University of California Los Angeles, 2013, Photonics, Ozcan Nano/Bio Photonics Lab, Microscopy, Lab-on-a-chip Technology, Southwest, California, University of California, Los Angeles, LAVS, UCLA, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase
Dr. Gary Michelson is a retired Los Angeles surgeon who made a lot of money ($1.35B) from a spinal surgical invention in 2005. Since then he's devoted himself and his considerable resources to philanthropy. One of his most passionate causes is reducing the rate of euthanasia for unwanted pets by promoting spaying and neutering, along with shelter adoption, training, and good vet care through the Los Angeles group Found Animals. Not content with the usual invasive practice of sterilizing pets, he also created the Michelson Prize and Grants to challenge research scientists to come up with a cheap, safe, and effective one-dose pill for cats and dogs to induce permanent infertility. The winner of the Michelson Prize in Reproductive Biology will take home $25M and the satisfaction of knowing that fewer pets will be put down because of overpopulation.
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In 2002, entertainment mogul David Geffen gave an unrestricted gift of $200M to the University of Calfornia Los Angeles' School of Medicine, which was subsequently named the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) in recognition of his generosity. Now, Mr. Geffen has made a further gift of $100M to establish a medical scholarship fund that will offer full funding to the most qualified and promising medical students, whether they are pursuing the MD degree or the MD/PhD in UCLA's renowned Medical Scientist Training Program. As the aim of the scholarship program is to recruit the best students in the world to DGSOM, both American and international students are eligible. All costs including living expenses and supplies are covered by the award and are offered for all 4 years (or 8 in the combined MD/PhD scientist program).
Tags: CA, University of California Los Angeles, California, 2012, Los Angeles, Funding, UCLA, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, medical school, charitable giving
If Dr. Seuss were still writing his wonderous books and turned his attention to biotechnology today, we might see a title like Ah, the Things You Can Do With Algae! At the University of California San Diego a number of research institutions have joined together to form the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology (SD-CAB) where scientists are pursuing all sorts of innovative projects using the ubiquitous green matter that also happens to be a genetic model organism. Which means it is not only easy to grow, but it can do things that bacteria and even mammalian cells can't, like host a genetically engineered protein that targets cancer.
Tags: CA, University of California San Diego, cancer research, cell biology, Southwest, California, 2012, biology research, UCSD, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, San Diego Biotechnology
It might or might not surprise you that some very strong private biomedical research institute funding at the University of California San Francisco campus comes from the father of the first enclosed southern California shopping mall, on the one hand, and the founder of Star Trek on the other. Those two innovative individuals, J. David Gladstone and Gene Roddenberry respectively, have left much of their considerable legacy to science research into understanding human disease. A year ago this time, the Gladstone Institutes welcomed the Roddenberry Foundation into its research family with the establishment of the Roddenberry Center for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine within the Gladstone walls on Owens Street in Mission Bay. Two months ago one of the Gladstone's senior research scientists won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work with induced pluripotent stem cells. Those events, in conjunction with the 3 decades of research milestones made by their scientists, as well as their affiliation with UCSF and its world-class stem cell research program position the Gladstone solidly to meet their 21st Century mission goal:
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Most of us ate turkey with friends and family in a warm house yesterday. Today many are shopping. Meanwhile on Long Island, Staten Island and the Jersey Shore, volunteer organizations are still hard at work cleaning up the mess from Sandy and helping people move their lives forward. Instead of Thanksgiving at home with family, military veterans volunteering with Team Rubicon probably ate a donated meal with fellow workers or community members. Maybe they got to rest their muscles for a day.
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