Funding makes laboratory research possible, which makes discovery possible, which leads to advancing knowledge and treatment options. But the primary job of a top scientist and lab director should not be to write grant proposals at the expense of time spent actually doing research. With that insight in mind, the University of California San Francisco put a system in place 5 years ago called the Resource Allocation Program (RAP). The function of the RAP is to streamline the intramural funding process so that faculty only have to fill out one application for many grants, and then only twice a year on set dates. A recent review of the program shows it to be a success, with a 66% increase in overall applications submitted and approximately a 20% increase in funding awarded in the past year alone.
Tags: CA, University of California San Francisco, biomedical research, 2012 Research Funding, Southwest, California, 2012, San Francisco, Funding, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, UCSF, Biomedical Research Funding, Mission Bay Campus, UCSF Mission Bay
A vital part of academic research is networking, and one of the ways researchers share their work is at professional conferences. Universities and departments sponsor these conferences where groundbreaking papers are given (usually long before publishing) and colleagues from around the world share insights. The University of California Los Angeles has world-class scientists and other thinkers in its ranks, and Los Angeles seems a natural hub for gathering great minds for this important mode of networking. Unfortunately, UCLA has lacked meeting facilities on par with the caliber of its faculty and research labs. That is about to be remedied, thanks to a commitment by the UC Regents and a generous donor pledge to build a new conference center with a 250-bed hotel right on campus and near existing facilities. According to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block:
Tags: CA, University of California Los Angeles, California, 2012, Los Angeles, UCLA, Conference, Event, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, new construction, Exhibit space, Event Company
Tags: CA, University of California San Diego, Stem cell research, New research facilities, new science wet labs, Southwest, California, 2012, San Diego, UCSD research, UCSD, Stem Cell, La Jolla, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, new construction
Bone marrow was the first stem cell source to be widely used in clinical transplant surgery to replace damaged bone as a result of injury or chemotherapy. Unfortunately, bone marrow grafts are painful, and the appropriate donor is not always available when the need is there. Now research at the University of California Los Angeles' Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine has demonstrated successfully that stem cells from the patient's own fat (i.e. adipose tissue) can be made usable for bone damage treatment. Bone marrow is, after all, the soft, fatty tissue inside your bones that contains immature cells (aka stem cells) that give rise to all of your blood cells. So looking to fatty tissue from another part of the body to produce mesenchymal cells has made sense all along, though it has taken the efforts of several UCLA teams to show how it can be done in an animal model.
Tags: University of California Los Angeles, Stem cell research, cancer research, Southwest, California, Los Angeles, UCLA, Research, Stem Cell, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, BVS, science solution
You may know that Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. has been bringing life science researchers and laboratory supply vendors together for 19 years now, but did you know that we began in San Diego with the UCSD Biotechnology Vendor Showcase™ Event? This showcase is still one of the largest on-campus networking events for scientific research and lab product suppliers. Each year it draws an enthusiastic annual following of Laboratory product supply companies and top-level research scientists. This year the Biotechnology Vendor Showcase™ Event at the University of California, San Diego is expected to attract over 700 university scientists who will be there to actively seek new products and services for their life science research programs.
Tags: CA, University of California San Diego, California, San Diego, UCSD, UC San Diego, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, BVS
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), California's stem cell agency, has just announced a new round of stem cell research funding totalling more than $69M. $12M of that will go to 5 biomedical scientists at the University of California San Diego, with an additional $4.3M awarded to a researcher at Scripps Institute, and a further $4M to two lab teams at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. That brings the total for UCSD and its affiliate La Jolla research institutes to $17.5M for this third round of CIRM's Early Translational Awards program, which supports projects that are in the initial stages of identifying drugs or cell types that could become disease therapies. UCSD alone received almost twice as much stem cell research funding in this round as any other public university, including UCSF.
Tags: CA, Stem cell research, Southwest, 2012, Scripps, San Diego, SDVS, UC San Diego, La Jolla, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, CIRM, San Diego Biotechnology
Tags: University of California Los Angeles, Medical Device Technology, Ozcan Nano/Bio Photonics Lab, crowdsourcing, Microscopy, Lab-on-a-chip Technology, Southwest, Los Angeles, UCLA, innovative solution, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, BVS
The National Eye Institute (NEI) has just awarded a major grant to a team of three scientists from the Scripps Institute and the University of California San Diego to develop a novel treatment for diabetic retinopathy and other forms of macular degeneration. The optical research investigators are:
Tags: University of California San Diego, nanotechnology, Southwest, California, Scripps, Angiogenesis Modulation, San Diego, Funding, innovative solution, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, scientist solutions, BVS
Four years into the current recession, you might expect new building projects to be dwindling on the campus of the University of California San Diego, but you'd be wrong. Yes, there are buildings that were planned back in the day and already have pre-2008 bond funding in place, but then there are newly-proposed (and approved) projects like the Center for Innovative Therapeutics, which will be an "innovator space" and "entrepreneurial life science hub" for translational research. The 100,000sf facility is slated for a 6.3-acre lot between the Moores Cancer Center and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology that is part of the UCSD Science Research Park. Funding for the new building has reportedly already been secured and the design process is underway.
Tags: University of California San Diego, New research facilities, Southwest, California, San Diego, UCSD, UC San Diego, California Research Conference, La Jolla, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, new construction, BVS
There is still no magic pill for the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight, but research into the cellular mechanism of fat production is turning up promising avenues for therapeutics that are closer than you might think. We mentioned "good brown fat" in a recent article on hormone research at Harvard. Scientists in the Diabetes Center and the Department of Cell and Tissue Biology at the University of California San Francisco, Parnassus Campus, are also looking at brown fat production as a treatment for obesity.
Tags: University of California San Francisco, cell biology, Diabetes, Southwest, California, San Francisco, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, BVS