The smooth and efficient functioning of any system necessarily requires a mechanism for recognizing and removing components that have served their purpose and are no longer needed, in order to make way for ones that are. It's waste disposal, and at the cellular level it's the important activity of proteasomes that maintain cellular health by identifying and degrading proteins that have been targeted as obsolete or damaged. (To put this in perspective, consider that at any given moment a human cell typically contains about 100,000 different proteins.) This housekeeping function of proteasomes is critical to a broad range of vital biochemical processes, including transcription, DNA repair, and the immune defense system. Since the proteasome process was only first described in 2004 (by Nobel Prize-winning chemists), our understanding of its mechanics has been limited.
Tags: CA, cell biology, Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Southwest, 2012, Berkeley, BioResearch Product Faire Event, National Lab, UC Berkeley, UCBerk, scientific instruments
The 1000 Genomes Project is an international genomic research and data collection effort that has produced "a deep catalog of human genetic variation" for public research use. Now, thanks to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the White House's recently-announced Big Data Research and Development Initiative, the 1000 Genomes data is available gratis on the AWS cloud. In reality, there are over 1700 genome profiles in the demographically-diverse study, and all that data takes up about 200 terabytes of memory, according to a New York Times article on the cloud bonanza. So even though researchers could download the data free to their own computers from 1000 Genomes directly before, it's something you really don't want to do, even if you have that kind of memory (re: 200TB). Instead, you'll likely be better off accessing the data through AMS and paying them to crunch numbers for you, which probably explains why AWS has decided to engage in this bit of philanthropy. Future profit, plus their preeminence as a computational resource in the brave new world of Big Data.
Tags: CA, 2013, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, genomic research, Southwest, 2012, Berkeley, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Funding, Genomics, NIH, biotech solutions, NSF, National Lab, UC Berkeley, UCBerk
The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the largest, most successful established biotech hubs in the US, thanks in part to the presence of 3 of the world's top universities: UCSF, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. Strong on intellectual capital, the area has been notoriously short of real estate since developers were ordered to stop filling in the Bay back in the 60's. Fortunately, as manufacturing waned, industrial land became available for redevelopment as high-tech R&D lab space, which is how UCSF's Mission Bay campus eventually came to be. Across the Bay to the East, bayfront industrial property is seeing a similar repurposing, with particularly mushroom-like life science growth in the little city of Emeryville, though also in neighboring Berkeley and Richmond.
Tags: CA, University of California San Francisco, University of California Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, New research facilities, California, Berkeley, San Francisco, UCSF, new construction, National Lab, UC Berkeley, San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco East Bay
The 33rd Semiannual San Diego Biotechnology Vendor Showase™ Event (BVS) at UCSD on February 9th was a success with close to 700 attendees looking at a wide variety of new products. But new products weren't the only thing new at this event, Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. had their very first photo booth available for free fun photo strips to take home!
Tags: CA, University of California San Diego, California, University of California, San Diego, Life science marketing opportunity, UCSD research, UCSD, UC San Diego, California Research Conference, california research seminar, life science researcher event, bioscience event, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, San Diego Biotechnology, BVS
Imagine how much more territory you could explore if so much of your budget didn't have to go for gas. That's the thinking behind both the Better Buildings Challenge issued by the DOE and the University of California Irvine's new and retrofitted Smart Labs, which are getting a lot of attention nationwide for their success at cutting building inefficiencies and expenses by upwards of 50%. So what makes a Smart Lab so smart? What did building system engineers find when they put their bio research facilities and equipment under the microscope?
Tags: CA, Bioresearch, New research facilities, Southwest, 2012, BioResearch Product Faire Event, laboratory, Irvine, green life science research, Laboratory Equipment Supplier, laboratory sales, green design, UCI, UC Irvine
Los Angeles scientists will have the opportunity to investigate the latest technology in less than 8 weeks at one of the year’s best UCLA laboratory science marketing events. This year the Biotechnology Vendor Showcase™ Event in Los Angeles is expected to attract over 600 university science researchers actively seeking new products and services for life science research.
Tags: CA, University of California Los Angeles, vendor shows, Southwest, California, University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA, Biotechnology Vendor Fair, Ucla Connection Opportunity, Biotechnology, California Research Conference, california research seminar, life science researcher event, Life Science Technology, laboratory sales
Most Americans who celebrate Christmas look forward to getting a bushy conifer for their living rooms in December. A fresh tree smells so good that we can almost believe we're in the woods. Candle companies sell vast quantities of scented pillars with names like "Siberian Fir" for those folks who just can't get enough of the pungent green aromatic. That being said, imagine getting an early gift of not one tree but 4,584 acres of prime California forestland? That's what happened last month when the UC Center for Forestry was notified that it would receive two huge parcels of former utility land on which to conduct research. To be clear:
Tags: CA, Southwest, 2012, Berkeley, BioResearch Product Faire Event, green life science research, UC Berkeley, UCBerk, 2011
QPASS stands for Quantitative Parallel Aptamer Selection System, and bioengineers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and their colleagues at the Morgridge Research Institute in Wisconsin have just received $3.2M to pursue this research into development of a highly efficient system of generating nucleic acid molecules. The end product will be a lab-on-a-chip microfluidic device for instantly detecting disease in a clinical setting, with results that are far more accurate and precise than previous technologies.
Tags: CA, Southwest, 2012, BioResearch Product Faire Event, UCSB, Santa Barbara, 2011, UC Santa Barbara
Following up on our much-read April 2011 blog on Biomedical Building News at UCSD, we are pleased to report that the following UCSD medical facilities have celebrated their grand openings:
Tags: CA, biomedical research, Stem cell research, New research facilities, new science wet labs, Southwest, 2012, San Diego, SDVS, Genomics, UC San Diego, LEED, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase Event, 2011
Cows get pneumonia, or bovine respiratory disease, and it kills more than a million of them each year, making BRD the leading cause of (accidental) death for beef and dairy cattle. That translates to a loss of about $692 Million annually. To combat this loss, the USDA has just invested $9.75 Million in a 5-year project to come up with genomic and management approaches to the BRD problem.
Tags: CA, Bioresearch funding, animal research, Southwest, animal science, UCDMC, Research Funding, Davis, UC Davis - Medical Center, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase Event, 2011