Science Market Update

Dr. Cynthia Kenyon and her colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, started on an ambitious project two decades ago (much challenged at first): to combat age-related diseases by figuring out what the genetic basis is for aging itself.  That research has produced results that have quite literally changed the terms of the debate, overturning the previous assumption that aging was haphazard and unrelated to genetic behavior.  Thanks to Dr. Kenyon's determination to pursue her research, we now have several enticing keys to the way that bodies get old, or not, and we know that genes do in fact regulate the process of deterioration that tends to accompany aging.  "Aging youthfully" might best describe the longterm aim of Kenyon's work, or "negligible senescence," meaning that age does not lead inevitably to decreased vigor and increased susceptibility to disease.

Germany has a long and illustrious history in photo-optics and many of its young scientists come to the U.S., and specifically to the University of California, San Francisco, to do their doctoral and post-doc work involving microscopy.  Such was the case of Dr. Jan Huisken, who developed mSPIM technology while working in the UCSF biochemistry lab of Dr. Didier Stainier as a post-doc from 2005-2009. 

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a standout leader among the world’s health science centers.  For over thirty years the institution has taken a holistic approach, combining patient care, health education, and research.  Here are four highlights that help distinguish UCSF’s as an outstanding leader for biomedical research. 

The NIH recently awarded more than $110M in research funding for the second phase of the Knockout Mouse Project (KOMP), a phenotyping project involving an international consortium of researchers (the IKMC) who will generate about 5,000 strains of knockout mice that will undergo a large battery of clinical phenotype tests to reveal how traits are affected by deleting a given gene in an individual mouse. 

UCSF, Mission Bay currently has over $1 Billion in construction projects underway, making it the largest ongoing biomedical building in the world and is one of the top NIH funded universities in the nation.  Currently the school receives more federal funding than any other public university and is third overall among public and private institutions. 

"Marketing" is probably not a word that's used much in university chemistry labs; likewise, lab reagent and equipment suppliers may not consider it a key part of their job to actively promote lab safety practices.  But what if marketing lab equipment safety, with all of the flash and attention-holding gimmicks in the sales and advertising arsenal is exactly what is needed to keep (often young) lab workers safe?  And who knows more about marketing: business or academia? 

When Merck bought Sirna in 2006, the pharmaceutical giant took over Sirna's San Francisco Mission Bay research space at 1700 Owens St. and became the first major life science company to move into the up-and-coming biotech hub.  Except, of course, for biomedical research megastar University of California, San Francisco, which opened the first building of its Mission Bay Campus in 2003 and currently houses its Biochemistry & Biophysics Departments in Genentech Hall, Byers Hall and Rock Hall.  Also on the bayside campus are the William J Rutter Conference Center, Smith Cardiovascular Research Building, UCSF Housing, a child care center, the Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Building, the Orthpaedic Institute, and retail shops.  UCSF's real estate holdings at Mission Bay total 57 acres, and the University currently employs over 2000 people at the MB campus alone (before the opening of the future medical center complex and the new Neurosciences Laboratory and Clinical Research Building).

In 2010, the vendor show on campus at UC Irvine attracted researchers from multiple departments around campus.  The most active attendee participation included researchers from the following departments:

No more coolers for hearts on their way from donor to recipient.  UCLA Medical has recently successfully transplanted a warm, beating heart into 61-year-old man with cardiomyopathy.  The surgery was part of a clinical trial program that UCLA and other research hospitals in the United States are enrolled in to study the benefits of a new transport system for warm organs from Massachusetts company TransMedics.  The warm box technology is known as their Organ Care System (OCS), and it keeps the heart beating and operational throughout transport, rather than freezing it.  Specifically, the TransMedics system has these key functions, according to company specs:

(Photo of Dr. Kim courtesy of UC Davis)