Feeding the world's populace now and in the future is a major concern of the US Food & Drug Administration. One way to increase the food supply is to eradicate diseases that ruin crops, and one of the most notorious of those diseases is late blight (of Irish Potato Famine infamy). UC Riverside's Howard Judelson has been studying the fungus-like microbe that attacks potatoes and tomatoes for the past 20 years, 17 of those at UCR in the school's Center for Plant Cell Biology (CePCeB) as a plant pathologist. Though competition was fierce for the FDA funding, Judelson was chosen to lead a nationwide team of researchers in a $9Million project to find a way to control the disease. Of the $9M awarded, $4.3M is budgeted wholly to UCR. Also on the team from CePCeB to sequence Phytophthora infestans is plant bioinformatics researcher Thomas Girke.
Tags: CEEM, University of California Riverside, California, Research Funding, Southwest Region
UC Riverside proudly announced the progress of its future medical school at a ceremony March 18 celebrating the completion of the research building. The $36 Million research facility boasts 58,000 square feet and has won the LEED Silver designation for its green design: it will use only a third the energy of a typical lab. But the real accomplishment of the new medical school will have less to do with its architecture and more to do with its purpose and vision.
Tags: University of California Riverside, California, Riverside, new construction, Southwest Region
The UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering was founded in 2001 with three faculty members. It now has a faculty of 27 (with 5 more planned) and ranks impressively in the latest NSF Report on R&D Expenditures by major institutions. According to Dept. Chair Athanasiou, UCD BME ranks:
Tags: University of California Davis, Stem cell research, California, Sacramento, Davis, Southwest Region
In 2008, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF, Keith Yamamoto, was asked to participate in a scientific consortium to present a report to Congress. The topic of that report was The New Biology, and it was sponsored by NSF, NIH, and the DOE. The consortium was known formally as the Committee on A New Biology for the 21st Century: Ensuring the United States leads the Coming Biology Revolution. The report was presented to Congress in August, 2009 and is an extraordinarily forward-thinking plan to meet the challenges of supporting the planet in the 21st Century by applying scientific insights. (See press link below.)
Tags: University of California San Francisco, California, San Francisco, Southwest Region, industry news
In November of 2011 the new $145M Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building is set to open on the East Campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. LEED-certified, the building will be home to the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biology (CIMB), which formed in 2003 to foster multidisciplinary molecular biotechnology research at CU.
Tags: Biofrontiers Institute, University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado, new construction, Southwest Region
Radical building for a radical science.
Tags: University of California San Francisco, Stem cell research, California, San Francisco, Southwest Region, Parnassus
UCSB's Center for Energy Efficient Materials (CEEM) was launched in August 2009 with $19million in funding from the Dept. of Basic Energy Sciences, a branch of the DOE. CEEM's mission is to help solve some of the world's most pressing energy problems, drawing on UCSB's strength in materials science research.
Tags: CEEM, Renewable Energy, California, University of California Santa Barbara, Southwest Region, industry news
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) was established in 2004 when Californians passed Prop 71, a statewide ballot measure allocating $3Billion to advance and support stem cell research at California universities and research institutions.
Tags: University of California Los Angeles, Stem cell research, California, Los Angeles, Southwest Region
UCLA Biomedical Research Funding: news update
Tags: University of California Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles, Research Funding, Southwest Region
UCSD receives more funding; total funding tops $1Billion for 2011.
Tags: University of California San Diego, California, San Diego, Research Funding, Southwest Region, San Diego Biotechnology, San Diego biotech calendar