News & Events

7/2/2009 - Green Corridor Partnership picks up steam as UC, LBNL drive innovation
QB3-affiliated researchers and other members of a public-private East Bay consortium designed to solve environmental challenges while creating jobs gathered in Oakland June 26 for the partnership's second annual summit. More >

7/2/2009 - Even in weak economy, business is booming at QB3 biotech incubator
With San Francisco’s office leasing market in the doldrums and availability up nearly 20 percent from last year, many property managers are doing whatever they can to entice new tenants. Douglas Crawford has the opposite problem. Despite the wider economic recession, business is booming at QB3 Garage, an incubator for biotech startups. More >

6/30/2009 - Integrated optical trap holds particles for on-chip analysis
A new type of optical particle trap can be used to manipulate bacteria, viruses and other particles on a chip as part of an integrated optofluidic platform. The optical trap is the latest innovation from Holger Schmidt, David Deamer, and their colleagues who are developing new sensor technology for biomedical analysis and other applications. More >

6/16/2009 - Novel light-sensitive compounds show promise for cancer therapy
Chemists at the UC Santa Cruz have developed novel compounds that show promise for photodynamic cancer therapy, which uses light-activated drugs to kill tumor cells. More >

6/11/2009 - Extreme makeover chemistry style
Jonathan Ellman and his colleagues have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow many of today’s petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass. More >

5/28/2009 - New initiative at UCSF targets multiple myeloma
A major new initiative at UC San Francisco aims to promote collaborative research efforts and accelerate the transition of promising cancer therapies from the lab to the hospital. More >

5/27/2009 - 'Dream Team' to pursue tailored cancer therapies
A $16.5 million, three-year grant to develop new and more effective therapies to fight breast cancer was awarded today to a multi-institutional "Dream Team" of scientists and clinicians that includes Joe Grey, David Haussler, and Joshua Stuart. More >

5/20/2009 - Keasling wins BIO’s first Biotech Humanitarian Award
Jay Keasling has been selected by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) to receive its first annual Biotech Humanitarian Award. Keasling was recognized for his use of synthetic biology techniques to develop a simple and much less expensive means of making artemisinin, today’s most powerful anti-malaria drug. More >

5/11//2009 - Hands-on research inspires freshman biology students
As part of the Phage Genomics Lab course at UC Santa Cruz, a select group of freshman biology students gets to dive straight into research, while also taking the usual introductory biology lectures. More >

5/7/2009 - UCSF welcomes new chancellor
Susan Desmond-Hellmann, a physician, pioneering cancer researcher and biotechnology industry executive who most recently served as president of product development for Genentech, was named chancellor of the UC San Francisco campus by the University of California Board of Regents. More >

5/1/2009 - QB3 scientists elected to National Academy of Sciences
Four QB3 scientists are among the 72 new members and 18 foreign associates from 15 countries elected recently to the National Academy of Sciences. Their election brings to 29 the current number of QB3 faculty affiliates who are Academy members. More >

April 2009 - AAAS elects new Fellows
The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS) elected two QB3 faculty affiliates as fellows of one of the nation’s top honorary societies. With the addition of David Agard, UC San Francisco professor of biochemistry and biophysics, and Matthew Tirrell, dean of engineering at UC Santa Barbara and incoming chair of UC Berkeley’s bioengineering department, QB3 now boasts 25 AAAS fellows. More >

4/30/2009 - Imaging lab draws from impressive arsenal to fight major health threats
Surrounded by cutting-edge equipment most people couldn’t even turn on, much less operate, researchers at a QB3 imaging laboratory are using innovative techniques to study and improve the treatment of life-altering medical conditions, from cancer to multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease. More >

4/23/2009 - Marqusee named Interim Director of QB3-Berkeley
Susan Marqusee has been appointed Interim Director of QB3 at Berkeley, assuming the post recently vacated by Graham Fleming, who was named Vice Chancellor for Research. Protein folding expert Marqusee has served as QB3-Berkeley Associate Director since 2000. A search for a new permanent director for QB3-Berkeley is under way. More >

4/17/2009 - Study points to disruption of copper regulation as key to prion diseases
An investigation of a rare, inherited form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease suggests that disrupted regulation of copper ions in the brain may be a key factor in this and other prion diseases. More >

April 2009 - Habitat for human stem cells
Scientists hope someday to be able to transplant stem cells into the body to repair injured nerve cells, regenerate diseased organs, and replace defective tissues. But stem cells are also prima donnas, tricky to keep alive in the lab and difficult to control. David Schaffer is developing ways to mimic their natural habitats and cultivate stem cells for tomorrow's medical therapies. More >

April 2009 - Francis wins highest Berkeley honor for teaching
Associate Professor of Chemistry Matthew Francis has been selected as a recipient of the UC Berkeley 2009 Distinguished Teaching Award. The Award is the highest honor for teaching excellence presented by the Berkeley campus. More >

4/6/2009 - Sali takes the helm of QB3 at UCSF
Bioengineering professor and protein expert Andrej Sali has been appointed as the new director of the UCSF arm of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), where he will continue the institute's work to transform groundbreaking research into therapies and products that benefit society. More >

4/1/2009 - Sea mollusks taste their memories to build shells
Mollusks add daily to the margins of their shells to produce intricate patterns prized by beachcombers. Though this seems complex, the process can actually be explained by a simple network of nerve cells that taste yesterday's shell layer to build today's, according to Alistair Boettiger and QB3 faculty affiliate George Oster. To prove it they have created a computer model that re-creates the patterns seen in seashells. More >

4/1/2009 - Graham Fleming named UC Berkeley vice chancellor for research
Graham Fleming, the Melvin Calvin Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, former deputy director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and QB3-Berkeley founding director, has been appointed UC Berkeley's vice chancellor for research. More >

3/23/2009 - Hollow gold nanospheres show promise for biomedical and other applications
A new metal nanostructure developed by researchers at the UC Santa Cruz has already shown promise in cancer therapy studies and could be used for chemical and biological sensors and other applications as well. More >

3/5/2009 - Assembling cells into artificial 3-D tissues, like tiny glands
Carolyn Bertozzi and her colleague Zev Gartner have developed a way to assemble cells into 3-D microtissues and even tiny glands, much like snapping together toy building blocks to make a simple machine. Such microtissues could serve as niches for studying how cells work together, or be assembled into larger structures such as artificial, implantable organs. More >

2/27/2009 - Stem cell symposium showcases new facilities and research
The UCSC Stem Cell Symposium, held on February 25, showcased a variety of stem cell research projects now underway on the campus. It was also an opportunity to celebrate the opening last year of UCSC's Shared Stem Cell Facility, a state-of-the-art laboratory built with CIRM funding. More >

2/23/2009 - Graham Fleming to receive Joel Hildebrand Award
QB3-UC Berkeley director Graham Fleming, who happens to work in Hildebrand Hall, will receive the Joel Hildebrand Award from the American Chemical Society at the group's annual meeting later this month. The award is for his work in the theoretical and experimental chemistry of liquids. More >

2/17/2009 - Cheaper materials could be key to low-cost solar cells
Unconventional solar cell materials that are as abundant but much less costly than silicon and other semiconductors in use today could substantially reduce the cost of solar photovoltaics, according to a new UC Berkeley and LBNL study. More >

2/17/2009 - "Evolved" virus may improve gene therapy for cystic fibrosis
Chemical engineer David Schaffer has developed a technique to force viruses to evolve as better gene therapy carriers, and tests at the University of Iowa show that the virus can completely cure cystic fibrosis in tissue culture. More >

1/28/2009 - Scientists publish complete genetic blueprint of key biofuels crop
Sorghum is a major feed grain and, after corn, the most-used feedstock for ethanol. In this week's Nature, Dan Rokhsar joins others in reporting the complete sequence of its genome. The sequence and that of rice could help scientists redesign grasses for better biofuels. More >

1/28/2009 - Improved method for comparing genomes as well as written text
When comparing the genomes of different organisms to create an evolutionary tree, scientists have been restricted to using a few dozen genes common to all of them. No longer. A UC Berkeley chemist and his colleagues have discovered a way to compare entire genomes across a range of sizes. The method also works for comparing written texts. More >

1/27/2009 - Jack Baskin School of Engineering to establish Keck Center for Nanoscale Optofluidics
UC Santa Cruz, has received a $1.5 million grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation to establish the W. M. Keck Center for Nanoscale Optofluidics. The center explores the integration of nanotechnology and optofluidic silicon chips and how this technology can be used to improve biomedical analysis in a wide range of fields, including toxicology, immunology, disease detection, and diagnostics. More >

1/23/2009 - UC appoints Paul Alivisatos interim director of Berkeley Lab
University of California President Mark G. Yudof on Thursday appointed Paul Alivisatos interim director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Alivisatos will replace Steve Chu, who was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Energy on Jan. 21. More >

1/5/2009 - Drug design caution for biotech and pharma firms that target kinases
Drug design is never easy, and few drug candidates make it through the development pipeline and into the medicine cabinet. Side effects loom large among potential bugaboos. A UCSF laboratory research team now reports another unintended consequence of drugs targeted against enzymes, known as kinases, within the body. More >