UC Santa Cruz research team creates big cancer database

David Haussler, a distinguished professor of biomolecular engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is leading an effort to compile a massive database as part of cancer research being conducted by the National Cancer Institute. The university will receive more than $10 million for the work being done by Haussler through a subcontract with SAIC-Frederick Inc., the prime contractor for the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, which works with the National Cancer Institute.

J&J 'bridges the gap,' funds promising QB3 research

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Two projects — including one aimed at developing an artificial pancreas that would eliminate daily injections by diabetes patients — garnered funding from health care giant Johnson & Johnson to turn science ideas into companies.
The projects are the first Bridging the Gap Awards supported by J&J through a program with the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, or QB3.
The awards of up to $250,000 over two years are meant to give researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz funding to prove that their projects are viable. The ultimate goal is to form companies around those projects, said Neena Kadaba, QB3’s director of industry alliances.

UC Santa Cruz robotics professor enlists universities' help

A University of California, Santa Cruz researcher has taken an unusual step and forged an open-source arrangement with a number of leading universities nationwide in an effort to further develop his robotic surgery system.
Jacob Rosen, associate professor in the department of computer engineering at the Baskin School of Engineering at the UC Santa Cruz, has distributed his Raven II surgical robot to researchers at UCLA, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Nebraska and the University of California, Berkeley. He said open-source agreements between universities are common in software research, but not with hardware. This project will apply to both.

Biotech hopefuls pile into the Box

QB3’s Startup in a Box is bursting.
Unwrapped roughly six months ago with the goal of helping 15 wannabe entrepreneurs per year convert their science ideas into actual companies, the program already has 36 clients.
“We’ve hit an untapped vein,” said Douglas Crawford, associate director of QB3, or the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, the University of California-based initiative linking life sciences researchers and companies.
Now, Crawford said, the goal is to help 50 entrepreneurs-in-waiting this year cut through the financial and legal barriers for starting new companies.

Slideshow: QB3, Canada find common ground with entrepreneurs

QB3 took an early step Tuesday toward becoming — as director Regis Kelly calls it — “a United Nations of entrepreneurship.”
Canadian Ambassador to the United States Gary Doer and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee cut a ceremonial ribbon opening the Canadian Technology Accelerator at Genentech Hall on the Mission Bay campus of the University of California, San Francisco.
OK, so maybe the deal isn’t on a par with another big international accord signed in San Francisco 67 years ago, but Kelly and Douglas Crawford, QB3’s associate director, say the Canadian venture could be the first of several deals with other countries.

QB3 unwraps 'startup in a box'

QB3 is delivering a startup in a box, minus only the bow.
Working with banking and legal partners, the University of California’s link between life sciences companies and academic researchers is rolling out a new program — dubbed Startup in a Box — to move researchers-cum-entrepreneurs a step closer to their startup dreams. If all goes as planned, the program will launch 15 to 25 companies a year, said Douglas Crawford, associate director of QB3, or the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences.
“It starts with, ‘I’ve got an idea’ to a well-functioning company,” Crawford said.

Final Five go to the polls in QB3 science contest

QB3’s version of “American Idol” is down to five finalists, and unlike the TV show, all of these contestants should be cheered, not jeered.
I reported on the contest — designed to raise the profile of science developed at the University of California, Berkeley, UCSF and UC Santa Cruz — back in July. At the time, judges like former Genentech CEO Art Levinson, Chiron Corp. founder Bill Rutter and Five Prime Therapeutics founder Rusty Williams were cutting 38 entries down to 10.
Now it’s down to five. Online voting by students, staff and postdoctoral fellows at the three UC campuses covered by QB3 — the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences — will determine the winner.

QB3 spotlights UC science, 'American Idol'-style

They aren’t exactly Simon Cowell or Randy Jackson, but a team of biotech pioneers is helping QB3 raise its scientific profile with an “American Idol”-like approach.
Former Genentech CEO Art Levinson, Chiron Corp. founder Bill Rutter and Five Prime Therapeutics founder Rusty Williams, as well as venture capitalist Robert Garland from New Enterprise Associates , are among 16 first-stage judges of a competition that will shave 38 entries to 10. That pack then will be whittled to five.
The ultimate prize? $10,000.

Phil Berman's search for an AIDS vaccine

In 2009, the news shocked the biotech industry — research had produced an immunization that was 31 percent effective against HIV, the first time an AIDS vaccine had ever shown significant results.
Yet the surprise of the announcement belied the amount of work that went into it. Dr. Phil Berman had been quietly working to advance this research — at large biotech firms, at small startups, at nonprofits, and finally as professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz — for 27 years.
“I was in Oxford when it was announced, wide awake, jet lagged, in the middle of the night. And BBC News came on and the headline news was this combination of vaccines,” said Mark Akeson, chair of the biomolecular engineering department at UCSC. “I knew immediately that one of them was his. It was an astonishing moment.”

UCSC aims to keep business talent, ideas in Santa Cruz with startup lab

The University of California system is known worldwide for its innovative research. In 2009, the university system received more than $121 million in revenue for licensing university research. But of the nine UCs in the system, UC Santa Cruz has benefited little.
UCSC wants to change that by complementing a new academic program with a startup lab that will generate new companies and patents with market potential. Among its goals are generating revenue for the university and spawning startup companies for Santa Cruz.

UC Santa Cruz gets $625K gift from Hellman for fellows program

The Hellman Fellows Fund is gving $625,000 to UC Santa Cruz to establish the UCSC Hellman Fellows Program.
The program will provide support for research "by promising assistant professors who show capacity for great distinction in their research," the university said in a prepared statement. Funding will be split roughly equally between assistant professors in two groups: engineering, physical sciences and life sciences; and arts, humanities and social sciences.