Cal's Energy Biosciences Institute starts move into new $130M building

The Energy Biosciences Institute has started to move into a newly finished $130 million building on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The EBI is a $500 million public-private joint venture funded by oil company BP plc (NYSE: BP). EBI is a partnership between UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. About 300 people are moving into the building over the next six weeks. Admin staff and some laboratory programs are moving first.

UC HIV program funds 3 prevention projects using Gilead's Truvada

A controversial prevention strategy to treat people at high risk of contracting the AIDS virus with Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Truvada was awarded $11.8 million from the California HIV/AIDS Research Program of the University of California.
Two research teams over the next four years will offer Truvada, counseling and other services to 700 men who have sex with men and to transgender women in Los Angeles, San Diego and Long Beach. A third team in Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley and other East Bay locations will plan a project for young men of color who have sex with men.
It is the largest demonstration project in the United States in pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, and “TLC+,” a program meant to “locate, engage and retain HIV-infected people in care and start them on life-saving treatment for HIV infection,” according to the University of California.

Desmond-Hellmann: UCSF wants new structure, transparency around fund flows, IP, more

UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann is proposing a new structure for her school, loosening the relationship between the healthcare-centric, graduate-level university and the University of California Office of the President.
San Francisco Business Times biotech and education reporter Ron Leuty spoke Friday with Desmond-Hellmann about her plan. Here are parts of that conversation.

UCSF plan to separate from UC system is a start, not an end

These are tough times, and UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann knows that as much as anyone else.
So Desmond-Hellmann told the University of California Board of Regents on Thursday that she’d like to see its chief medical school split off from the rest of the UC system. With such a move, UCSF largely could pocket the $49 million that it now spends to help the rest of the UC system, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Of course, UCSF also would be able to hold on to the money it makes from its various ventures.
Call it bold. Call it audacious. Just don’t call it “secession,” Desmond-Hellmann reportedly told the Chronicle earlier.
We’re all in this together, right?
Except, perhaps, when times are tough.

High court ruling pushes schools to secure patent rights

Pressed by a Supreme Court decision that could cost universities billions of dollars in royalties, institutions are fine-tuning their intellectual property agreements with researchers.
The short-term impact of these new forms, which assign IP rights to research institutions, is a few lost minutes to sign on the dotted line. The long-term affect, one expert argues, could cripple innovation in a range of fields, including drug development.

Innovation dies in the budget-cutting process

Give someone enough rope, my mother would say, and he’ll hang himself.
Now wrap that metaphor around California and a small investment/big return proposition around leukemia.
With an investment of only $290,633, the University of California Office of the President — or UCOP, as it’s known — will support research seeking a way to expand the population of stem cells in cord blood transplants for leukemia patients. Coupled with cash from GE Healthcare Life Sciences’ cell technologies unit, the UCOP Discovery Grant will take research teams led by UCSF’s Andrew Leavitt and Michelle Arkin to the starting line of essentially curing the deadly blood cancer.
These types of projects, however, are finding cash tougher to come by.

GE-UCSF stem cell program gets boost with grant program cut due to budget woes

A public-private partnership, funded in part by a grant program killed earlier this year by the state’s fiscal crisis, could within a decade help adult leukemia patients fight off the disease.
The $841,000, three-year project at the University of California, San Francisco, seeks to discover compounds that expand the number of stem cells found in umbilical cord blood and the placenta. If successful, that could increase the chances of adult leukemia patients receiving bone marrow transplants with blood-forming stem cells.
The cost of the project is covered by a “Discovery Grant” from the UC Office of the President and GE Healthcare Life Sciences’ cell technologies unit.
The UC grant program was set up to encourage projects between UC scientists and companies. In May, however, UC told researchers the program would be eliminated to help reduce a projected $500 million cut in state funding in fiscal 2012. Only the best of the best projects already in the pipeline would be funded, a UC spokeswoman said.

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab delays selection of 2nd campus to 2012

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has pushed back the date when it expects to announce its selection for a proposed second campus to early 2012.
The lab, controlled by the University of California, had previously said the announcement would come by the end of November of this year.

Johnson & Johnson to fund awards for UC bio startups

An arm of Johnson & Johnson will fund University of California projects with a high potential to get to market.
The amount of money from J&J’s Corporate Office of Science and Technology was not disclosed by the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, or QB3.
The money will combine with cash from the Rogers Family Foundation of Oakland to support QB3’s Bridging-the-Gap program. The JJSI-QB3 Awards, a component of the program, will be given annually over the next three years.

UC awards 13 grants to projects to bridge 'valley of death'

The University of California has awarded 13 “proof of concept” grants to researchers to help bridge the so-called “valley of death” and develop new technologies or treatments.
Among the winners of grants ranging from $100,000 to $250,000 were three Bay Area projects. Gao Liu of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is working on a conductive polymer binder and silicon composite electrode, the University of California, Berkeley’s James Evans is developing completely printable batteries for energy storage and UC Berkeley’s Dmitry Budker is working on a next generation of ultra-precise magnetic sensors.

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.

Could 3 minutes reshape California's biotech future?

In just three minutes the other day, Maryland received more than 180 applications for its $8 million biotech tax credit program.
Apparently, all it takes is three minutes for many of those companies to access the state handout. Imagine how many applicants we’d have here.

Berkeley flexible zoning zeroes in on biotechs, other innovative companies

The zoning update for West Berkeley aims to change policies that protect certain uses in commercial space such as manufacturing. The problem is that those rules were set in place in the 1980s when local residents wanted to encourage blue-collar jobs to stay in Berkeley, but the definition of manufacturing has changed and many startups want to house more than one use — office, research and development and manufacturing — under one roof, which is not allowed.

University of California looks to boost, nurture more startups

Even with a deep tradition of turning out innovative companies from the research ranks of the University of California — think biotech pioneer Chiron — the East Bay must retain and nurture more of those startups, regional leaders say.
Who best to lead the charge than UC Berkeley?
The university is unleashing a torrent of programs both on campus and off campus, reaching out to the business community in and around Berkeley in unprecedented fashion in an effort to grow, spin out, house and support research.

With no game plan, California risks losing life sciences lead

Pitching to maintain the Bay Area’s lead in the life sciences, industry leaders here might want to recall the legendary Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back — something may be gaining on you.”
That “something” is states like Massachusetts, which has put together a $1 billion, 10-year life sciences initiative and on Wednesday awarded loans of up to $750,000 each (totaling $3.75 million) to five early-stage companies. It is the third round of these awards.
Other states — like Michigan, Ohio, Texas and Kansas among them — are offering similar incentives to retain their most innovative companies.
And California? Left with runners on base.

UC system, BioTime in stem-cell deal