Member News
Life Technologies Gives Back
Nearly 3,000 employees of Carlsbad-based Life Technologies (NASDAQ: LIFE - News), donated a half day of their time to more than a hundred projects around the globe as part of Global Volunteer Day. In the company’s sixth year of participating in Global Volunteer Day, by paying employees for their donated time Life Tech donated more than 12,000 hours to activities in more than 30 countries and 50 communities.
The projects included painting, tree planting and building picnic tables for playgrounds at North County Community Services (shown in the photo above). Other projects included helping middle school students in East Palo Alto create a vegetable garden; donating toys and books to children with cancer in Mexico City; working on Habitat For Humanity projects in Austin, Texas and Durham, NC; painting, gardening and preparing cabins for campers at a childhood cancer support center in Ontario; clearing beach litter in Singapore and beautifying a park in Bangalore, India.
“The Global Volunteer Day projects we embark on today align with Life Technologies’ longstanding commitment to global citizenship," said Greg Lucier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Life Technologies. “To be a truly great business, we must also be a good one, dedicated to sustainability, giving back to our communities, and making life better, through innovation as well as corporate philanthropy.”
Young Entrepreneurs Win UCSD Prize
A biotechnology company aiming to revolutionize early-stage cancer screening on Monday won the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge. Biological Dynamics, led by bioengineering PhD student and CEO Raj Krishnan and his fellow graduate students David Charlot and Roy Lefkowitz, took home the $40,000 first prize. Biological Dynamics has developed a screening tool that identifies secondary cancer biomarkers such as free circulating DNA from unnatural cell death.
Using Stem Cells to Combat Leukemia
A research team at the Salk Institute used stem cells and gene therapy to correct a defective gene that gives rise to leukemia and other cancers.
Blogging Away at Bio
DLA Piper’s Lisa Haile blogged for San Diego News Network at the BIO convention. Here's one of Lisa's blog posts.
And The Burroughs Wellcome Award Goes To...
Two UCSD School of Medicine physician-scientists are among the fige people chosen this year to receive the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Awards for Medical Scientists. It is a five-year, $700,000 bridging award, supporting the last years of a mentored position as well as the beginning years of an independent position.
Pradipta Ghosh, MD, was recognized for research into the changes in the activity of a protein that helps transmit molecular signals to cells, called the G protein, during cancerous tumor formation and growth. Ouyen T/ Nguyen, MD, PhD, was honored for testing the use of molecular fluorescence imaging to guide surgery.
Salk Prof Wins National Honor
Salk Institute Professor Inder M. Verma, Ph.D., one of the world's leading authorities on the development and use of engineered viruses for gene therapy, has been named the 2009 recipient of the American Society of Gene Therapy's Outstanding Achievement Award. The award recognizes an ASGT member who has conducted groundbreaking research or achieved a lifetime of significant scientific contributions to the field of gene therapy.
New Office Space in Carlsbad
Grubb & Ellis/BRE Commercial announced that Paceific Business Centers signed an 11-year lease agreement with Newport National Corporation to open a new office business center this summer at Ventana Real in Carlsbad.
Ventana Real is a three building, Class A office park located at 2173, 2175 and 2177 Salk Ave. Upon completion scheduled for October 2009, the building will total 218,530 square feet. With two three-story buildings and one two-story building, Ventana Real is situated on approximately 15 acres of land located fronting El Camino Real between Faraday Avenue and College Boulevard.
The 18,691 square foot business center will feature 69 furnished executive offices, a boardroom, business lounge, three conference rooms, state of the art VoIP telephone, and a large array of support services.
KPBS SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTING FUND
KPBS seeks to create a Science and Technology News Fund to create an endowed reporting position. This professional multi-media reporter would appear on KPBS Radio, Television, and Web and work in cooperation with National Public Radio, the California Report and other shared news outlets.
The funded journalist would provide, over a year’s time, roughly 100 daily radio news reports; between 30-50 in-depth radio features; an estimated 40 appearances on KPBS radio and TV news analysis programs; plus corresponding web reports and frequent reports for regional and national networks. KPBS Reporters are also available for visits to schools, community groups, and special events.
The annual cost of the reporter would be $80,000 per year for three years. This would cover salary, benefits, overhead costs, start-up costs, training and equipment. With this funding we could attract a talented reporter who would be assured of the position’s continuity. Conceptually, it would be analogous to an endowed chair at the university .
A commitment of $240,000 would insure a three-year funding, which would be necessary to create this position, assure its continuity and sufficient resources for quality production.
KPBS/FM has a weekly listening audience of over 283,000 people while NPR has a national weekly listening audience of over 22 million people. KPBS television has a viewing audience of over 744,977 weekly.
The financial backer of the reporting endowment will be recognized on KPBS/FM. The donor will also be recognized around science and nature programming on KPBS television and on any reports that are submitted for regional and national broadcast.