San Diego area gets stem cell "Collaboratory"

Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine

Today the ninth of twelve CIRM-supported stem cell facilities in California is opening its doors. The Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla will be home to stem cell scientists from five San Diego area research centers — University of California San Diego, The Salk Institute, The Scripps Research Institute, The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology.

As with all of the CIRM-supported facilities, the institute's support leveraged public and private funds to build a facility that provided construction jobs and that will drive the local biotechnology industry, in addition to being a center for developing new therapies. CIRM provided $43 million to support the $127 million facility. Another $19 million came from philanthropist T. Denny Sanford, with the remainder coming from public and private sources.

According to a story in the North County Times:

That construction put money into the pockets of local builders, architects and other professionals. But the real economic benefit is to come from the research the building is expected to engender, and the products local companies hope to take to market. 

The story goes on to quote Louis Coffman, consortium vice-president, talking about the way the building was designed to promote collaboration:

"In terms of collaboration, we believe that you cannot force it," Coffman said. "You can't make it happen. It's sort of an emergent property of people working together. They either work together or they don't. All we can do is create the conditions to enable it to happen." 

A story in the San Diego Union Tribune discusses the collaborative nature of the building and quotes CIRM President Alan Trounson discussing the value of encouraging scientists to work together:

The new building has been nickhamed the “Collaboratory” for its emphasis on teamwork. The center’s interior features almost 3,000 square feet of glass so that scientists from different disciplines will regularly see one another. Laboratories are linked by informal meeting areas. And seating in the auditorium was limited to 150 in the belief that crowds bigger than that discourage people from being social.

“The design means that you can’t walk from spot A to B to C without meeting other people,” said Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), a state agency that provided $43 million in public funds for the project. “This is not a conventional building. The idea is to integrate people from various places. Instead of taking a year and a half to meet, they’ll have done so in three months.” 

That Union Tribune story includes some highlights about the scientists who will be housed in the new facility and some of the technologies San Diego stem cell scientists will have access to.

The opening of the Sanford Consortium building also kicks off the annual Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa, which includes a first-time partnering forum to bring together the investors, companies and academics who will need to work together to bring stem cell therapies to patients. We'll have more on that forum in future blogs.

Last month the UC Berkeley stem cell facility opened, which you can read about here. 

-A.A.

State-of-the-Art Science and Architecture combine for a World-Class Downtown

Erin Rhoades is a professional city planner and lifelong Berkeley resident. Ms. Rhoades' planning interests are focused on infill development and sustainability. Erin is a founding Board member of Livable Berkeley and the Board Chair.

The Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences/
University of California, Berkeley

 

The Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, dedicated last week, stands at the nexus of downtown Berkeley and the University of California, Berkeley campus. The center is symbolic of a vision, not just for UC Berkeley, but the community as a whole. This building is the eighth of twelve stem cell research facilities funded in part by CIRM to open its doors (read more about CIRM's major facilities).

From the standpoint of design, the building incorporates a range of environmental features. The materials and energy efficiency are state-of-the-art, including a living roof. Architecturally, the center incorporates contemporary design and finish into a space surrounded by structures of historic significance and natural green space.

These design features are thoroughly consistent with the Downtown Area Plan's (DAP) goals for LEED Gold or equivalent development with outwardly visible sustainable design features that display innovation in green architecture in the context of a downtown with a predominanlty historic character.

Robert Birgeneau,
Chancellor of UC Berkeley,
at the dedication ceremony

Inside, the center will be home to student scientists at every level of education working to tackle emerging and neglected diseases of national and international significance. The flexible and open design will facilitate collaboration among these teams.

The $257 million facility, which received $20 million from CIRM, was financed through an innovative public private partnership involving state bond funds, individual donors and foundations. This model of combining public investment with private funds serves to leverage tax dollars and accelerate benefits to taxpayers.

Innovative funding approaches, like those used to construct the Li Ka Shing Center and the other CIRM major facilities, will be required in Berkeley to achieve the magnitude of investment necessary for high-density infill development and at the same time to accomplish the affordable housing component, community benefits and streetscaping called for in the DAP.

The combination of creating state-of-the-art development, supporting the knowledge (“imagined in California”) economy through public / private financing is an important model for the City of Berkeley. As we move into the 21st century, Berkeley should build on these success stories and support development that builds on this innovative model.

Development in downtown Berkeley should look for ways to showcase the best thinking in progressive environmental design and urban culture. Buildings like the Li Ka Shing Center and the David Brower Center, including their programmatic functions, exemplify Livable Berkeley's advocacy for a "world class" downtown. Our hope is that the Downtown Area Plan will result in the next building that defines Berkeley not for where it's been, but where it's going.

Erin Rhoades

UCSF stem cell building: generating therapies and making news

The new UCSF stem cell building has made the news again. The September 19 issue of The New Yorker, architecture critic Paul Goldberger features UCSF’s Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine as one of three new science buildings in the United States “crafted with the specific intention of fostering interaction and connections, as a means of generating ideas.”

A press release from UCSF says:

Constructed on what Goldberger called an “eye-poppingly impossible site,” the building is home to some 300 scientists studying the earliest stages of cell and tissue development, with the goal of understanding and developing cell-based treatment strategies for such diseases as heart disease, diabetes, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, spinal cord injury and cancer.

This is one of the buildings CIRM partially funded back in 2008, when the agency realized that a critical component of generating new therapies was providing scientists with a place to work. CIRM's investment of $271 million leveraged $560 million from private donors and $322 million in commitments from the institutions themselves. UCSF has this to say about funding for the building:

The $123 million building was paid for with state and private funds. In 2006, Ray and Dagmar Dolby contributed $16 million to launch the university’s fundraising campaign for the facility. In 2007, UCSF received a highly competitive $34.9 million grant from California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). In 2008, UCSF received a $25 million grant from The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.  Last winter, UCSF received an additional $20 million donation from the Dolbys. The university has $12 million left to raise.

When Eli and Edythe Broad made their donation to UCSF CIRM made this video about our hopes for the stem cell buildings:


A.A.

New UCSF stem cell building -- a beautiful setting for discovering new therapies

Today the University of California, San Francisco is unveiling their brand new CIRM-funded stem cell building. It’s not the largest of the 12 new buildings CIRM has funded throughout the state, but it sure is pretty with its labs perched along the Parnassus campus hillside. Like all of the new buildings, CIRM’s investment in this one required a substantial investment on the part of UCSF and inspired gifts from private donors. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation gave to the tune of $25 million, and two gifts from Ray and Dagmar Dolby were worth a total of $36 million.

These leveraged funds at UCSF and other facilities around the state helped create 25,000 jobs and $200 million in tax revenue for the state — an achievement CIRM is especially proud of during these dark financial times.

Now that the building has created jobs, we’re looking forward to seeing the cures and the resulting biotech investment. A story about the new Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building in the San Francisco Chronicle quotes CIRM president Alan Trounson:

"These buildings have galvanized an area (of medical research) that had an enormous amount of potential, but scientists were being careful about entering the field. Business is really taking off in California, whereas in other parts of the country, it's a struggle."

A hallmark of the stem cell buildings CIRM has funded is that they encourage collaboration and consolidate resources. I was talking to David Shaffer at UC Berkeley while filming this video about CIRM's major facilities and he highlighted the importance of having everything in one place. Scientists in his lab must sometimes walk samples across campus to access technologies. Those hours spent readying samples for transport and walking around campus can be better spent doing the research that leads to cures.

At UCSF, scientists who might once have needed shuttles to attend colleague’s seminars can now wander down the hall. Technologies are in one place, meetings are centralized and we hope ideas can flow as freely as the wide open workspaces.

To date, Davis, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford and USC have all opened their facilities. The remaining five are under construction and all but one is expected to open its doors this year.

- A.A.

More stem cell research space = jobs and therapies

The Lorry I. Lokey Stem Cell Research Building

We’re in the middle of a big week for CIRM-funded research facilities. UCLA opened the doors to their new CIRM-funded stem cell research space Monday (here's a video about that building) and today Stanford cuts the ribbon on the largest of the CIRM buildings — a gleaming 200,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility. According to the Stanford press release about their Lorry I. Lokey Stem Cell Research Building:

The building’s 200,000 square feet of floor space, serving about 550 occupants, makes it the largest dedicated stem cell research building in the country, if not the world. But just as important, it was financed without any federal funding — buffering its occupants to some degree from the vagaries of embryonic stem cell politics. 

The buildings are part of CIRM’s Major Facilities RFA, given out in May 2008 when federal funding could only be spent for stem cell research involving a small number of approved cell lines. That included working with unapproved lines in buildings created or supported through federal funds, which ruled out most available research space for work involving unapproved human embryonic stem cell lines. The CIRM buildings provide space free and clear for working with whichever stem cell lines scientists think will move the field toward new cures.

CIRM awarded $271 million to 12 institutions, each of which was required to raise additional funds through private donations. Altogether, CIRM’s investment brought in an additional $800 million in financial commitments and created construction jobs throughout the state at a time when those jobs were very much needed. This week's building openings came about thanks to a $20 million donation to UCLA and a $30 million gift to USC by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and a $75 million gift from Lorry I. Lokey to Stanford University.

Following today’s ceremony at Stanford, the University of Southern California will hold their grand opening Friday. Altogether, those three buildings created 322,000 square feet of new research space, all of it free of federal funding and therefore available for research into all types of stem cells regardless of what happens with the current court cases. This space has the capacity to house nearly 1,000 members of research teams.

Stanford gave a nice description of how having stem cell researchers housed together in well equipped space will speed the research that takes place. They quote Theo Palmer, who works on stem cell therapies for neurodegenerative diseases:

“We used to have to plan our day around getting our samples where they needed to be when they needed to be there. Now some of the best resources in the world are immediately available — including extraordinary cell-sorting capabilities and some of the most advanced single-cell genetic-profiling equipment. At other places in the country these resources are essentially not available, or available only by special arrangement.”

That time saved means CIRM grantees can work faster than ever toward new disease therapies.

-A.A.

Growing space for California stem cell research

On left and right, Berkeley Stem Cell Center co-directors
David Schaffer and Randy Shekman, and center,
Mary West, manager of the new lab. (Photo by Jan Ambrosini)

Berkeley is the most recent institution to open new stem cell space funded by CIRM. Their CIRM-funded stem cell facility, which had its opening Oct. 5, is also a core facility for QB3, a bay area biotech incubator. David Shaffer, co-director of the Berkeley Stem Cell Center, said of the facility:

“The new facility will serve as a central resource to greatly enhance stem cell research amongst Berkeley and QB3 investigators, as well as collaborators at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute.”

To date, University of California campuses at Irvine and Davis have both opened their new stem call buildings amidst much fanfare. By the end of October, UCLA, University of Southern California, and Stanford will all have cut their respective ribbons.

These buildings are, to a one, beautiful, gleaming, well equipped centers for cutting edge research. But they are more than that. They are also a safe haven for stem cell research, protected from the ups and downs of federal funding. CIRM first dreamed up and approved funding for these stem cell buildings when President Bush was in office and most stem cell research had to occur in isolation from the microscopes, the pipettes, the refrigerators, the reagents, and the latex gloves most labs purchase with their NIH funds. The research had to take place in space and on lab benches supported only through private or state dollars.

That space was hard to come by, making the early days of stem cell research a considerable challenge. Take Susan Fisher at UCSF who lost her stem cell lines to a power outage while working in a converted dentist office in San Francisco in order to put distance between her cells and federal dollars. (Here's a video about Fisher's experience)

In the past year President Obama opened up federal funding for more stem cell research, but now recent events put that funding back in question. During this time of uncertainty, it’s reassuring to know that so many institutions in California have space where their work toward new therapies can continue uninterrupted by political turmoil.




A.A.

UC Irvine Opens the Sue & Bill Gross Hall

On Friday, May 14 UC Irvine held the grand opening of their newly constructed Sue &Bill Gross Hall. According to a story on the University's web site:

The $80-million, 100,000-square-foot building was designed to facilitate contact between patients in the first-floor clinic and rehabilitation center and stem cell researchers in first-, second- and third-floor labs.

(Image: Hans Keirstead greets Bill Gross at the opening ceremonies. Courtesy of Daniel A. Anderson / UCI)

This was one of 12 facilities throughout California that received a CIRM Major Facilities Award to construct space for stem cell research. UC Davis opened their facility in March. Although Irvine held the second opening, theirs was the first for a newly constructed building.

The 12 major facilities received $272 million from CIRM, with private donations and institutional investments bringing the project totals to more than $1 billion. Sue and Bill Gross made a $10 million gift to the Irvine facility. An independent review of the impact of this investment for the state economy last year by The Analysis Group suggested that the projects would create 13,000 job years of employment and $100 million in tax revenue.

UC Irvine leveraged their CIRM dollars beyond their original goals -- they managed to construct a fourth floor for the same cost as the original three floor proposal.

An LA Times story quotes UC Irvine Stem Cell Research Center director Peter Donovan as saying:

"Whatever we achieve here, it is your legacy as much as ours," he said. "The use of stem cells can revolutionize the treatment of human diseases and injuries."

Scientists are due to move into the building over the next few weeks.



A.A.