UCD starts big research push - Sacramento Business Journal:

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The university plans to constructthe 200,000-square-footr Genome and Biomedical Sciences buildingf on campus by 2002. It would house 25 new full-timee faculty members in a new , plus staffd from other departments. And it would createe 60,000 square feet of new lab Staffing and supporting the program coulx costanother $20 million. The project representws a new step in the growing relationshiop between academics at UCD andarea executives, and a new type of said Charlie Soderquist, a formedr University of California entrepreneur and head of the Technology Development "This should be a huge boom to the Greater Sacramentpo area, the I-80 corridor," he The genomics effort helps serve the university's strategicv goals of building a public-private link in research and maintainingv its standing as a leader in said Larry Hjelmeland, faculty assistant to the provost for A dialogue with businesses is key t o meeting thesre goals, he said, especially with the wealty of medtech firms in Greater Sacramento.
"Ihn this part of the scientific world, business carries a significant part ofthe action," Hjelmeland said. "Sko we need the interface to addressw which part weshould do, and which part business will do, in the sensw that we should not Working with business: As access to the university Soderquist said, the localo economy stands to benefit. Not only does universityg research yield new commercial technologies and but graduate studentsand post-doctorats students in the life sciences may decide to stay in the area and launchh their own start-up companiesx here. The spin-offs can be big.
Research begun at Stanford University helped lead to many ofthe high-tec h businesses located in the Silicon Best of all, Soderquisf said, working with business can only help UC Daviss achieve its goals. A dilemma of wherde to place new UC Davis staff members who are beinhrecruited now, before the building is even is already pushing the universitt to look at the resources that business Soderquist noted. "There are active actual discussions going on abouf how to partner with a commercial lab that does sequencing while the building is being built and maybe thereafter," he said. "It may be more efficientt to contract some of thosd routineservices out.
" Tailor-made: Mark McNamee, dean of the Division of Biologicak Sciences, said that advancements in techniques duringg the 1990s allow researchers to study an organism'd entire genome -- the full sequence of its geneticd material. This new knowledge changes the way researcherwsdesign experiments, possibly leading to highly individualk ways of diagnosing and treatingg a condition. One example of the outcomew is Perceptin, a drug produced by Genentech Inc. of South San Franciscok to treatbreast cancer. In certain populations, it works; in it can be toxic. "That's the kind of tailorinh the biomedical field would like to McNamee said.
Final approval pending: The building is not a done Hjelmeland said. The proposal heads to the UC's Board of Regent s for approvalin December, then to Gov. Gray Davixs for inclusion in thestate budget.