The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) is a

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

and

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scien ...

commercialization Commercialization or commercialisation is the process of introducing a new product or production method into commerce—making it available on the market. The term often connotes especially entry into the mass market (as opposed to entry into ...

institute affiliated with three

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...

campuses in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

: Berkeley,

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, and Santa Cruz. QB3's domain is the quantitative biosciences: areas of

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...

in which advances are chiefly made by scientists applying techniques from

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

, and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

History

QB3 was founded in 2000 as one of four Governor

Gray Davis Joseph Graham "Gray" Davis Jr. (born December 26, 1942) is an American attorney and former politician who served as the 37th governor of California from 1999 to 2003. In 2003, only a few months into his second term, Davis was recalled and remov ...

Institutes for Science and Innovation (originally, California Institutes for Science and Innovation, or Cal ISIs). From a 2005 article written for the

Academic Senate:

The Institutes were launched in 2000 as an ambitious statewide initiative to support research in fields that were recognized as critical to the economic growth of the state—biomedicine, bioengineering, nanosystems, telecommunications and information technology. Moreover, the Cal ISIs were conceived as a catalytic partnership between university research interests and private industry that could expand the state economy into new industries and markets and "speed the movement of innovation from the laboratory into peoples' daily lives" (Governor's Budget summary 2001-02). The four research centers operate as a partnership among the University, state government, and industry, and each involves structured collaborations among campuses, disciplines, academics researchers, research professional, and students.

Campus sites

The tri-campus organization has three research branches: QB3-Berkeley, QB3-Santa Cruz, and the Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI-UCSF) at the San Francisco campus. * QB3-Berkeley: The

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

branch of QB3 is housed in Stanley Hall along with the Department of

Bioengineering Biological engineering or bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically-viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number o ...

, but core research facilities are situated all throughout

campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-li ...

as well, such as the Vincent J. Coates Genomics Sequencing Lab at Weill Hall. The Bakar BioEngineering Hub at Woo Hon Fai Hall houses Bakar Labs, a notable core incubator of QB3. * QB3-Santa Cruz: At the Santa Cruz campus, QB3 forms part of the Genomics Institute and is headquartered in the Westside Research Park. The space was formerly owned by

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

as a semiconductor wafer fabrication plant. The facilities include a total of approximately 242,000 gross (154,000 net) square feet, including a large "clean room," a specially designed supercomputer center, and extensive space used for classrooms, laboratories, and offices. * QBI-UCSF: QBI is situated in Byers Hall on the Mission Bay campus. Byers Hall, officially opened in 2005, also currently hosts the QB3 director's office and QB3 central administration. Many faculty labs are in Genentech Hall, an adjoining building.

Leadership

QB3 is directed by David Schaffer, a

professor with appointments in multiple departments who also directs the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub and its associated incubator, Bakar Labs. Each participating campus has a QB3 director who also is an active research scientist: Sanjay Kumar at Berkeley, Nevan Krogan at UCSF, and David Haussler at UC Santa Cruz.

Faculty affiliates

Research faculty affiliates are the foundation of QB3. QB3 has more than 250 faculty affiliates, roughly 100 each from Berkeley, UCSF, and UC Santa Cruz. The research interests of these faculty fall under the umbrella of the quantitative biosciences. QB3 scientists tend to be bioengineers, biophysicists, or pharmaceutical or computational biologists. Synthetic biology is strongly represented. Current and former members of QB3 include

Shuvo Roy Shuvo Roy is an American scientist and engineer of South Asian descent. Early life and education Roy received most of his education in Uganda, where his father worked as a public health physician. Roy later completed his education and earned ...

Elizabeth Blackburn Elizabeth Helen Blackburn, (born 26 November 1948) is an Australian-American Nobel laureate who is the former president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Previously she was a biological researcher at the University of California, ...

Steven Chu Steven ChuJoseph DeRisi Joseph Lyman DeRisi is an American biochemist, specializing in molecular biology, parasitology, genomics, virology, and computational biology. Life He received a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (1992) from the University of California ...

Jennifer Doudna Jennifer Anne Doudna (; born February 19, 1964) is an American biochemist who has done pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. Doudna was one of the first women to share a ...

, David Haussler,

Jay Keasling Jay D. Keasling is a professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also associate laboratory director for biosciences at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and chief executive officer ...

Arun Majumdar Arunava Majumdar is a materials scientist, engineer, and the inaugural dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He was nominated for the position of Under Secretary of Energy in the United States between November 30, 2011 and May 15 ...

, Harry Noller.

Research

QB3 member scientists choose affiliations with one of nine research themes: * Biological imaging – visualizing biological systems at all scales: atoms, cells, organs *

Biomaterials A biomaterial is a substance that has been engineered to interact with biological systems for a medical purpose, either a therapeutic (treat, augment, repair, or replace a tissue function of the body) or a diagnostic one. As a science, biomateria ...

and

stem cells In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can differentiate into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type of ...

– Development of biomaterials and stem cells for

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

and therapeutic applications * Biomolecular structure and mechanism – structure, function and dynamics of macromolecules * Cellular dynamics – biochemical and biophysical analysis of cellular processes; visualizing biological systems at all scales: atoms, cells, organs *

Chemical biology Chemical biology is a scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology. The discipline involves the application of chemical techniques, analysis, and often small molecules produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and ...

– applying the tools of chemistry to biology, aiding in drug discovery and interrogation of biology *

Genotype The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a ...

phenotype In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology (biology), morphology or physical form and structure, its Developmental biology, developmental proc ...

– harvesting the information in genomes and the effect of variation *Precision measurement and control of biological systems – developing the ability to mechanically, optically or chemically alter and monitor biology for interrogation and diagnostics *

Synthetic biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad ran ...

– design, redesign and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems * Theoretical modeling of biological systems – theoretical and computational analysis of macromolecules, biological systems, and interpretation of experimental data

Activities

A major function of QB3 is to make connections between scientists in different disciplines and between entrepreneurial scientists and business mentors and venture capitalists. QB3 administers buildings custom-designed to facilitate interaction and core facilities intended to bring together researchers from different fields. QB3 also provides networking services for applied research and technology commercialization. QB3 is not a technology transfer office and does not handle patent applications.

Startups

QB3 assists life science entrepreneurs seeking to commercialize their research. In

, QB3 operates one full-service incubator, Bakar Labs, which is situated in the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub at Woo Han Fai Hall, and the smaller QB3 Garage@Berkeley space at Stanley Hall. Previously, QB3 was closely involved in launching and operating incubators, including: * The QB3 Garage@UCSF, founded in September 2006. (now closed) * The QB3 East Bay Innovation Center, which launched in June 2011 in West Berkeley. (now closed) * MBC Biolabs, originally QB3@953 at its address of 953 Indiana St. in San Francisco, which was opened in October 2013. Subsequently the incubator spun off as a private business and rebranded as MBC Biolabs, now expanded to a second location in San Carlos. * StartX-QB3 Labs, located near

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

and

Stanford University Medical Center Stanford University Medical Center is a medical complex which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. It is consistently ranked as one of the best hospitals in the United States and serves as a teaching hospital for the S ...

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

. (no longer affiliated)

Education

QB3 is involved in a number of educational initiatives. * UC Berkeley Biophysics: In 2012 QB3 became administrators of the

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

graduate (PhD) program at

. * Graduate Program in Computational and Genomic Biology: QB3 is affiliated with the doctoral program in

computational Computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that follows a well-defined model (e.g., an algorithm). Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as ''computers''. An espe ...

and genomic biology at UC Berkeley. * Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC): Sends a team to the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. Administrated by QB3. * Undergraduate Internships: QB3-Berkeley coordinates undergraduate summer internships with

companies in the Bay Area. QB3 does not offer accredited courses, nor does it hire faculty.

References

External links

*
QB3 on Twitter

QB3 on YouTube

Incubator network

QB3-Berkeley website

Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering (QB3-Santa Cruz) website
{{Authority control Governor Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation University of California, Berkeley University of California, San Francisco University of California, Santa Cruz 2000 establishments in California Research institutes established in 2000 Science and technology in the San Francisco Bay Area