Arizona Biosciences News

As concern about terrorism has increased over the past decade, so has federal support for defense-related bioscience research. A team of scientists led by Arizona State University is one beneficiary of this elevated priority--to the tune of $40.8 million.

A $15 million federal stimulus grant will create 250 jobs on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, the University of Arizona has announced. The competitive grant, awarded by the National Institutes of Health to the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University, will enable construction of a 22,000-square-foot laboratory support facility to serve researchers from multiple institutions on the Biomedical Campus.

Researchers from the University of Arizona are part of a team of academic and industry scientists from across the country that has received $44 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop new sources of algal biofuels and bioproducts. The federal funds will be matched by the private sector and cost-share funds.

At a trio of updates last week on Arizona's Bioscience Roadmap, experts in Phoenix, Flagstaff, and Tucson called attention to the exceptional growth that the biosciences have shown in terms of jobs, firms, and wages since 2002. But Arizona’s severe state budget deficit also led analysts to issue several warnings about the bio sector for 2010.

As the spring semester begins, Arizona State University is welcoming two significant additions in important segments of its bioscience enterprise: Denis Cortese, the former president and CEO of Mayo Clinic, and Lee Cheatham, previously the director of the Washington Technology Center.