Bioscience

The Expedition Inspiration Fund for Breast Cancer Research will hold the 14th annual Laura Evans Memorial Breast Cancer Symposium from Wednesday, Feb. 17-21, at the Sun Valley Resort.

Breast cancer research scientists from around the world will attend the symposium, "New Targets for Breast Cancer Therapy." Expedition Inspiration scientific advisor, Dr. Marc Lippman, a leading authority in the field of breast cancer, will chair the meeting. Although the symposium is not open to the public, Expedition Inspiration will host a free community open forum on Thursday, Feb. 18, from 5-7 p.m. at the Sun Valley Inn Limelight Room. The event will be held in conjunction with the symposium.

Bioscience

Nanotechnology, research and technology development at the atomic or molecular level, is a field ASU has delved into to advance understanding in bioscience.

ASU scientists are developing a DNA sequencer they say could one day redefine the world of medicine.

Bioscience

In an academic environment bustling with research activity such as the University of Arizona, scientists routinely make discoveries that hold the potential for new drugs, new medical treatments or new medical devices. However, it can take years for such a discovery to make it from the "lab bench" to the "bedside" in the form of a new treatment that benefits patients.

To boost its bench-to-bedside science and position itself in a more competitive place to acquire translational research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the UA has formed a Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, known as CTSI, to provide the groundwork for therapeutic advances that will directly advance medical care.

Bioscience

Even with unemployment high and sales down, Safeway Inc. has donated more than $317,000 to fund breast cancer research at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).

Donations raised in October during Breast Cancer Awareness Month increased the total contributions by Safeway to TGen over the past three years to more than $1.5 million, said Michael Bassoff, president of the non-profit TGen Foundation.

Bioscience

Overcoming a major hurdle for nanopore sequencing, researchers from Arizona State University have designed a sensor that can distinguish all four individual bases of DNA.

Using a technique called tunneling, the bases pass through a tunnel gap with two electrodes. As they pass through, they form unique hydrogen bonds with chemical reagents, producing a current. The team was able to design the tunnel gap so that each base produced a unique current spike.

The study, which was published last week in Nano Letters, builds on previous work by the same team, which published a method for DNA translocation through a carbon nanotube in January.

Bioscience

W.L. Gore & Associates Inc. plans to build a $130 million manufacturing facility in Phoenix that initially will employ 500 people and potentially 1,000 at build-out. The project is part of an expansion of the Newark company’s medical products division in Flagstaff.

The construction project is expected to employ an additional 1,800 workers. During the first phase, two 113,000-square-foot facilities will be built on a 40-acre site. The first phase is being built with $130 million in Industrial Development Authority Bonds, to be expended over 18 to 24 month of construction.

Bioscience

The same week that Phoenix leaders imposed a 2 percent food tax to prevent layoffs and painful cuts to city services, City Council members agreed to spend $6 million to buy a vacant motel so Arizona State University can expand its downtown campus.

The city plans to buy the old Ramada Inn at 401 N. First Street with $5 million left over from a 2006 city bond that was enacted largely to help construct ASU's downtown Phoenix campus, plus roughly $1.3 million from the city-owned Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel's capital improvement fund.

The city and the motel property's owner, Phoenix-based City Centre LLC, have not finalized the sale but hope to before it is due to be sold at a foreclosure auction on March 2.

The city has been eying the property for years but was put off by the price, which was once as high as $30 million. Now, it wants to buy the property before it goes to auction, where it may lose it to another buyer. Records show City Centre owes its lender $5.2 million.

Bioscience

TGen was formed as the catalyst that could help lift Arizona to the ranks of biotech highfliers.

But as the Translational Genomics Research Institute strives to fulfill such an ambitious vision, it will do so with a Michigan-based research institute as co-pilot.

TGen has finalized a pact with Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Van Andel Research Institute that gives the Michigan research group some control of Phoenix-based TGen.

As part of the alliance, TGen will get $10 million or more each year, according to a contract obtained by The Arizona Republic through a public-records request.

Bioscience

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has joined Arizona State University in an innovative education and science partnership aimed at sustaining a biodiverse planet. On Feb. 12, Secretary Wayne Clough, head of the Smithsonian, and ASU President Michael M. Crow launched a global classroom – with one foot in Arizona’s Sonoran desert and the other in the tropical landscapes of Panama.

The partnership will create opportunities for ASU undergraduates, graduate students and faculty to participate in fieldwork at Smithsonian facilities in Panama, as well as for the development of virtual global classrooms that center on current research in tropical ecosystems. Smithsonian scientists also will participate in ASU degree programs.

Bioscience

A space of 7,137 square feet in Chandler's Innovations Technology Incubator will be occupied by cutting-edge researchers from the University of Arizona College of Medicine in partnership with Arizona State University

The focus will be on nanobiology and nanomedicine, said the medical school's dean, Dr. Stuart Flynn.

Nanobiology has ramifications in the disparate disciplines of physics, engineering and medicine, among others.