CSUPERB Symposium Held


This January, the 15th annual symposium of the California State University Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology (CSUPERB) brought together more than 550 faculty and research students for scientific and research presentations, poster sessions, and workshops. The symposium focused on new technologies and projected molecular advances at the interface of biomaterials, bio-inspired materials, and tissue engineering, and was entitled "The Nexus of Biotechnology, Bio-inspired materials and Biomaterials: Challenges and Opportunities".

The key luncheon speaker was Eric Drexler, father of nanotechnology and nanomachines. Previous noted speakers have included Louis Sullivan, George H. Bush’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, the President of the Morehouse School of Medicine, Carl Feldbaum, presidents of major biocommerce trade groups, California legislators, and members of Congress.

The audience included NIH/NSF-supported basic research-molecular life science investigators, biomedical engineering faculty, process engineering faculty, agbiotech faculty, other biotechnology faculty, faculty and students interested in what’s hot in biotechnology, research students from the university system, etc. The plenary sessions speakers were internationally-known scientists and corporate leaders in the biomaterials arena.

The CSUPERB Legislator of the Year Award was presented to State Senator Jack Scott.

CalPoly Pomona Present Suzuki received an award of special recognition from CSUPERB for his past efforts in enhancing CSU biotechnology.

The CSU Biotechnology Faculty Research Awardee is Dr. Skai Krisans, Molecular Biology Institute, SDSU.

The CSU Biotechnology Faculty Service Award went to Dr. Frank Bayliss, Department of Biology, San Francisco State University.

The Crellin Pauling Student Teaching Award went to to Hungphuc Ha, CSU Fullerton.

The eight Howell/CSUPERB Student Research Awardess were also presented.

The 2004 Symposium, the 16th, will be held in the Bay Area for the first time. The topic will be on proteomics, the role of the over 1,000,000 human proteins.

The five previous symposia were:

• 1998: "Biotechnology and Vaccines: Molecular Biology in Conquest of Disease.
• 1999: “Environmental Biotechnology: New Products and Solutions for Old Problems” which focused on DNA shuffling.
• 2000: “The Brave New World of the Post-Human Genome Project: Bioinformatics and Genomics”.
• 2001: “Bioinformatics, Structural Genomics and Future Prospects”
• 2002: "The Impact of Biotechnology on the Future of Medicine"