Biotechnology

The Biotechnology Industry in Oakland and the East Bay is part of the world’s largest and most vibrant biotech clusters in the world. In the Oakland region, the biotech cluster is comprised of a variety of key institutions and companies, including Novartis, Bayer Healthcare, Amyris Biotechnologies Healthcare, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research as well as the University of California Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Recent grants from industry and government to these institutions have resulted in Oakland, Berkeley, and the East Bay becoming the nexus for research, development, and commercialization in treating and preventing human disease, as well as pushing out the frontier in the research for alternative source of energy through biology.

Oakland’s strength in healthcare drives biotech research agenda

Oakland’s premier biomedical research institutions are on the cutting edge of translational research. CHORI is the internationally renowned biomedical research institute of Children's Hospital and Research Center at Oakland. Bridging basic science and clinical research in the treatment and prevention of human disease, CHORI is a leader in translational research, providing cures for blood diseases, developing new vaccines for infectious diseases, and discovering new treatment protocols for previously fatal or debilitating conditions. Striving to provide the highest standard of excellence and innovation, CHORI brings together a multidisciplinary collaborative of distinguished investigators in six different Centers of Research: The Center for Cancer Research, The Center for Genetics, The Center for Immunobiology & Vaccine Development, The Center for Nutrition & Metabolism, The Center for Prevention of Obesity, Cardiovascular Disease & Diabetes, and The Center for Sickle Cell Disease & Thalassemia. Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research (DOR) conducts, publishes, and disseminates high-quality epidemiologic and health services research to improve the health and medical care of Kaiser Permanente members and the society at large. It seeks to understand the determinants of illness and well being and to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care. To accomplish these goals, the Division of Research is committed to providing a supportive research environment that fosters independent thinking, creativity, continued learning and adherence to the highest scientific standards.

Oakland and the East Bay leads in biotech research and quest for alternative energy focused on biofuels.

Recently, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was awarded several large research grants to fuel the search for alternative energies based on the East Bay’s strength in biotech research. On February 1, 2007, global energy firm BP announced that it selected the University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to lead an unprecedented $500 million research effort to develop new sources of energy and reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment. The funding will create the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), which initially will focus its research on biotechnology to produce biofuels — that is, turning plants and plant materials, including corn, field waste, switchgrass and algae, into transportation fuels. In addition, On June 26, 2007, Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman announced a partnership of three national laboratories and three research universities in the San Francisco Bay Area has been chosen to host one of three bioenergy research centers, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through its Biological and Environmental Research Genomics:GTL research program in the Office of Science. This new center will be known as the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and is expected to receive $125 million in DOE funding over five years. The DOE JBEI’s six partners are the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia), the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the University of California (UC) campuses of Berkeley and Davis, and Stanford University. Plans call for the DOE JBEI to be headquartered in a leased building in the East Bay, central to all partners. The central task of the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Ron Dellums of Oakland and the entire Oakland Partnership will be to ensure that Oakland and the East Bay are well position to be home to the companies that will commercialize the technologies emerge from this enormous research effort. To do this, members of the Oakland Partnership, led by Dr. Bertram Lubin, the Director of Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI); and Dr. Vipul Mankad, Chief Medical Officer of Children’s Hospital, are working together to ensure the real estate, workforce, and other infrastructure is in place to continue and strengthen Oakland and the East Bay’s dominant position in this industry.