Director: Mary Pat Huxley mphuxley@ventura.cc.ca.us
Special Projects: Bill Thieman bthieman@vcccd.cc.ca.us
Administrative Assistant: Barbara Hall bhall@ventura.cc.ca.us
Center Director: Bob Renger Rrenger@ventura.cc.ca.us

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Newsletter of the Central Coast Biotechnology Center

Amgen & Ventura College's
partnership wins highest award from Chancellor's Office

The Amgen Corporation in Thousand Oaks, the most successful biotechnology company in the world, received the  Chancellor's Statewide Initiative Award at the the May 8th ED>Net conference in Los Angeles.  Their contributions of hundreds of hours of time and over $100,000 in equipment to the Ventura College Biotechnology programs since 1993, were the primary reason for the award.  The original advisory committee that established the first course in the program involved 10 lab managers, from water quality, QA, manufacturing, fermentation, and regulatory affairs.  “We wouldn’t have graduates with jobs at the present time, without their support and guidance” said Bill Thieman, the coordinator of the program.   “Amgen people are unique in their commitment to quality science education” said Thieman, “ They strongly believe in what they do, and they do it well.”   The award was received by Dr Bruce Wallace, Environmental Safety Manager at  Amgen.

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Student Internships Guidebook spurs lively discussion

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The Grant Writing Workshop at Pierce College is co-sponsored with the LA-Central Biotechnology Center, providing timely information before the November grant deadlines.  It is scheduled for October 16th.  Seating will be limited and is expected to be impacted due to the fact that this workshop will be announced at the National Resource Council by the speaker Dr. Robert Renger.  Dr. Renger has considerable experience as a grant reviewer. 

 The  Needs Assessment of biotechnology companies in the Central Coast will be completed by December.  The final booklet report will be distributed to area colleges for use in developing training programs and interactions with economic development agencies.   The CCBC website is continuously being updated with job listings from partners and has many useful resources to offer. 

Lab Protocol Sharing is a new link we are developing that will provide protocols for lab activities.  One of the first links has been the CLUES exercises and a report from “Instrumentation for Undergraduate Biology and Molecular Biology Training” an NSF funded project recently completed by Bill Thieman at Ventura College.  You are free to contribute.  Access the site through “Resources” from the home page.

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When we announced that we have some pipette tips and some expired
nucleic acid extraction kits at the April 24th Advisory meeting we had a
number of takers. 

Don Takeda (College of the Canyons) got some pipette tips, Larry Friesen (SBCC) got some pipette tips and a Sartorius electronic balance, and Jim Wolf (Cal Lutheran University)  was able to use the Stratagene
Thermal Cycler for their training programs.  We still have some pipette
tips and kits left, and we will have them at the next Advisory meeting.
If you need any of these items before the fall meeting, please call and
arrange to pick them up.

The following pieces of equipment are being stored by the CCBC and are
available for pickup by arrangement: 1-older Toploader electronic
balance; New Brunswick Incubator Shaker 110V (about 36x60 inches); Consul 12 Freeze Dryer (36 x 60  inches);  2- BioRad Slab Gel Dryers; 3 rotator shaker tables; 2-older fraction collectors; 1- ISCO power supply 150V; Heath power supply 150V; 2-Stir/heater plates; a large low waterbath; and a small Tempcon bacterial incubator (24x24 inches).  None of these items are guaranteed to work, and all  are old.  If you want to spend the time you may be able to find a real jewel in the rough!

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Center  Director Meets with all Community 
Colleges in the Central Coast region

Don Takeda from College of the Canyons receives Eppendorf tubes from CCBC Biotechnology Center Director		Dr. Matthew Rainbow  talks to Mary Pat Huxley  about Center activities at  Antelope Valley CC

“We are remodeling and building a biotechnology lab.  We appreciate your advice on equipment and  suggestions for companies we can serve” said Don Takeda, Biology Department Chair at Canyons. 
“I would like to help others teach molecular biology with  the graphics I have created” said Matthew Rainbow, from Antelope Valley College.  Dr. Rainbow has a Ph.D. from UCI in Biochemistry and has developed some unique graphic teaching tools.    Bill Thieman  joined Mary Pat and provided useful suggestions for program expansion based on his experiences as director of the Ventura College Biotechnology Program.

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Three color graphics computers and one Sun Micro Workstation have been donated to the CCBC.  “These were expensive pieces of equipment and can be used for 3 dimensional imaging” said  Dick Meyers, Warehouse Supervisor.  The items were picked up at the Baxter warehouse in Duarte, after Baxter researchers confirmed that they were no longer needed.  “We are pleased to get them” said Bill Thieman, as he and Dr Robert Renger accepted them for the CCBC.  “ I am certain that one of the colleges in the central coast can use them in their biotechnology programs.”  If you are planning to do 3D protein graphic or DNA graphic imaging, contact the center  to discuss the transfer.

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A unique program to train students as technicians for the Manufacturing and Plant Operations components of the biotechnology industry opens at Moorpark College in the Fall Semester of 1998.  Baxter Healthcare approached Moorpark College in  1994 with the idea to cooperatively develop a training program.   The lead faculty person at Moorpark College, Dr. Maureen Harrigan, was hired in 1996.  She developed an advisory committee of faculty from academia, eight Baxter Biotechnology (Thousand Oaks, CA) lab heads, and seven Amgen Inc. (Thousand Oaks, CA) scientists.  This collaboration created the curriculum for the manufacturing training at the college.  Industry representatives are actively involved in the program development, curriculum development, laboratory improvements, instructional materials, and will serve as adjunct instructors.  Congratulations to those who created this new regional program, to Dr. Maureen Harrigan, Dr. Marie Panec, Dean of Math/Sciences Floyd Martin, and to the leadership at Moorpark College for the establishment of such a cooperative agreement with industrial representatives.

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Mehrzad Akhavan, and Jennifer Gray from Madera Center (State Center CCD)
prepare for a CLUES exercise

Madera Center Prepares for Biotechnology at its future campus

Jennifer Gray drove a long way to attend the CLUES training sessions in Thousand Oaks.  Madera Center is a part of the State Center District in north-central California.  Madera Center expects to form a new campus with a biotechnology program soon.

What color is grape Kool Aide? The answer depends on whether you separate it with a polar or non-polar solvent!  If you think  that you need to have a $50,000 system to perform High Pressure Liquid Chromatography, you are mistaken. “HPLC is a standard of the biotechnology industry, and the CLUES training program prepares faculty to teach this importance subject in fully duplicable way,” said Bill Thieman, a veteran of three internships at local biotechnology companies.  “ We hope to use these methods at Mission College in our transfer program ” said Mike Reynolds.  Mission is cooperating with UCLA and CSUN in an NIH Bridges program that assists underachieving students into science careers.

“I want to improve the courses I teach at Ventura College," said Abby Caschetta, an Adjunct faculty member at Ventura College. “I haven't been involved in this type of lab activity since I did DNA sequencing a few years ago," she said.  Abby teaches microbiology and general biology at Ventura College.

If you haven't attended the CLUES (California Lutheran University Enriched Science) training sessions that CCBC and CLU are co-sponsoring, then you wouldn’t know how much they could use a thermal cycler.  Although they train faculty using electric frying pans as thermal cyclers, they need to magnify the DNA they use in the training modules at a faster rate.  The thermal cycler was originally donated to Ventura College by Stratagene in San Diego.

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