Newsletter of the Central Coast Biotechnology Center

The CCBC serves the central coast region of California biotechnological industries and research institutions along with the following community colleges: Allan Hancock College, Antelope Valley Community College, College of the Canyons, Cuesta College, Moorpark College, Oxnard College, Santa Barbara City College, and Ventura College.

NEWS YOU CAN USE
Equipment Available

Equipment available FREE from the CCBC. First preference is given to those who will use the equipment to train students in hands-on labs. We have three power supplies, two shaker tables, one gel slab dryer, twenty freezer boxes for an ultra-cold freezer, some micropipette tips, two boxes of 12 mm test tubes, and sterile vacuum filter bottles.

Upcoming Events

Two Saturdays, 20 and 27 February 1999 - CLUES Kits Training at California Lutheran University. Thousand Oaks, CA. for high school and community college faculty desiring to incorporate biotechnology into their courses. Call Jim Wolf, Director. (805) 493-3385.

Friday, 26 February 1999 - Statewide Faculty Biotechnology Curriculum Sharing Day (Working Title). San Francisco. Join your colleagues and exchange “how-to’s” in this day-long meeting.

Saturday, 13 March 1999 - “25 Years of Biotechnology” - UC Berkeley. Keynote speaker James Watson begins the program with his address "From the Double Helix to the Human Genome Project." Two panels follow, exploring the scientific, ethical, legal, public health, and commercial aspects of biotechnology. The program is free of charge and open to the public. Pre-registration is strongly advised. See Web site: http://amber.berkeley.edu:4243biotech or phone(510) 642-4111, UC Berkeley Extension.

Friday through Sunday, 19-21 Feb 99 - Grant Writing Retreat Cal Poly Pomona, Kellog West. Come a form a team to write a grant, write the grant, and plan to submit it. Russ DiFiori E-mail: redifiori@paccd.cc.ca.us

Monday, 19 April 1999 - ED>Net Biotechnology Initiative Committee Meeting 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM . Hyatt Irvine. Contact Kim Perry at 916.395.5697 or kperry@ednet.cc.ca.us

Monday and Tuesday, 19-20 April 1999 - 10th Annual ED>Net Meeting, Hyatt Irvine. Contact Kim Perry at 916.395.5697 or kperry@ednet.cc.ca.us or CCBC Director Mary Pat Huxley 805.648-8977 or mphuxley@ventura.cc.ca.us

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AMGEN LABS PROVIDE EQUIPMENT
and GMP MANUALS

   More than $10,000 of used equipment has been donated to the Ventura College Biotechnology Program by Amgen, Inc. in Thousand Oaks. “The strip chart recorders and power supplies will all be used in the Ventura College biotechnology labs for experiments that we cannot presently perform” said Dr Marta de Jesus. The Biotechnology Methods (Bio 31) and Plant Biotechnology (Bio 32) classes utilize these instruments to train students in techniques used in research and development and in production.

   “Many of our students are trying to determine what part of biology they want to explore, and take classes like these before they decide to major in biology. Often they transfer to universities and continue for advanced degrees” said Terry Pardee, faculty partner in the biotechnology classes. Amgen also agreed to provide the Good Management Practices (GMP) manuals for the Ventura College training program because they were out of print. “ We teach GMP in our program, because biotechnicians will be working for companies that expect and understanding of these regulations” said Bill Thieman, Biotechnology Program Director.

Equipment Donated by Amgen to
Biotechnology Training Programs

Your News
If you have a story you want to see in the newsletter,
email us early to include it!

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NAVY LAB JOINS FORCES WITH Ventura College FOR SOPHISTICATED FIELD TESTING

   The Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center (NFESC) in Port Hueneme has donated $7500 to the Ventura College Biotechnology Program to support the addition of sophisticated equipment used in soil testing for contaminants. “The Enzyme Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay (ELISA), that we want to do requires an expensive Plate Reader that we can’t afford,” said Bill Thieman, the Director of the program. “The Navy agreed to split the cost of one with us.” Antibodies identify contaminants by attaching to specific structures of the contaminant’s molecule. This equipment permits field testing for contaminants by the ELISA test. The sensitivity is so high that a special plate reader is required that is capable of reading fluorescent, visual and UV signaling antibodies.

   “Sensitive field testing is an important task for many aspects of the biotechnology industry. We expect that this collaboration will continue in the future, and provide the college and the Navy with useful training and better prepared students” said Ernest Lory, a researcher at the Navy base and an adjunct faculty member at the college.

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Vitagen Labs Expands
Business to Include Molecular Testing

   Vitagen Laboratories has been performing karyotyping and genetic testing, and is now expanding to molecular testing. Dr. Navnit Mitter said that the demand from the central coast community for molecular testing has stimulated this important expansion. Mitter has been a regular participant at Center Advisory meetings.

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Four Seattle Biotechnology Companies in Two Days

Question: What do you do when you find out that the National Science Teachers Association is offering a tour of four biotechnology companies in a two-day schedule?
Answer: You find a sub for your classes and you go, with the hope that the information will help you in your biotech program.

Highlights: Visits to Zymogenetics, Immunex, ICOS, and the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

A speaker at Zymogenetics indicated that the new millennium will probably be known as the “biotech millennium”, due to all the diagnostics and therapies resulting from the genome project information. He speculated that we would be able to diagnose every disease with a genetic component and probably be able to cure them (or regenerate destroyed organs). Exciting thought, isn’t it!

   Zymogenetics, with 250 employees, occupies the former Seattle Public Utilities Building. A subsidiary of Novo Nordisk, they have insulin on the market and are affiliated with the Scottish company that cloned Dolly the sheep. They expect to produce major drugs like TPA (Tissue Plasminogen Activator) by extracting them from the milk of animals. They also produce Factor VIIa and PDGF, a wound healing stimulant.

   Immunex is the most profitable biotech company in Seattle. They are focused on immune system agents and have a product on the market. They remodeled an old building downtown and commonly provide tours for science educators.

   ICOS was started by George Rathman in 1990, after he successfully completed a tenure as CEO of Amgen (1980-1990). ICOS is focusing its efforts on immune suppressants for auto immune diseases. Eli Lilly has recently infused money into one project that seems to have promise.

Crystallized protein receptor site from an adenovirus being studied at
Hutchinson Cancer Center

   “The receptor site for our antibody looks like this,” said Dr. Roland Strong, from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “We can actually predict the protein structure we need to bind to the active site from the 3D structure portrayed by the X-ray pattern.”

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David Miklos from Cold Spring Harbor Labs
demonstrates simple thermal cycler

Dr. Ken Jones describes the genetic similarities
discovered in commercial white sea bass

Matt Christensen describes the informatics data base found at http://vector.cshl.org

Famous Cold Spring Harbor Lab
Comes to Thousand Oaks

   How can your students DNA sequences become part of the Human Genome Project? What’s the fastest way to do a DNA fingerprint in a lab? Why were most of the white sea bass released to the ocean sisters and brothers of each other?
   The answer to these questions, and a number of useful teaching tools were provided in early January at a training session sponsored by California Lutheran University and the CCBC. David Miklos, the author of DNA Science provided many anecdotes and stories related to the progress of the human genome project. In the hands-on lab, he demonstrated how a dishwasher valve and two tea cup warmers could be used as a thermal cycler to magnify DNA.
   Matt Christensen (also from CSHL) provided hands-on training on how to enter and access data from the Cold Spring Harbor Lab database, when Alu polymorphic data is obtained using the lab protocol. Cold Spring Harbor Lab has produced many Nobel Prize winners including James Watson and Barbara McClintock (Alu is a jumping gene!).
   Dr. Ken Jones is a partner in Genetic Identification Service, Inc. They have been involved in many projects to determine whether adequate DNA heterogeneity exists in breeding stocks. Recently they assisted the Department of Fish and Game in recognizing the homogenicity of breeding stocks of white sea bass.
    If you would like to add hands-on biotechnology labs to your science classes, contact Jim Wolf at CLU to register for the FREE training sessions on February 20 and 27. Don’t wait on this one, because space is limited. Call 805 493-3385, or the Center.

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