$1.8 Million Gift Will Advance Health Research

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$1.8 Million Gift Will Advance Health Research

By Amy DerBedrosian

A $1.8 million gift from Gilead Sciences, Inc., a City-based company whose products treat infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, will boost Berkeley’s research in the health sciences over the next four years. Half the funds will go to Professors Doudna and Carolyn Bertozzi, both affiliated with the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology in the College of Letters & Science.The remainder will benefit the Berkeley Health Sciences Initiative (HSI).

Doudna, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology with additional ties to Berkeley’s College of Chemistry, the Medical Institute, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will continue her research related to the Hepatitis C virus. Earlier, she and her faculty colleague Eva Nogales had discovered the mechanisms the Hepatitis C virus uses to bypass cells’ natural defenses and establish an infection. With the funds from Gilead, Doudna will pursue additional research that she hopes will result in the design of drugs able to prevent the virus from taking hold.

“This is a direct opportunity to use our basic research to develop effective drugs to fight infectious diseases, in this case the Hepatitis C virus. It will be fun and exciting to take our work in this new direction,” says Doudna. “The funding allows us to bring both new methods and additional resources to bear on the problem.”

Bertozzi will use funds from the Gilead gift to further her research into the pathways for sulfate metabolism in tuberculosis (TB). She has hypothesized that metabolism influences TB’s unusual lifecycle, in which micro bacteria live in the body in a dormant state for a long time and also have a complex reaction with the immune system.

“Our initial focus is TB, but other pathways also exist in other bacteria. We don’t know yet if they’re equally important, but that is the future of our work,” says Bertozzi, who in addition to being a member of the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, is the T.Z. and Irmgard Chu Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Berkeley; an investigator of the Medical Institute; and director of the Molecular Foundry, a nanoscience institute at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“The Gilead funds will allow us to hire a staff scientist. This will provide longevity and continuity needed for an extended research project,” adds Bertozzi. “It’s wonderful that a local biopharmaceutical company has the foresight to invest in academic-scale research.”

In bringing Gilead and Berkeley together, Dean of Biological Sciences Geoffrey Owen and HSI faculty director Tjian sought funding for overall excellence in the health sciences, not simply for individual projects. As a result, Gilead is also providing unrestricted support for the HSI, through which faculty from diverse disciplines collaborate to address pressing health problems, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, and such neurodegenerative disorders as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The Gilead funds will help with HSI faculty recruitment and retention, and will increase support for laboratories conducting interdisciplinary research on stem cell and developmental biology, as well as on infectious diseases.

“We hope to provide the resources and environment that will foster a huge effort in these areas,” Owen says.

Owen also hopes that other biotechnology companies will follow Gilead’s lead. More and more, traditional supporters such as the National Institutes of Health want basic research paired with a clinical application, or “translational” research. This makes it harder for Berkeley and other universities without the natural partner of a medical school to find funding for basic science research. Working with a biotechnology company, according to Owen, can help overcome this problem: An investment is made in the basic science research that is too costly for companies to do themselves, and the companies gain insights from university research that can lead to new diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.

“These additional avenues improve the likelihood that the things discovered here on campus will find their way into the marketplace and into the clinics where they’re needed,” says Owen. “It’s a benefit to everybody.”

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