Launching the Age of Bioscience
“There is no clear line between research and teaching, education and public service. As in every good symbiotic relationship, everyone benefits.”
Daniel E. Koshland Jr.
The changing needs of society can be traced in the history of the sciences at Berkeley — from agriculture, mining, and civil engineering to physics, chemistry, and electrical engineering and computer sciences. Each discipline in turn has met a critical need and played a role in creating “life as we know it.”
Helen Wills Roark ’26, one of the most successful professional tennis players in history, formed a trust in exces of $10.5 million to establish the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. In making her gift, the Olympic gold medalist said: “The biological sciences are now the greatest field that’s open for study in the scientific world. And what university has a better reputation in research than Berkeley? We can find the answers to why we are the way we are, and gain a better understanding of who we are through this research.”
The discovery of DNA, the Human Genome Project, and other advances that promise to revolutionize life have nowput the biological sciences on center stage. In the 1980s a group of faculty headed by biochemist Daniel E. Koshland Jr. ’41 restructured the biological sciences, altering not only the way biology was taught but also how research was conducted. Eleven biology departments were absorbed into three new departments: Plant Biology, Integrative Biology, and Molecular and Cell Biology. The exciting new possibilities for interaction between physiologists, geneticists, molecular biologists, and biochemists attracted many top faculty and graduate students to Berkeley, and enrollments in the departments’ courses skyrocketed.
A public-private partnership was formed to provide funds for facilities to match the promise of Berkeley’s faculty and students. The Valley Life Sciences Building renovation and construction of the Life Sciences Addition, the Genetics and Plant Biology Building, and Koshland Hall all date from this period.
In the late 1990s, reflecting the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of health science research, the campus launched the Health Sciences Initiative to bring together experts in public health, the biological and physical sciences, engineering, math, and computer sciences. With a generous $50-million anonymous gift and enthusiastic support from other benefactors, such as William V. Power ’30 and Gordon and Betty Moore, the initiative has provided support for interdisciplinary research and teaching in the biomedical sciences and bioengineering and the training of a new generation of outstanding scientists.
The California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research was established in 2001 with state and private funds. It builds on the strengths of three UC campuses — Berkeley, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz — to foster innovative research and promote development of newtechnologies to address the most pressing problems in human health and the environment.
