This award provides renewed support for The Center for Molecular Biotechnology, a Science and Technology Center (STC) first established at the California Institute of Technology in 1989. The STC will move in stages to the University of Washington during 1992-1993, and will be located entirely at the University by early 1994. The Center sponsors research and development activities aimed at the creation of new or improved instrumentation in several key areas of modern biotechnology. These include the sequencing of sub-picomole amounts of purified proteins, the large scale mapping and sequencing of genomic DNA and the 2- dimensional gel electrophoresis of highly complex mixtures of proteins. Other research activities include development of mass spectrometric instrumentation, accompanying software and a variety of other computational tools useful in the Center's development of new technology and data analysis. In addition, the STC also sponsors education and outreach programs aimed at providing research experience and training for high school, undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students. These include programs expected to encourage increased participation by members of underrepresented minority groups in scientific research. Other activities of the Center provide for transfer of the Center developed technology to the academic and commercial sector, and for research collaborations with academic, industrial and Federal scientists. Support of these various activities within a center maximizes the benefit of all research activities from progress to new developments and facilitates the transfer of new ideas, technologies and research results to basic research and commercial development activities in other institutions and sectors. The recent, enormous progress in our understanding of basic cellular processes and the concomitant growth in our ability to analyze and manipulate basic genetic phenomena for the benefit of mankind have derived from a variety of techniques for the separation, analysis and synthesis of the protein and nucleic acid components of all living organisms. Key to this progress has been the development of automatic microchemical instrumentation and computational tools of the type being developed by this Center. The new devices and methodology created by the Center are expected to have impacts on areas of basic and applied research as diverse as anthropology, molecular biophysics, forensic and clinical medicine, and agriculture.
