Emeryville Scientist awarded 'genius grants'

33 year old Saul Griffith, co-founder of Squid Labs among others, was selected as a MacArthur fellow.

"I got a mysterious phone call last Thursday morning," said the Emeryville engineer. "It was very 'Mission Impossible': You will receive this one phone call. Your only responsibilities are to be nice to the media and cash the check."

The check from the MacArthur Foundation is actually 20 checks, delivered every three months, for the next five years totaling $500,000, with no strings attached.

Read More...

UC Biofuels Research Center Approved for Emeryville

Chronicle Staff Report

Friday, September 21, 2007

The new home for a pioneering biofuels research center appears to be Emeryville, after the University of California regents' approval Thursday of a lease for the project in that small city.

The $125 million Joint BioEnergy Institute, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and headed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was announced in June. A location was not announced, though it was expected to be in the East Bay near the Berkeley lab.

The regents' action did not specify the location of the center. Ron Kolb, a spokesman for the lab, said the exact location is being withheld pending Department of Energy approval.

In a separate bio-energy project, a team led by UC Berkeley received a $500 million grant from petroleum giant BP for a separate research institute on biofuels. The contract for that project is expected to be signed in the near future, according to UC officials.

This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Amyris Biotechnologies Raises Another $70 Million in Series B Funding

Amyris Biotechnologies Inc., an Emeryville, Calif.-based synthetic biology company that developers renewable hydrocarbon biofuels, has closed the first tranche of a $70 million in Series B funding. DAG Ventures led the deal, and was joined by return backers Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and TPG Ventures. A second tranche is expected to close later this year.

The company raised $20 million in Series A funding last year, and named for BP executive John Melo as CEO. VentureWire quotes Melo as saying that the Series B round came with a post-money valuation of $470 million. www.amyrisbiotech.com

Source

Bayer completes buy of U.S. Biologics facility from Novartis

Bayer said it will manufacture its multiple sclerosis drug Betaseron, also marketed as Betaferon, at the Emeryville site. As part of the transaction, which was announced in March 2007, Novartis has transferred the manufacturing responsibility for Betaseron to Bayer Schering Pharma.

Novartis received a one-time payment of around $200 million for the transfer of production equipment, inventory and the leasing of buildings at the site.

Read more...

Reminder - Tomorrow is Shoreline Cleanup Day

This is just a reminder to get out and help cleanup our beautiful shoreline. More info in this previous post.

Gracenote Acquires Mobile Music ID Firm Musicphone

Emeryville's Gracenote, a provider of music identification and mobile music services, announced on Thursday that it has acquired technology assets from Musicphone, a provider of mobile music recognition technology.

Read more...

Pic: Actress Janeane Garofalo During Voice Recording at Pixar

Actress Janeane Garofalo, the voice of Collette in Ratatouille, has her photo taken during a Ratatouille voice recording session on April 2, 2007 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)