Riverside, Calif., February, 2002 -- Congressman Ken Calvert (R-Corona) cut the ribbon to officially open a biotechnology laboratory at La Sierra University on February 19. The ceremony was attended by University officials, trustees, community business partners, science professors from other California universities, and La Sierra students.

U.S. Representative Ken Calvert (R-43rd District) cuts the biotech lab ribbon as President Geraty looks on.

The research and teaching lab was funded by a grant of $92,000 from the US Dept. of Education. Calvert helped smooth the grant's passage through funding processes, as a part of his responsibilities with a congressional science committee.

Calvert, in his remarks at the ribbon-cutting, remembered La Sierra University's agricultural lands, and expressed amazement at the changes wrought in the landscape by the new RiverWalk residential community being built there. Calvert was given short demonstrations by university faculty and students of what functions the lab equipment perform, and what the research means to the public, as well as an abbreviated tour of science facilities at the university.

The biotechnology training laboratory will be used by La Sierra biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology students to study polymerase chain reaction, spectroscopy, digital imaging and other cutting-edge biotechnology techniques. About 50 percent of La Sierra University biology and chemistry majors are accepted for graduate education in medicine, dentistry, other health-related careers, and science education.

"I'm particularly impressed with the miniature spectrometry and imaging equipment," says Dr. Nathan Brandstater, assistant professor of chemistry at La Sierra. "It's state-of-the-art equipment that students will get to use, that researchers are using in labs right now, or want to use but can't afford it themselves."

The component Brandstater speaks of, about six by eight by two inches, replaces a machine now in La Sierra's physics building, which is about three by three by fifteen feet.

The new biotechnology laboratory is housed in Palmer Hall, an Art Deco-style science facility built in 1953, near the corner of Pierce Street and Sierra Vista Avenue in western Riverside. Later in 2002, ground will be broken for Chan Shun Hall, a new science building bridging the space between the "new and improved" Palmer Hall and Cossentine Hall (the latter is home to the World Museum of Natural History). When completed, the new science complex will house biology, chemistry, physics, and natural sciences classrooms and labs.

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by Christy Robinson