University of California, San Diego

THE UNIVERSITY OF California, San Diego (UCSD), is a public, tertiary—level educational institute located in the state of California. It is one of 10 campuses that are part of the overall University of California and is based at La Jolla on 1,200 acres of land, much of it donated by public and private organizations, next to the Pacific Ocean. UCSD enjoys a very high reputation for the quality of its faculty and student body and has been ranked among the world's leading universities for the quality of its research. At present, 12 Nobel laureates are affiliated with the university. These include George E. Palade and Renato Dulbecco, who won in the field of physiology/medicine in 1974 and 1975 respectively, and Sydney Brenner, who won in the field of medicine in 2002. Other prizes won by faculty members include National Medals of Science, the Pulitzer Prize, National Humanities Medals, and the Enrico Fermi Prize.

Planning for the university began in 1956, and it opened in 1960. The original basis was the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and it was anticipated that the university would both contribute to and benefit from interaction with the local high—technology business sector. This plan has worked very satisfactorily. Approximately 250 companies have been created in the vicinity of UCSD by faculty members or alumni. The university is the third largest employer in San Diego County and employs more than 26,000 people. UCSD now has a budget of some US$2.2 billion, of which 24 percent is provided by the federal government to conduct research and an additional 12 percent is provided by the State of California to provide education services. More than 45,000 [Page 576]people applied for entry for the fall of 2007, which is the second largest number of applications for any university in California. Undergraduate students number more than 21,000, and there are nearly 5,000 postgraduate students; almost 1,500 faculty are affiliated with the university. Leading institutes within the university include the UCSD Medical Center and the School of Medicine, the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and the Institute of the Americas.

A high level of excellence characterizes every aspect of the university. UCSD is regularly ranked in the top 10 universities in the United States according to various criteria and even among the top 15 in the world. The Shanghai Ranking system placed UCSD at 14th in the world in terms of research in its most recently published results. Other criteria by which the university scores highly include the effect of individual institutes, the positive effect on the local community, and the best place for students to study. The student body is active and maintains as wide a range of activities as would be expected of a large and thriving institution. Political and social issues are widely debated, and the student administration deals with the usual issues and problems affecting a large student body.

UCSD benefits from California's liberal approach to stem cell research, and the corporate and public sector support of all forms of research present throughout the state. The school of medicine offers a range of educational degree [Page 577]programs, including M.D., Ph.D., and continuing and dual—degree options. A variety of clinics and specialist libraries assist research staff and students alike. Research activities include animal and human testing programs, and relationships have been struck with local businesses for advanced technology products. One of the leaders of the stem cell research effort has been Dr. Pamela Mellon, who has researched and published widely in the field. She is the director of the UCSD Transgenic Mouse and Embryonic Stem Cell Core, among many other responsibilities. Research includes analysis of transgenic and knockout mice, generation of novel pituitary and hypothalamic cell lines, and genomic approaches including DNA array analysis.

...