Search engine giant Google announced Tuesday that the firm is funding a number of University research projects, including a group of researchers at UC San Diego, a researcher at UC Santa Barbara, and a researcher in Los Angeles. as part of its Google Focused Research Awards, to help fund research in ares of study that are of key interest to the company. Google said that the firm is awarding a total of $5.7M Among the 12 projects, which include 31 professors at 10 universities, are one on the use of mobile phones as data collection devices

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 -- San Diego Supercomputer Center, New Building Dedication. Please join us in ushering in a new era of data-intensive computing as we formally dedicate our award-winning, energy-efficient 80,000 square-foot addition that will further position the San Diego Supercomputer Center as a key resource for industry and educational research. Email industrybreakfast@sdsc.edu... mor

Venture capital firm Sofinnova Ventures has hired on an Executive-in-Residence based in San Diego, the firm said Thursday. Ekman is te former EVP and President of Global Research and Development at Elan Corporation. According to Sofinnova, Ekman will work to identify and build early stage companies, and will be based in San Diego. Sofinnova, which invests in early stage life sciences and IT firms, said it has appointed Lars Ekman, M.D., Ph.D.

UK-based Dotmatics , a developer of informatics and business intelligence software, reported today that the firm has opened up new offices in San Diego. Dotmatics develops web-based and other software tools for browsing and visualizing biological databases, scientific data, sharing research information, and more. ...Tags: The firm said the North American offices for the firm are in Del Mar, and were opened in response to "huge interest" and a rapidly growing customer base in the USA. The firm did not say how many people will be located at its new offices.

quot;Raptor" or the "Company") , today announced the execution of a collaboration agreement (the "Agreement") with the University of California, San Diego ("UCSD") to include a Phase 2a clinical trial to evaluate a delayed-release preparation of cysteamine bitartrate ("Cysteamine") in adolescents diagnosed with Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis ("NASH"). Under the terms of the Agreement, clinical researchers from UCSD will perform the Phase 2a study at the University's General Clinical Research Center, and Raptor will provide funding

San Diego-based Traversa Therapeutics , a biopharmaceuticals firm developing RNA interference (RNAi) technology, said earlier this week that it has named Curt W. Bradshaw as Vice President of Research and Development. Tags: lifescience biotech research executive biopharmaceuticals biopharma therapeutics travers Bradshaw joins the firm from CovX, where he was Vice President of Chemistry. Bradshaw has also previously served at Ligand Pharmaceuticals and Abbott Laboratories. ...Tags:

Monrovia-based Tanner Research , which provides technology research, electronic design automation (EDA) software, and other products and services, said Tuesday that it has been awarded a SBIR Phase I contract worth $100,000 from the Army Research Office. The firm said the research is a partnership of the firm along with UC San Diego research lab of Prof. Tanner said that the funding will go towards developing zinc-oxide nano-wire based ultra-violet light detectors, which are being applied to military applications such as detection of missile plumes, bio/chemical agents, and explosives.

Alfred Wong , Chief Science Officer, and Albert Liu , Vice President of Business Development, at Pong Research (www.pongresearch.com), a company developing products for redirecting cell phone antennas to reduce the radiation exposure of users. We sat down with Wong--professor emeritus at UCLA--and Liu to talk about the company's roots from research at UCLA, and how it's trying to get past the poor reputation of products in its segment, the debate over whether radiation from cell phones does or does not affect humans, plus its private equity backing by Bridgewater Capital Partners.

San Diego-based NexMed , a clinical research organization focused on in vitro and in vivo pharmacology services, said earlier this week that it raised $2.3M NexMed recently acquired San Diego's Bio-Quant, and was previously headquartered in New Jersey, before relocating its headquarters to San Diego in January. ...Tags: Tags: research clinical lifescience nexm in a private placement. Name of the investors were not disclosed.

San Diego-based Anametrix , a new business analytics software firm headed by Blaise Barrelet, founder of WebSideStory, announced this morning that it has acquired Nordic Research Corporation , a business analytics technology firm. Anametrix said that the founder of Nordic Research, Anders Olsson, joins the company as Chief Technical Officer. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Olsson was System Architect at WebSideStory.