Research in the Market

In the early 1980s, biochemist Ed Penhoet was determined to find new ways to bring basic research to the marketplace. This itch to expand became Chiron, the company Penhoet co-founded in 1981. Today Chiron is a $1 billion biotech giant employing 4,000, and without it, medicine wouldn’t be the same.

Over the past 20 years, Chiron scientists—many with Berkeley affiliations—have engineered stunning breakthroughs in health. They created the vaccine for hepatitis B; they discovered the virus that causes hepatitis C; they devised a way to measure viral loads of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. They also helped fuel the growth of biotechnology, an industry that has become central to California’s economy today.

“It’s a good example of university expertise applied in the business world,” Penhoet says.

In 1998 Penhoet returned to the campus full-time to serve as dean of the School of Public Health until 2002. He currently serves as chair of the Berkeley Health Sciences Initiative volunteer committee.

“Universities may at one time have been ivory towers,” he says. “In the 21st century, the university and the world, the researcher and the public, the theory and the practical application, are all part of a single continuum. That’s what society needs from us. And, at Berkeley, that’s what we offer.”

Related Links

• Faculty Profile
• School of Public Health

Edward E. Penhoet, PhD, is the cofounder of Chiron (1981) and former dean of the School of Public Health (1998–2002).

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