research organization was established to pursue the mission for transformative biomedical research. another part of the city the san francisco general hospital where we studied cardiovascular disease and we are at ground zero when hiv and aids broke out. we are pursuing a cure still today. now we are working everyday to find better ways to find and treat and prevent better course and heart disease, covid, and alzheimer's and hiv. back in 2004, when this particular building we are in today, it's the second building at mission bay. the other building being eu -- ucsf, it was a private institute at gladstones but both non-profits and dynamic part to what it is no in the mission bay community. two non-profits and in the development that we are now in, we couldn't have done this alone. we have wonderful partners and our civic leaders today and we thank you for your vision for what we have. like this, the symbol of the san francisco flag, mission bay is regenerated. you may know that silicon valley sparked the development of the silicon chip. the law says that every two years, the chip doubles. i postulate that there is a glad stones wall. that law is that each square footage that is added is the exponential impact of what that research does. so we are here today to announce our plans to expand, and if it goes according to plan a few years from now, we'll see a new building that be host to our research scientist. you will hear about that in a moment. we are also glad to have a representative here and was at the university and former intern who will take you to his story here at gladstones. we are also happy to have many of the representatives and executive officer of the community investment and infrastructure to join us to speak more about what this means and the impact to san francisco and the mission bay. first, mayor breed, welcome to gladstones. [ applause ] mayor london breed: all right. i'm first up, huh? many of you may not know but i was a chemistry major. i thought i was going to discover the next big elements on the periodic table of the elements, but i also thought i was going to make my own make-up line and it would basically take over the world. unfortunately i was a clumsy chemist and spilling chloride all over the lab, dropping liquid nitrogen here and there. i decided i better leave it to the professionals, the chemist who really have steady hands and patience to do this incredible work. i knew it was more about fun, but chemistry can be fun as we were talking earlier today on the tour. we are celebrating valentine's day today and it was great to be able to see a stem cell heart and on skin which is transformative. what's happened in san francisco what i have said time and time again, the life sciences and all the great things that are occurring especially around the mission bay community, it's changing the world. it's saving lives. when i think about our economic recovery it's so critical to the future of our city. i am looking forward to the work that gladstones will be doing because it includes 75,000 new square feet of the already 200,000 square feet that exist now. they will add an additional 12-15 labs and employ over 200 more people. that's more work hopefully moving towards a real cure for so many of the different things that many of us may have been impacted by personally. i can't wait for the expansion and excitement of what this will bring. we are talking about a company that has been here in san francisco since 1979, in the height of what we were dealing with in terms of hiv/aids epidemic. when we think about how far on what they have done and what they will do, it is transformative of this city. the area and including ucsf and just dropped off 25,000 square feet of new space for biotech and lab at the mission bay, i can't help but get excited. i want to put a little bit of a perspective here as a mayor, i want people to come back to the office, but this is not a field that you have the luxury of working from home. you have to be there, you have to load up all the different samples and testings and work directly in this location. from my perspective, this is the future. this is the future of san francisco. we see an office vacancy rate of over 22%, but as it relates to to the life sciences, it's not even at 5%. we know there is a need for this kind of space, so we as a city are going to be making it a lot easier to not only expand, but to also transform other spaces throughout this city so they can be used for the same purpose. this life breaking science or this ground breaking science life saving, i'm trying to figure out the right words, but, ground breaking life saving sciences developing here in san francisco, is going to make such a tremendous difference and we all know that. today i'm really excited about this expansion and the work we are doing together, and i look forward when we are able to come back here to cut the ribbon and open this space. who knows, maybe a cure for alzheimer's or some of the other great things we are working on in this lab here, will be introduced at that time. i also want to say that i'm really excited to know that two nobel prize winners are out of gladstones. they are based out of gladstones for chemistry which i deviated from, as well as medicine. i know there is a future in life sciences where we are going to see ground breaking transformative work that is truly going to change lives for the better right here in the heart of san francisco. you so much. [ applause ] >> >> >> thank you, mayor breed, we really appreciate your leadership throughout this city and especially for science and medicine. my name is depac and i have the privilege of serving at the gladstones substitute. what the mayor said is really important because we often refer to this time as the biocentury, and that's because with we are at a moment in time today where we can imagine finally not just accepting the diseases that we suffer from across the world, but actually think about curing those diseases once and for all. and we've never had this opportunity before, but we do today because of advances in our knowledge and advances in technology. so at the gladstones institute we are at the forefront in this transitional moment in time where mayor breed mentioned who have made transformative discoveries all over the world with stem cell and biology and technology and we have built sciences in heart disease, alzheimer's and other brain diseases like parkinson's disease and covid and cancer. we have the ability to kill cancer cells and cure diabetes and other illnesses. it happens through deep partnerships that we build. so we have that with ucsf in san francisco across the street and we have developed that across the bay area and with stanford and to really take our discoveries and not let them sit on the shelf as we make them but have them get into people through partnerships where we launched companies with our discoveries and in fact over the last five years we have launched nearly 15 companies from gladstones based here in the bay area. those companies have raised over nearly 3/4 of a billion dollars in venture capital for the sciences and those companies have employed hundreds of people. the work we do will not only transform lives over time but it's having an economic impact right here in our city. we've had a great partnership with this city for many years since we started in '79. initially based in sacramento. we were just the second building here and the city partnered with us to do so and we are delighted that we are partnering going forward with this opportunity to really make, seal this impact that we have on science, medicine and human lives, not just here in san francisco, not just in the united states, but really across the world. so as you heard we are going to be building right here on the patio as we sit and by adding more space to our building, we'll be able to bring in the talent to make these dreams a reality. we'll come back some day and with we look at the cures for alzheimer's, heart disease, finally getting rid of hiv, you will find those fingerprints of those course right here at gladstones, mission bay and in our city of san francisco. when part of our mission at gladstones is not just to do great science, but also to train the next generation of leaders, and we take that very seriously. so we have, we developed a program where we take people who have already gotten their phd degrees and md degrees and we teach them how to be scientist and also teach them how to be leaders in a very good intentional way. one of ours trained here in the 1990s, and obviously went on to change the world. our trainees sometimes start their own labs, sometimes they go into industry and we have a former trainer here in the audience and they launched one of the companies here at mission bay to make eggs out of stem cells so they can have their own eggs and their own children. we have never done this before and they are going to do that and they are young women and men entrepreneurs in science. when we train the next generation, we want to train people from all walks of lives especially those that have been under represented in signs. we have a number of programs across all aspects of the training program from high school, college to graduate degrees to do exactly that. one of our programs who we termed for promoting under training and science and many have gone on to training in stem and many plan to study in stem and we are very happy to have them part of this group. we have someone here who worked two programs at gladstones and got a leadership position and a championship award here at gladstones and now applied and accepted for a phd program at stanford and is off to a fabulous career. you are going to get to hear about his journey directly from him today. ernest, please share your experience with the audience. [ applause ] >> thank you. when i was in high school in virginia, i loved math and science. i got mostly a's in my class, but english was hard for me. i came from the philippines to the u.s. when i was 10 and only had three years to learn the language. i asked my teacher if i can go to college and not only did he say no, but he laughed at me and wasn't much help and tried to dissuade me and discourage me and said i should go to the military instead. i wanted to be a doctor. i wanted to help people as much as i can. i found my own way. not having enough money, i started working odd jobs, after 11 years, my dream to pursue science has only grown stronger. in 2014, i decided to move back to the bay area where i had lived when i first immigrated here in this country and go to college. then my son was three and his mother was sick and couldn't care for him so i brought him with me. i enrolled in community college, and at the same time i found a job as a recycler to support my son and i was informed about the puma program and she told me about her son who was a scientist. it helped me find new ways to be a doctor. i was 30 years old. i thought it was a great program. it gave me an inside look of how real biology operates and i learned some of the fundamentals used today and i enrolled in the program for the second time. i was going to college, working as a puma intern and the regional park at east bay. all the while continuing to take care of my son. it wasn't easy, but it was worth it. i was in the pac to reach my dreams. my hard work paid off because i was offered a job at gladstones and while finishing my master's degree in biology. i got into the master's degree program at ucsf and from the national institute of health to help me continue my education. while i was at gladstones in the lab, i was studying the interaction between proteins to find new targets and i knew that science was the right path for me. today, joseph is 11 and his mother lives in texas. my parents come around to see the value of my scientific career. i was accepted at stanford and started the phd program last fall. i was able to transfer everything i learned from gladstones. my professors today are amazed that i already have lab skills. i also discovered how to think like a scientist at gladstones because i was surrounded by them. i figured out how to frame an experiment and think about the larger picture. which is something that i have not learned through my education. my role here is to help as many people as i can. a few years ago, i shadowed a doctor of oncology treating cancer patients. i noticed that patients who are immigrants are affected by hepatitis first and they weren't able to access vaccines in their own country. these are people i want to help by researching diseases by affecting overlooked and under represented groups. i also want to inspire others who look like me. this is why i'm sharing my story today. i'm sure many of the young people and older are interested in pursuing a career in stem, but are told like i was, it's not for them. that they can't do it. they are made to believe that they can't go to college. i want them to know that they can. one day, hopefully, we'll see many people that look like us. not only working in science and academia, but in leadership positions, and high school teachers won't laugh at these students who dream of college but instead help them reach their goal. now, i would like to invite executive director of the office of community investment and infrastructure to say a few words. >> thank you. i hope you know that you are an inspiration to so many folks out there who are looking to achieve these skills as you heard from our very own madam mayor. she was going to college for this and others that are looking to people like you and to gladstones as a place for future careers. thank you for all you do. i'm the executive director of the office of community investment and infrastructure. i'm just going to say a few words to round out the program. mission bay was designed from the ground up to be a place, an innovation capital, a hub for life sciences. gladstones was the first private company to take that risk and lean into that vision in 2004. since then, mission bay has grown a lot and lots of new housing, over 6,000 homes, approximately 40% are affordable and office space and biotechnology space and 25 acres of parks. this gladstones expansion will ensure that in san francisco we can continue to make advances in research in hiv, alzheimer's, and heart disease and cancer right here in san francisco. once again the innovation of the bay area. this project has also created many new jobs. and while we will still say international hub of this vision. i would like to thank the team and supervisor dorsey, who is not here but for his tireless support and would like to thank the gladstones team, and karen johnson from hms, and lastly mark, the project manager and niki henry who is not here today. that's it. thank you for coming and thank you, madam mayor, for [ applause ] >> >> >> good morning everyone. the meeting will come to order. welcome to the february meeting of the local agency formation commission. i am vice chair jacky fielder, and joined by commissioners dean preston, hope williams and singh. (inaudible) stephanie cabrera and like to a thank the staff at sfgovtv for broadcasting this meeting. madam clerk, do have any announcements? >> yes, thank you. the local agency formation is convening hybrid meetings that allow (inaudible) public comment via telephone. equitable public access is essential and will take public comment as follows. taken on each item for those watching channel 26 or sfgovtv.org public comment call in number is streaming across