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Lawrence Berkeley 

April 2024 Report

Submitted by Nancy Brown, Ex-Ls CUCRA representative

Membership: Our in-person activities continue to be limited, and not having these makes recruitment of new members and officers quite difficult. We are considering a number of approaches to bring LBNL retirees together: Happy hours in downtown Berkeley, picnics, outings at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden, and a. reception at the Berkeley Retirement Center and at the Berkeley Yacht Club. The EX-Ls appreciate the generous financial support from CUCRA travel program that will help support these efforts.

Concerns: While we are anxious to resume in-person meetings, we will try to continue Zoom talks for those not able to attend in person. It is, however, very important for the Ex-Ls to begin meeting in person to enable members to chat with people that they know and to meet others who worked at the lab. Having live events will also facilitate filling the Ex-Ls leadership positions.

Activities: The Ex-Ls continued our quarterly speaker series on Zoom. Bani Tamraz, Director of Pharmacogenomics at the UC San Francisco School of Pharmacy, delivered a highly informative presentation on the promise of pharmacogenomics —how a patients unique genetic makeup influences the safety and efficacy of drug therapies. In his talk, Tamraz, an Associate Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at UCSF, also described UCSF’s Clinical Pharmacogenomics clinical and research efforts.

In the spring and early summer, we relied more on our retirement center (UCBRC) to provide a number of interesting talks. One of our sister organizations, UCRAB, organized the Renegade Picnic that the EX-Ls participated in. For the fourth year, the Berkeley Lab community joined together for a Winter Food. Bank Challenge to support the Alameda, Contra Costa, and Solano Food Banks.

Retirement Center Interactions: UCBRC is currently located in the Golden Bear Building, and is slated to move soon. We will miss the current space with meeting rooms available for retiree groups, available parking and facilities for hybrid meetings. We are grateful for the considerable support that Cary Sweeny and Camille Koue continue to provide us from the Berkeley Retirement Center. We greatly appreciate the various lectures that are presented virtually by the Center.

Download/View the PDF version of the Lawerence Berkeley Report