On Nov. 23, 1998, The University of California, Berkeley and the Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute announced that they had agreed to create a unique long-term research collaboration that will keep UC Berkeley scientists and California (UC) farmers at the forefront of agricultural biotechnology.

Novartis and the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology in the College of Natural Resources, Novartis committed $25 million over five years to support basic research in the department in the area of agricultural genomics. It also provided access to proprietary technology and DNA databases, which will significantly enhance the university’s ability to do research at the forefront of plant genomics.