Meet the Neighbors: San Diego Campus Near Life Sciences Hotspot, Coastal Wilderness Reserve

Bastyr University's second campus in San Diego lies near a robust life sciences and health industry cluster, highly ranked universities, expansive coastal wild lands and a world-class city.

Life Sciences and Health Education

• The new campus is located at 4106 Sorrento Valley Boulevard, in the heart of San Diego's life sciences industry. Sorrento Valley emerged as the first high-tech corridor in the 1970s, and the nonprofit Milken Institute ranks San Diego's biotech and life sciences cluster as the most successful in the nation.
• The valley hosts hundreds of relatively new research companies. "San Diego isn’t particularly well-known for its large corporations, but we are really good at starting hundreds of small high-tech, high-wage companies," writes Duane J. Roth, CEO of CONNECT, a San Diego nonprofit that promotes life sciences entrepreneurship.
• This map shows the clinical research organizations (CROs) in San Diego. The dense cluster north of downtown? That's Sorrento Valley.
• Other major medicine and education institutions near the campus: the University of California at San Diego Health System, Scripps Research Institute, Scripps Health hospital network and VA San Diego Medical Center.
• A critical mass of alumni and friends in the San Diego area want to support natural medicine and the University through collaboration, promotion and fundraising.

Natural Areas

• Just a few miles away on the Pacific Ocean lies Torrey Pines State Beach, a popular surfing and body-boarding spot. At the north end of the beach, the Los Peñasquitos Lagoon, a salt marsh estuary, empties into the ocean.
• Above the beach's sandstone bluffs, Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve offers eight miles of hiking trails and lookouts to watch for occasional migrating whales. The reserve is home to bobcats, foxes, coyotes, rabbits, coastal chapparal and cacti.
• The park's namesake, the Torrey Pine, is a rare pine species found only in San Diego County and on one of the Channel Islands off the Los Angeles coast.
• Several miles east of campus lies the Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve, a protected area with a variety of rare and endangered animals. At 4,000 acres, the canyon is one of the largest urban parks in the United States.

World-Class City

• San Diego is the second-largest city in California and the eighth-largest in the United States (17th by metropolitan area).
• Military and aerospace industries fueled its economy for years (like Seattle), but San Diego's economy has recently grown more diverse, with telecommunications, health sciences and tourism expanding in the last few decades.
• The city's rich Spanish and Mexican heritage is on display at the Mission San Diego de Alcala, Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, and many historic sites throughout the city.
• The city has its share of historical and tourist attractions, most notably the San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park, which is world-renown for its conservation and species-preservation work.