Reports + Research
Three San Diego Life Science Researchers Win Breakthrough Prizes
UCSD professors Don Cleveland and James McKernan and Salk Institute professor Joanne Chory took home three awards totaling $9 million at the 2018 Breakthrough Prize event. In 2012, founders from Facebook, Google, and 23andMe established the glitzy event, which some have dubbed “The Oscars of Science.” This year, Breakthrough Prizes were awarded to five life sciences researchers in total.
Synthorx’s Big Week
Synthorx had two major announcements last week – a new CEO, and another major breakthrough in synthetic biology from the lab of TSRI professor and company co-founder Floyd Romesberg. Romesberg and his team have developed the first semi-synthetic organism that can store and retrieve increased genetic information from an extra base pair called X and Y. More DNA letters means more vocabulary, which enables creating more diverse proteins with improved drug characteristics as well as cost-effective scale-up for drug development.
Connect’s 30th Year of Most Innovative New Product Awards
Connect’s annual awards highlight groundbreaking products on the market and in development in ten different categories. The products cover the full breadth of innovative industries in San Diego, including cleantech, defense, life sciences, mobile apps, robotics, software, and sport technologies. Winners in the life sciences categories were StemoniX’s microHeart, ViaCyte’s PEC-Direct, and TereoPneuna’s ReDe Mask. In addition, Jay Flatley, executive chairman of Illumina, was inducted into CONNECT Entrepreneur Hall of Fame and four local innovation leaders received awards. See all the winners here.
C&EN Looks at Pharma in 2017
Chemical & Engineering News takes a look at the big news of 2017 for pharma and biotech. From the historic approvals of Novartis’ Kymirah CAR-T immunotherapy to notable early-stage biotech investments, C&EN summarizes the big news stories for the industry.
Read + Listen
POW! Podcast of the Week
The Bio Report podcast, hosted by veteran journalist Daniel Levine, focuses on the intersection of biotechnology with business, science, and policy.
BOW! Book of the Week
Fire season for California seems to be never ending this year. As we watch fires elsewhere and (hopefully) prepare ourselves, a local author provides a gripping account in The Fire Outside My Window of the 2003 Cedar Fire, the largest known wildfire in California history.
Events
It’s Happening Here
December 11
San Diego biotech’s serial entrepreneurs and leaders come together on December 11 to gaze into the future. Xconomy’s San Diego Life Sciences 2022 will take place Monday, December 11, at Alexandria on Torrey Pines Mesa.
December 5–7
Learn about the next generation of cancer immunotherapies at the ImPACT Immunotherapy conference at Hilton Bayfront from December 5–7.
Client Disclosure: Synthorx, ViaCyte
Tags: Biotech, Biotech Briefing, Blogs, CONNECT, Life Science, Synthorx
