New Voice of San Diego Column Features San Diego-Based Sangart
The late Robert Winslow was an interesting man and founded an interesting company, Sangart, which has developed a product called MP40X that helps deliver oxygen to the blood. Winslow’s study of oxygen deprivation and its impact on the body took him as far as the wickedly dangerous slopes of Mt Everest.
Winslow did not live to see Sangart’s first product, MP40X, get to market - he died in February at the age of 67, from complications of an inoperable brain tumor. MP4OX is now in clinical trials in Europe and the United States, with U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval possible within five years.
If MP40X gains approval for widespread use, Sangart CEO Brian O'Callaghan claims it will save thousands of lives annually. MP4OX could potentially take the place of blood transfusions in certain circumstances and allow paramedics to more quickly re-oxygenate trauma patients, according to a recent 7-paragraph posting by Voice of San Diego reporter David Washburn.
The brief item on Sangart is the first of an ongoing series of briefs that Washburn plans to write in an effort to better highlight Southern California’s life sciences companies. Washburn is looking for ideas for companies that he could profile in future blog posts. While it looks like the items will be extremely brief, it is an opportunity to share your company’s story in a positive way. If you are interested in sharing your story with Voice of San Diego for this column, contact Washburn at David.Washburn@voiceofsandiego.org; or BIOCOM’s Director of Communications Terri Somers at tsomers@biocom.org.
Bradley Fikes, the biotechnology reporter for the North County Times, has been highlighting interesting life science companies in a similar type of blog post for several months now. He is also open to hearing from companies with an interesting technology or product in development. He can be contacted at bfikes@nctimes.com.
La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology Dedicates Diabetes Center & Discovery Wall
The La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, an international leader in immunology research and San Diego’s only research institute focused solely on immune-mediated diseases, has dedicated its new Elam Discovery Wall and Type 1 Diabetes Center, which will focus on research into novel immunological-focused approaches to type 1 diabetes.
The discovery wall, a technologically advanced and visually stunning scientific research and education tool, is being dedicated in memory of William N. Elam, Jr., M.D., a longtime family physician and stepfather of Rancho Santa Fe resident and Institute friend Kevin Keller. During the dedication event, guests were treated to powerful cellular images of type 1 diabetes activity via the Elam Discovery Wall, while speakers discussed the goals of the Institute’s new Center for type 1 diabetes research.
Led by Matthias von Herrath, M.D., one of the world’s top type 1 diabetes researchers and recipient of the American Diabetes Association’s prestigious 2008 Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award, the Center will accelerate research toward new therapies to better treat, prevent or cure type 1 diabetes. “Our mission is to be a premier center of immunological excellence in type 1 diabetes research,” said Dr. von Herrath. The Center will focus on new, immune-based approaches and is the first such immunologically focused research center for type 1 diabetes in Southern California. Dr. von Herrath said collaboration with local organizations is key to the Center’s efforts to combat type 1 diabetes.
Burnham Hires Former Metabasis CEO as Chief Business Officer
The La Jolla-based Burnham Institute for Medical Research said it has hired Paul Laikind, the co-founder of Gensia Pharmaceuticals, Viagene, and Metabasis, to be the institute’s senior vice president of business development and chief business officer. The hiring is a sign of the Burnham’s increasing emphasis on spinning out technologies, and forming deals with partners who can further develop and commercialize its ideas, said Greg Lucier, the chairman of the Burnham board of trustees, in a statement. The San Diego Business Journal covered the news.
New Consortium Led by Scripps Awarded $10 Million by NCI
The National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $10 million, five-year grant to a new physics oncology center led by Scripps Research Institute scientists.
Research at the center aims to achieve a better understanding of the behavior of cancer cells during metastasis, the spread of cancer from a primary tumor to other sites throughout the body. This understanding is directly aimed at determining more effective methods to manage cancer, a widespread health concern. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1.5 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed each year in the United States and cancer is responsible for about 23 percent of all deaths in this country, second only to heart disease.
“We are excited by the award,” said Scripps Research Professor Peter Kuhn, Ph.D., who is the principal investigator of the grant. “We hope that by uniting an outstanding translational team of scientists and clinicians in different specialties we can make rapid headway in filling in the large gaps in our knowledge about the behavior of cancer cells that circulate in the bloodstream. We hope this information will ultimately help clinicians determine who should be receiving aggressive treatments and who should not, as well as laying the groundwork for the development of novel therapeutic approaches.”
The grant was awarded under the first round of funding from a new signature initiative of the National Cancer Institute (http://physics.cancer.gov/). The initiative, conceptualized last year in a series of think tank meetings in Washington, D.C., creates a series of 12 Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers whose aim is to advance the understanding of the physical laws and principles that shape and govern the emergence and behavior of cancer.
Team of Scripps and UCSD Researchers Reveals Secrets of Drought Resistance
A team of biologists in California led by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of California San Diego has solved the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts. Understanding the inner workings of this molecule may help scientists design new ways to protect crops against prolonged dry periods, potentially improving crop yields worldwide, aiding biofuels production on marginal lands and mitigating drought’s human and economic costs.
The findings were described in the journal Science Express, an advance online issue of the prestigious journal Science, on October 22, 2009.
“This molecular structure helps explain the mechanism behind drought tolerance in plants,” said Elizabeth Getzoff, a Scripps Research scientist who led the team from Scripps Research, UC San Diego, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and UC Riverside. “We’re very excited by the findings.”
UC San Diego Researchers Receive Grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Funding for two research projects at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine are among the 76 grants announced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the third funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to help scientists around the world explore bold and largely unproven ways to improve health in developing countries. The grants were provided to scientists in 16 countries on five continents.
To receive funding, the investigators showed in a two-page application how their ideas fall outside current scientific paradigms and might lead to significant advances in global health. The initiative is highly competitive, receiving almost 3,000 proposals in this round. The two, $100,000 grants to UC San Diego will support novel research at to help develop new weapons in the fight to eradicate malaria.
Malaria, one of the leading causes of death in developing countries, is transmitted by mosquitoes in tropical areas around the globe. Each year, there are approximately 350 to 500 millions cases of malaria, killing close to one million people. Every day, malaria takes the lives of 2,000 children in Africa alone, where the most lethal form of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is found.
Consortium Receives $12.2 Million to Establish National Network of Scientists
Imagine a Web site like Facebook, but instead of using it to share videos or post quizzes like “What ’80s song are you?” scientists could scour a national network of researchers, only a few mouse clicks separating them from information needed for a scientific breakthrough.
That’s the goal of a two-year $12.2 million National Center for Research Resources grant awarded today to a group of institutions including The Scripps Research Institute. Led by the University of Florida, the consortium also includes Indiana University, Weill Cornell Medical College, Washington University at St. Louis, and the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico. The funding stems from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Scripps Research portion of the grant is more than $250,000.
During the next two years, researchers will implement a new type of networking system at the seven collaborating schools that eventually will link researchers across the country and world to like-minded peers and potential collaborators. By making it easier for scientists to find each other, the new system will help researchers improve their ongoing studies and forge collaborations that could lead to new discoveries.
“I am hopeful that implementation of the system will give our faculty a useful tool for discovering who is engaged in similar research,” said Cary Thomas, a Scripps Research senior vice president, “and that those connections will help the science.”
BrainCells Inc. Broadens Scientific Advisory Board Adding Drs. Edward Scolnick and David Holtzman
BrainCells Inc., a company leading the scientific research of neurogenesis using its proprietary neural stem cell platform technology to identify novel pathways for the treatment of central nervous system diseases, announced the appointment of Drs. Edward Scolnick from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and David Holtzman of Washington University School of Medicine to its scientific advisory board. The appointees join BrainCells’ advisory boards comprised of world-class scientists of neurogenesis and CNS disease. Existing board members represent The Salk Institute, Columbia University, Stanford University, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Scolnick is an internationally recognized thought leader in neuroscience research. He currently serves as director of the Psychiatric Disease Program and the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute, focused on identifying risk genes for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Prior to joining the Broad Institute, Dr. Scolnick spent more than 20 years with Merck in various positions including president of Merck Research Laboratories.
Holtzman is the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and Chairman of Neurology, Professor of Developmental Biology, Associate Director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, and a member of the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders at Washington University School of Medicine. His research focuses on understanding basic mechanisms underlying acute and chronic cell dysfunction in the CNS, particularly how mechanisms may relate to Alzheimer's disease and injury to the developing brain.