Daily Business Report-Feb. 2, 2017
The 2017 National Model Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Program Award (Credit: USASBE)
SDSU Undergraduate Entrepreneur
Program Named National Model
SDSU NewsCenter
San Diego State University has been named the National Model Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Program for 2017 by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
The award was presented at the association’s annual meeting last month to Alex DeNoble, executive director of the university’s Lavin Entrepreneurship Center in the Fowler College of Business.
“Entrepreneurship is an important part of the business education experience for many SDSU students,” said George Belch, interim dean of SDSU’s Fowler College of Business. “Our entrepreneurship program is designed to ensure that our students learn what it takes to start and sustain a successful business. We also give them the tools to explore their own ideas and put their creativity into practice.”
SDSU also offers an entrepreneurship minor and its startup incubator, the Zahn Innovation Platform Launchpad, has helped launch dozens of companies.
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Researchers Announce New Drug Class
That Hits Multiple Cancer Cell Targets
San Diego researchers announced a potential new class of anti-cancer drugs that can attack two or more molecular targets at once, leading to a completely different mode of drug discovery.
“Most anti-cancer drugs have a single target. They try to do one thing, such as block a single receptor or signaling pathway,” said study co-senior author Donald L. Durden, professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and associate director for pediatric oncology at Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health. “This paper is proof-of-concept of a completely different mode of drug discovery clearly separated from the standard practice of one drug, one target.”
The findings were in a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center, in collaboration with colleagues at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, the University of Colorado School of Medicine and SignalRx, a San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company.
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Nominations Sought for Pinnacle
Awards Honoring Women in Technology
Athena, a San Diego business organization championing women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, is seeking nominations for its 19th annual Pinnacle Awards.
The Pinnacle Awards recognize people, companies and organizations that personify Athena’s mission of fostering the personal and professional growth of women through mentoring, education, recognition and leadership training.
The awards are presented in seven categories:
Life Sciences
Technology
Services
Education
Company/Organization
Biotech Startup of the Year
Tech Startup of the Year
Winners will be announced May 4 at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla with Qualcomm as title sponsor and both Sony and Alexandria Real Estate Equities as presenting sponsors.
Details on the event and the nomination form are at http://www.athenasd.org/nominate.
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Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever?
Not so Fast, According to Salk Research
The last time you had a stomach bug, you probably didn’t feel much like eating. This loss of appetite is part of your body’s normal response to an illness but is not well understood. Sometimes eating less during illness promotes a faster recovery, but other times — such as when cancer patients experience wasting — the loss of appetite can be deadly.
Now, research from the Salk Institute shows how bacteria block the appetite loss response in their host to both make the host healthier and also promote the bacteria’s transmission to other hosts. This surprising discovery, published in the journal Cell on Jan. 26, reveals a link between appetite and infection and could have implications in treating infectious diseases, infection transmission and appetite loss associated with illness, aging, inflammation or medical interventions (like chemotherapy).
“It’s long been known that infections cause loss of appetite but the function of that, if any, is only beginning to be understood,” says Janelle Ayres, assistant professor at Salk Institute’s Noms Foundation Laboratories for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis.
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Cal State San Marcos Nursing
Program Ranked 12th in State
The nursing program at California State University San Marcos has been ranked 12th in the state by RegisteredNursing.org.
RegisteredNursing.org ranked the programs at 127 colleges and universities throughout California by assessing factors that represent how well a program supports students toward licensure and beyond.
“CSUSM’s School of Nursing has excellent baccalaureate and masters programs and we are honored to receive this external validation of the work being done by our students, faculty and staff,” said Denise Boren, director of the School of Nursing.
CSUSM’s nursing programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education. The National Council Licensure Examination pass rate of the university’s students is 95 percent. The exam is a standardized exam that each state board of nursing uses to determine whether a candidate is prepared for entry-level nursing practice.
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Wed-Tech Startup Aisle Planner Closes
First Round of Funding with Lighter Capital
San Diego-based Aisle Planner, an event and wedding management platform, announced it has closed its first round of funding with Seattle-based Lighter Capital. The deal comes as Aisle Planner ended 2016 on a high note, seeing an impressive 300 percent growth in both revenue and users, fueled in large part by the recent globalization of the platform and the expansion of its core services to include a variety of business management tools. The funding from Lighter Capital will be used to expand the Aisle Planner team, accelerate development and to drive sales and marketing.
“We’ve built a sound and sustainable business that brings tremendous value to our customers and the clients they service,” says Christina Farrow, co-Founder and president of Aisle Planner. “We’ve been deliberate in what we’ve set out to build – an all encompassing suite of tools that empowers the thousands of small to medium sized businesses that make up the bulk of the wedding and events industry.”
Prior to starting Aisle Planner, Farrow owned a Hawaii-based luxury wedding planning firm for 17 years.
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Prostate Center of San Diego Opens in La Jolla
The Prostate Center of San Diego has opened its doors in La Jolla, bringing to the San Diego market a new treatment option for patients choosing “active surveillance” for their prostate cancer due to the high risk of side effects typically associated with prostate surgery.
The treatment allows patients to take a more proactive approach to their cancer diagnosis while also preserving quality of life, according to center officials.
The Prostate Center brings together a multidisciplinary team of physicians, scientists and engineers to offer prostate cancer patients a third treatment option – a procedure known as irreversible electroporation (IRE) or NanoKnife, which was adapted for the treatment of prostate cancer by Dr. Michael Stehling of the Prostata Center in Offenbach, Germany.
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Wilson Turner Kosmo Attorneys Elected to Bar Posts
Three associate attorneys with Wilson Turner Kosmo LLP have been elected to leadership roles on the 2017 board of directors of the San Diego chapter of the Federal Bar Association. Krystal Weaver has been elected president of the organization, Carolina Bravo-Karimi as president-elect and Morgan Suder as vice president of public relations.
Weaver is a member of Wilson Turner Kosmo’s Business Litigation, Employment Law and Products Liability practice groups. Prior to joining the firm, Weaver served as a law clerk to the Honorable Anthony J. Battaglia, District Judge in the Southern District of California for two years.
Bravo-Karimi is a member of the firm’s Employment Law group. Her practice is focused on representing employers in a variety of employment disputes, including wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment and wage and hour litigation.
Suder is also a member of the firm’s Employment Law group. Prior to joining Wilson Turner Kosmo, Suder externed for the Honorable Anthony J. Battaglia and the Honorable J. Michael Seabright in the District of Hawaii. She also clerked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego.
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Personnel Announcements
Aubrey Haddach Joins Dinsmore & Shohl LLP
Aubrey Haddach has joined Dinsmore & Shohl LLP to enhance its intellectual property practice. Haddach has extensive experience in all aspects of patent law and related business matters and helps clients protect, patent and commercialize inventions, particularly in the life sciences.Her patent litigation experience runs the gamut from pre-litigation investigations through discovery, motion practice, trial and appeals to the Federal Circuit.
Haddach’s technical knowledge encompasses pharmaceutical, medical device, agrochemical, clean tech and oil/gas industries. She also manages global patent portfolios and prepares, files and prosecutes domestic and foreign patent applications. Haddach earned her J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law.
CaseyGerry Adds Ethan Litney to Legal Team
CaseyGerry, a San Diego-based plaintiffs law firm, has announced the addition of Ethan Litney to its growing legal team. As the firm’s newest associate attorney, Litney will work with CaseyGerry’s complex litigation team with a focus on class actions, mass torts and complex pharmaceutical litigation.
Most recently an attorney with R. Rex Parris Law Firm in Lancaster, Calif., where he represented over 7,000 individuals affected by the Porter Ranch gas leak, the largest natural gas leak in U.S. history, Litney has focused his practice exclusively on complex litigation, including class actions and mass torts.
Litney is a member of the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego, the Consumer Attorneys of California, the San Diego County Bar Association and the American Bar Association. He earned his J.D. from U.C. Davis, and holds bachelors’ degrees in both political science and philosophy from U.C. Santa Cruz.
James Connelly Joins SGPA Architecture and Planning
SGPA Architecture and Planning has hired James Connelly as its new director of retail for its San Diego office.
Connelly ha over 30 years of project experience with hundreds of retail and mixed-use developments across the West.
As the director of retail, Connelly will oversee development projects with significant retail components for SGPA’s San Diego office. He is a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers and a California registered architect.
