Daily Business Report-Sept. 18, 2020
Photo courtesy of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute
Scientists receive $11.4 million
grant to advance drug candidate
for nicotine addiction
Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, Camino Pharma, LLC and University of California San Diego School of Medicine have been awarded an $11.4 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance a novel drug candidate for nicotine addiction into first-in-human Phase 1 studies.
The drug targets a neuronal signaling pathway underlying addictive behaviors, and would be a first-in-class medication to help people quit smoking.
“Smoking continues to be a major public health threat and there is a great need for new and effective smoking-cessation treatments. Existing FDA-approved therapies for nicotine addiction work less than 30 percent of the time in the long term, and it is common to relapse after quitting,” says principal investigator Nicholas Cosford, deputy director of Sanford Burnham Prebys’ National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center and co-founder of Camino Pharma. “We are optimistic that our drug, SBP-9330, will help more people quit smoking for good—and we may be able to broaden the indication to other types of addiction, such as cocaine, opioid or methamphetamine dependency, as we move forward.”
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Large-scale study from Fitbit users
finds adults with obesity sleep less
Obese adults sleep an average of 15 minutes less per night than those who are not obese, according to a new study of anonymized data from more than 100,000 Fitbit users conducted by scientists at the Scripps Research Translational Institute and UC San Diego.
The landmark sleep study adds to a growing base of scientific evidence on the relationship between sleep and obesity. And although the retrospective study could not establish causal connections, its results are consistent with other findings that suggest insufficient sleep and obesity make up a vicious cycle: inadequate sleep promotes obesity, while obesity tends to worsen sleep quality.
The scientists, whose findings appear September 14 in JAMA Internal Medicine, examined de-identified data from 120,522 Fitbit users, covering a median of 256 nights per user. They found that people with a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or more—the clinical definition of obesity—slept 6.62 hours per night on average, about 15 minutes less than the average 6.87 hours per night for those with a BMI under 30.
The study also hints that consistent sleeping patterns might be as important as sleeping longer. The high-BMI Fitbit users tended to not only sleep less than the lower-BMI group, but also had slightly more night-to-night variation in their sleep.
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Salk leads research institutions
to study cellular aging in humans
The Salk Institute will establish a world-class San Diego Nathan Shock Center (SD-NSC), a consortium with Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego), to study cellular and tissue aging in humans. The center will be funded by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health expected to total $5 million over the next five years.
Salk Professor Gerald Shadel led the successful grant proposal and will be director of the center. Professors Rusty Gage, Martin Hetzerand Tatyana Sharpee of Salk, Malene Hansen and Peter Adams of Sanford Burnham Prebys, and Anthony Molina of UC San Diego will lead the key research and development cores.
“We are grateful to have this opportunity to establish the San Diego Nathan Shock Center, which will allow us to design novel models to study networks and pathways related to aging,” said Salk President Rusty Gage, holder of the Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disease. “Our hope is to identify key drivers of aging and find new ways to increase the number of healthy years, or health span, of humans.”
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Study: T cells take lead in
controlling SARS-CoV-2
Ever since SARS-CoV-2 first appeared, researchers have been trying to understand whether sometimes the immune system does more harm than good during the acute phase of COVID-19. The latest study by researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology clearly argues in favor of the immune system.
Their work, published in the Sept. 16, 2020 online issue of Cell, confirms that a multi-layered, virus-specific immune response is important for controlling the virus during the acute phase of the infection and reducing COVID-19 disease severity, with the bulk of the evidence pointing to a much bigger role for T cells than antibodies. A weak or uncoordinated immune response, on the other hand, predicts a poor disease outcome. The findings suggest that vaccine candidates should aim to elicit a broad immune response that include antibodies, helper and killer T cells to ensure protective immunity.
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Endera delivers 18 all-electric
passenger shuttles to ACE
for use at San Diego airport
Endera, a technology company specializing in commercial electric vehicles, charging stations and software solutions, has delivered 18 all-electric passenger shuttles to ACE Parking, for use at the San Diego International Airport.
By the end of 2020, the entire 29 all-electric vehicles will be delivered, making it the nation’s largest deployment of an all-electric fleet at a U.S. airport.
ACE Parking, manager of the airport’s shuttle fleet, purchased 29 all-electric shuttle buses to convert the existing LPG (liquified petroleum gas) and CNG (compressed natural gas) fleet to all-electric, achieving sustainability goals of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority and their longtime operating partner, ACE Parking. Sixteen of the vehicles within the fleet will be large, high occupancy shuttles based on the Ford F-550 platform, which are the first of their kind to be electrified.
The all-electric buses are using a lightweight composite body, built by Diamond Coach, that maximizes range efficiency over other traditional, steel and aluminum designs. Utilizing a Lightning Systems’ electric drive train, the EV shuttles can achieve up to 130 miles of range on a fully-packed 26 passenger bus and can charge in as little as two hours and 15 minutes, making it the most efficient shuttle of its size on the market in the U.S.
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Diomics announces agreement
with Defense Department
on transdermal skin patch
Diomics, a San Diego-based biotech company, has been awarded a $2.12 million
Medical Technology Enterprise Agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to accelerate development and testing of its Diocheck SARS-CoV-2 Visual Immune Response Indicator, a transdermal skin patch that monitors and reports when the wearer’s body has mounted an immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
A change in skin color visible through the patch indicates that the person has either recently been exposed to the virus and should get tested and quarantine, or has recovered from a previous coronavirus infection and may still retain immunity. The patch begins to detect an immune response within 24 to 36 hours of application and is expected to effectively monitor for up to 14 days.
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Grossmont College marking
42nd anniversary
of PSA Flight 182 crash
The 42nd anniversary of the PSA Flight 182 crash in San Diego that killed 144 people and transformed North Park into a swath of wreckage and carnage will be remembered Sept. 25 with an online commemoration by Grossmont College’s history department.
Organized by history instructor Marty Ennis, the 1 p.m. free Zoom event will include a lecture, video clips and discussion about the still ongoing campaign for an official memorial honoring crash victims.
“There are still many surviving family members and friends of the victims who experience the loss caused by this tragedy,” said Ennis, who has been putting on annual presentations at Grossmont College for the last several years, but is limiting it to a virtual event this year because of the pandemic.
“First responders experienced a scene unlike anything they had ever encountered and worked under extreme conditions to provide emergency aid, put out fires, and move people to safety,” he said, noting that what was at the time the deadliest air crash in the country represents an important chapter in local history.
Pacific Southwest Airlines was based in San Diego and many aboard the doomed flight were PSA workers.
“There are still many surviving family members and friends of the victims who experience the loss caused by this tragedy,” Ennis said. “Many students and faculty at St. Augustine High School saw the crash and the gymnasium of the school became a makeshift morgue.”
Even more than four decades later the tragedy still stirs heart-wrenching memories and deep emotion on the part of a group dedicated to the creation of a memorial to crash victims. The Sept. 25, 1978 mid-air crash of a Boeing 727 and a Cessna killed all 135 people aboard the commercial jetliner, along with two in the private plane and seven people in houses. Nearly two dozen homes were damaged or destroyed and nine other victims on the ground were injured. The crash prompted changes improving airline safety.
The Zoom link for the event is https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/92240500494
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Major surveillance testing plan
launched at SDSU with county
Every single student living on campus is able — and now required — to get tested under an expanded model San Diego State University is launching in partnership with the San Diego Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA).
The COVID-19 Surveillance Testing Plan officially launched on Wednesday, focusing on undergraduate students living in on campus housing. The plan to test just over 2,400 students within several days will then lead to a surveillance model for ongoing testing with students selected at random, moving forward.
“As we have said since early spring when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, we must remain vigilant and identify new and different ways to protect ourselves and our communities, especially as we are learning more about the virus and its interactions with our local community context,” said SDSU President Adela de la Torre.
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New mural by local artist debuts at
San Diego International Airport
The Arts Program at San Diego International Airport is debuting the latest work of art in its Admiral Boland Way mural series, Plein Air Port by local artist Aaron Glasson.
The 144-foot-long piece combines imagery of San Diego’s varied landscape and unique airport architecture, blended with bold abstraction. The work is scheduled to remain on display through 2021 and accessible to the public from the airport’s interior roadway, Admiral Boland Way, between Palm and Sassafras streets.
Aaron Glasson is a multi-disciplinary artist from New Zealand currently living in San Diego. He has completed large-scale permanent and temporary murals around the globe from Denver, Colo. to Delhi, India. When developing work, Glasson’s process is to have an extended engagement with an artwork’s site to draw inspiration from its ecosystem, people, and history.
While developing his design for the airport, he created Plein Air Port paintings at the airport prior to the pandemic, giving the traveling public the chance to observe his creative process.
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SDSU’s international business
program gets a top-10 ranking
San Diego State University is on an upswing in U.S. News & World Report’s latest rankings of the nation’s best colleges, with a top-10 ranking for its international business program.
Released Monday, the 2021 Best Colleges rankings place SDSU at No. 65 among public universities, up from No. 68 last year, and at No. 143 among national universities, up from No. 147.
Compared with the publication’s Best Colleges lists for 2013, SDSU has risen 25 spots from its position for public universities, and is up 22 spots among national universities. (Both 2021 rankings place SDSU in a tie with other institutions.)
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Publication ranks UC San Diego 8th
best public university in nation
The U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges Guidebook ranks the University of California San Diego the nation’s 8th best public university, up two spots compared to last year. The school also ranks 15th among the best colleges for veterans for participating in federal initiatives helping veterans and active-duty service members pay for their degrees.
Overall, the publication rates the university 35th best among private and public colleges in the nation. U.S. News also touts the campus’ Jacobs School of Engineering, which is named 22nd among public engineering schools that offer doctorates. Programs within the school that rank in the nation’s top 10 include biocomputing/bioinformatics/biotechnology (2nd) biomedical (8th) and cybersecurity (9th).