Daily Business Report-Nov. 5, 2020
Teams will identify innovative solutions to minimize plastic from entering the ocean and polluting specific sites.
Scripps-Rady Ocean Plastic Pollution Challenge
Applications open for solution-based
course to tackle marine pollution
By Lily Chen
The ocean is a vital part of California’s biodiversity, with 124 marine protected areas all across the state’s coast. These areas are recognized for their importance in conserving marine life and preserving cultural sites.
Rising levels of plastic pollution, however, threaten these protected habitats, and given that there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050, new strategies are needed more than ever to address this growing crisis.
The Scripps-Rady Ocean Plastic Pollution Challenge invites participants to develop effective solutions to reduce plastics entering the ocean. The challenge will emphasize the application of several strategies such as changing human behavior, evaluating solutions and data mapping. The challenge grew from a 2018 program known as the Plastic Awareness Global Initiative and focuses on spurring action. There are no fees to apply or to participate in the program. Applications are currently open and will close on Nov. 13, and a cohort of 20-25 participants will be selected.
Hosted by the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (CMBC) at Scripps Institution of Oceanographyand the Center for Social Innovation and Impact at the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego, this six-month accelerator program will take place from January to June 2021. Participants will engage in a series of short virtual courses, team research, and a final hackathon-style challenge.
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Big vote win for Uber and Lyft,
but battle unlikely to end
CalMatters
Buckle up: The battle over the future of gig work in California got a lot more intense Tuesday night, when voters approved Prop. 22 — apparently overturning a recent court ruling that ordered Uber and Lyft to reclassify their independent contractor drivers as employees in order to comply with a new state labor law. The gig-economy giants, which have battled California over the law for nearly a year, poured a record $206 million into the Yes on 22 campaign, claiming the title of the most expensive ballot campaign in U.S. history.
Jan Krueger, a part-time Lyft driver from Rancho Cordova and a member of the Yes on 22 campaign: “This vote in one of the most progressive states in the country should send a strong signal to elected leaders all over the nation. Drivers want and need to be independent.”
Art Pulaski of the California Labor Federation and a member of the No on 22 campaign: “The obscene amount of money these multibillion dollar corporations spent misleading the public doesn’t absolve them of their duty to pay drivers a living wage … or repay taxpayers for the nearly half a billion these companies have cheated from our state unemployment fund.”
The battle between California and the gig companies seems unlikely to end here. Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat and author of the labor law from which Uber and Lyft apparently won an exemption, tweeted Tuesday night, “Fighting corporate greed & unlimited spending is never easy, but we do it. Over & over & over again. And, don’t worry, I got some ideas.”
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Construction completed on
Airspace Technologies’ new offices
Design firm Ware Malcomb announced construction is complete on the new offices of Airspace Technologies located at 5909 Sea Otter Place, Suite 200 in Carlsbad. Ware Malcomb provided interior architecture and design services for the project.
The new Airspace Technologies offices are located within the Atlas at Carlsbad campus, for which Ware Malcomb previously provided architectural design services. Ware Malcomb also designed the common areas for the building concurrently with the Airspace Technologies build-out. This included the first and second floor lobbies, corridors, utilities and restrooms.
The finished 23,000 square foot interior tenant improvement project for Airspace Technologies, a technology-enabled logistics service provider, gives employees a brand new home in a creative office environment.
The general contractor for the project was Good & Roberts.
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California voters like Biden, unions not so much
By Dan Walters | CalMatters
With a turnout that smashed all records, millions of votes remain to be counted in California, but tallies so far are providing some strong themes, to wit: —The disdain of President Donald Trump as Californians gave challenger Joe Biden a victory in the state of historic proportions.
Voters favored Biden by a 2-1 margin. —Although labor unions dominate the Democratic Party, which dominates the state’s politics, they didn’t fare particularly well in high-dollar battles with corporate interests.
Labor’s most spectacular loss was passage of Proposition 22, an effort by Uber, Lyft and other app-based transportation services to exempt themselves from a new law that tightens up the definition of employment and makes contract work more difficult. The corporations spent more than $200 million to pass the measure, arguing that their drivers preferred independence and sweetening the deal with some income guarantees and fringe benefits.
Although Proposition 22 was narrowly focused, its passage indicates that the debate over the nature of 21st century employment will continue — and perhaps become even more intense with the advent of widespread at-home work due to COVID-19. —Unions are on the verge of losing another big battle, this one on Proposition 15.
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Southwest Airlines marks inaugural flight
to Honolulu from San Diego International Airport
Wednesday marked Southwest Airlines’ inaugural flight from San Diego International Airportto Honolulu, Hawaii via Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. It’s the first time
Southwest has provided daily, nonstop service from San Diego to Hawaii.
“We’ve been anticipating this route for many months and welcome Southwest’s new daily service to Honolulu,” said Kimberly Becker, San Diego County Regional Airport Authority president and CEO. “There has always been high demand for leisure travel to both San Diego and Honolulu, and with a military presence in each city, a desire to visit friends and family.”
Passengers traveling to Hawaii are encouraged to review the state’s travel policy which includes a pre-travel testing program, the Mandatory State of Hawaii Travel and Health Form, and temperature screening upon arrival. Passengers are also encouraged to review Southwest’s COVID-19 travel recommendations and procedures.
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Researchers pioneer more effective method
of blocking malaria transmission in mosquitos
By Tom Vasich and Mario Aguilera | UC San Diego
Employing a strategy known as “population modification,” which involves using a CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system to introduce genes preventing parasite transmission into mosquito chromosomes, University of California researchers have made a major advance in the use of genetic technologies to control the transmission of malaria parasites.
University of California, Irvine postdoctoral researcher Adriana Adolfi, in collaboration with colleagues at UCI, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, followed up on the group’s pioneering effort to develop CRISPR-based gene drive systems for making mosquito vectors resistant to transmitting malaria parasites by increasing gene drive effectiveness in female mosquito progeny.
“This work mitigates a big issue with the first gene drive systems, which is the accumulation of drive-resistant mosquitoes that could still transmit malaria parasites,” said UCI vector biologist Anthony James, the Donald Bren Professor of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics and Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, who was a co-primary investigator on the study.
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State Dept. clears $600 million
General Atomics-built drone sale to Taiwan
GovCon Wire
The State Department has approved Taiwan’s request to buy four General Atomics-built MQ-9B remotely piloted aircraft, related equipment and services under a potential
$600 milliion foreign military sales agreement.
The FMS deal also includes fixed and mobile ground control stations, MX-20 multispectral targeting systems and spares, embedded GPS/inertial navigation systems, SeaVue maritime multirole patrol radars and SAGE 750 electronic surveillance measures systems, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems will serve as the principal contractor on the proposed sale, which will provide Taiwan with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, anti-submarine strike and target acquisition capabilities needed to address existing and future threats.
The transaction also covers test equipment, data connections for weapons integration, personnel training, logistics and technical support and government and contractor engineering services.
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General Atomics names Anantha Krishnan
senior vice president of its Energy Group
General Atomics has selected Dr. Anantha Krishnan as senior vice president of its Energy Group. Krishnan has worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the past 15 years, with the last six years as the associate laboratory director for the Engineering Directorate.
Previously, he held leadership positions at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and CFD Research Corporation. Krishnan brings over 30 years of programmatic, R&D, and business development experience in the areas of materials and manufacturing technologies, biomedical engineering, data and computation technologies, power/energy systems, and detection/sensor systems.
GA’s Energy Group is a world leader in fusion energy research. GA operates the DIII-D National Fusion Facility for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. DIII-D is the largest magnetic fusion research facility in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world.
“Dr. Krishnan’s deep programmatic experience and decades of work in materials, energy and manufacturing research make him uniquely suited to lead GA’s energy activities,” said General Atomics CEO Neal Blue. “The Energy Group has a long history of collaboration with DOE’s national laboratory system, so Dr. Krishnan’s background makes him well-suited to this role.”
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Research study validates performance
and accuracy of Easy Check COVID-19 test
Truvian Sciences (, a health care company, unveiled the results of a first-of-its- kind research study validating the performance and accuracy of the Easy Check COVID-19 IgM/IgG antibody test. The clinical study, led by Jerry Yeo, professor of pathology at the University of Chicago, was published in The American Journal of Clinical Pathology, revealing one of the highest overall accuracy rates for SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection via lateral flow technology.
Easy Check will help address current testing gaps by providing ongoing and real-time information regarding the seroconversion status of individuals who have been infected by SARS-CoV-2, the company said. It will also allow for frequent, low-cost testing and provide key data that will enable the medical community to better estimate the number of people previously infected to inform public health measures and infection fatality rate, which is critical to vaccination development.
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Sanford Burnham Prebys awarded $4.5 million
NIH grant for mental illness therapeutics
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute has been awarded a $4.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify new therapies for mental health disorders. The research will be headed by Layton Smith, Ph.D., and Michael Jackson, Ph.D., of the Institute’s Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics. The funding supports the discovery of new classes of drugs that target “orphan” receptors to treat psychological conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and substance abuse.
The research team has identified a collection of potential new drug targets selectively expressed in the brain, and all are orphan receptors—meaning their binding partner, or ligand, is unknown.
“We will be validating these targets and developing the first ligands,” says Smith. “Our long-term goal is to advance these ligands into new classes of medicines for mental health.”
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Villa Grand Apartments sell for $19 million in El Cajon
Villa Grande Apartments, a 110-unit multi-family property in El Cajon, has sold for $19 million to an undisclosed buyer. The seller was 1360 E Madison Avenue LLC.
The Villa Grande Apartments, which total 64,900 square feet of buildings on a 4.55-acre parcel, is located at 1360 E Madison Ave. The community is comprised of one- and two-bedroom units. The property features a clubhouse, pool and spa.
Peter Scepanovic and Corey McHenry of Colliers International’s Multi-Family Advisory Team represented the buyer. Coldwell Banker Commercial represented the seller.
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Nov. 7-8 rail closure from
Solana Beach to Santa Fe Depot
The North County Transit District (NCTD) will suspend coastal rail line service between the Solana Beach COASTER Station and Santa Fe Depot during the weekend of Nov. 7-8, 2020 to support maintenance work within the railroad right-of-way of the San Dieguito River Bridge which is located near the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
Weekend COASTER service is currently suspended due to COVID-19 service reductions; however, the weekend closure will affect most Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains. The rail suspension for both passenger and freight trains will be from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, enabling passenger rail service to resume in time for the weekday morning commute.
The weekend closure, referred to as an Absolute Work Window (AWW), provides construction crews the opportunity to work safely and in an efficient manner to complete improvements and maintenance work.
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Qualcomm unveils immersive home
platform for next-generation Wi-Fi networks
Qualcomm Technologies Inc. has unveiled the Qualcomm Immersive Home Platforms, a successor to the company’s groundbreaking mesh networking platforms. Designed to deploy gigabit-speed wireless performance to every room in the home in form factors as small as the palm of the hand, these devices are cost-effective enough to target low consumer price points, the company said. “This engineering feat is achieved through a novel modular architecture approach, significant advancements in network packet processing technology and an integration of next-generation Wi-Fi 6 and 6E,” Qualcomm said in a statement.
