Daily Business Report: Friday, March 18, 2022
UC San Diego receives $7.35 million in
federal Community Project Funding
By Lauren Fimbres Wood and Jackie Carr
UC San Diego will receive $7.35 million in Community Project Funding as part of an appropriations bill approved by Congress on March 12. The one-time funds came at the request of California’s senators and members of the San Diego congressional delegation, and are designed to provide critical infrastructure, health and human services, and research resources to help the region continue on its path to post-pandemic recovery.
The funds are part of more than $100 million dollars in community project funding awarded to the San Diego region following requests from Senators Dianne Feinstein, Alex Padilla and Congressmembers Scott Peters, Juan Vargas, Mike Levin and Sara Jacobs.
One of the projects, requested by Feinstein and Padilla, will get $5.6 million to assess the full impact of the dumping of pesticide DDT and other industrial waste in a coastal dumpsite off the coast of Los Angeles. An expedition led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography in March 2021 mapped a portion of one of two known dumpsites.
PHOTO: Scripps researchers aboard the Research Vessel Sally Ride deploy the REMUS 6000 autonomous underwater vehicle to survey the seafloor for discarded barrels in March 2021. (Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
Click here for information on the other projects funded.
WD-40 Company CEO Gary Ridge, pioneer of the global
expansion of the company’s brand of products, to retire
Gary Ridge, chief architect of the WD-40 Company culture who pioneered the global expansion of the WD-40 brand of products, will retire as chief executive officer on Aug. 31, 2022, ending a 35-year career with the San Diego company.Steve Brass, who has served as the company’s president and chief operating officer since 2019, has been appointed to become Ridge’s successor, effective Sept. 1. Brass has also been appointed to serve on the company’s board of directors.
Brass held the role of division president, Americas, and chief brand officer before he was named president and chief operating officer in 2019. Brass joined the company in 1991 and has held various management positions, including European commercial director of the company’s office headquartered in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.
In his role as president and chief operating officer, Brass has been responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company’s three operating segments as well as the global coherency of its brand and digital strategies. He brings more than 30 years of leadership experience across global operations in marketing, sales, operations, and planning to his newest roles as chief executive officer and member of the board of directors.
Ridge will be bestowed with the honorary title of chairman emeritus and will continue to serve as a strategic adviser to the company in a consulting capacity until June 30, 2023.
Proposals for San Diego’s sports arena
site now headed for elimination phase
San Diego City Council members, as well as the public, will soon get to weigh in on the five development teams looking to remake the city’s sports arena site in the Midway District with thousands of apartments and a new or refashioned entertainment venue.
Proposing teams, which are battling to win a long-term ground lease for the 48-acre property currently home to Pechanga Arena, are scheduled to pitch their plans to the city’s Land Use and Housing Committee on April 21 at 1 p.m. The public forum will kickstart start a process of elimination, and serve as the most important test yet of neighborhood-defining plans that have morphed over the past few months.
Trial attorney James Crosby named
2022 Outstanding Attorney of the Year
San Diego trial attorney James (Jim) Crosby has been named the 2022 Outstanding Attorney of the Year by the San Diego County Bar Association (SDCBA) and will be honored at the association’s annual Awards Ceremony & Celebration of Community Service on May 20.
The award is presented to “an exemplary attorney who, over the course of their career: has demonstrated significant legal expertise; served as a model of civility and professionalism in the practice of law; and has made an outstanding contribution to the legal profession, the justice system, or the public.”
Crosby represents a myriad of individuals and companies in a wide variety of business disputes and litigation. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego teaching Advanced Trial Advocacy. A USD School of Law graduate, he has served as the president and member of the board of directors of the USD School of Law Alumni Association.
Crosby’s community leadership includes serving as a commissioner for the Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) Commission of the State Bar of California, serving as the president of the Bar Association of Northern San Diego County, and serving on the SDCBA Board of Directors and as the organization’s treasurer.
Illumina sues Guardant Health over
patents, trade secrets, breach of contract
genomeweb
San Diego-based Illumina on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Guardant Health with the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware for correction of inventorship, trade secret misappropriation, and breach of contract.
The sequencing technology firm is alleging that Guardant co-CEOs Helmy Eltoukhy and AmirAli Talasaz misappropriated Illumina’s confidential information and filed patent applications for their liquid biopsy startup based on Illumina’s intellectual property.
According to Illumina, Eltoukhy and Talasaz applied for patents now assigned to Guardant based on technology they developed while they were still employed by Illumina. “Eltoukhy even helped to prepare patent claims while an Illumina employee, using Illumina information and equipment to do so,” the firm wrote in its complaint.
Guardant responded in a statement, calling the suit an attempt to stifle competition and retaliate against it for registering antitrust concerns regarding Illumina’s acquisition of cancer early detection firm Grail.
After false start, tribe-owned brewing
company opens its Ocean Beach tasting room
By Brandon Hernández | San Diego Beer News
It was the second week of January. The staff had been hired and trained, the beer was stocked and the interiors had been refreshed to include a mural paying homage to the history of the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians. Valley Center-based Rincon Reservation Road Brewery’s satellite tasting room in Ocean Beach—its first-ever off-reservation location—was ready to accept visitors. And it did when the Rincon Economic Development Corporation (REDCO) invited friends and family to a private celebration the day before the venue’s slated Jan. 16 debut. But that public unveiling never took place.
“3R” Brewery’s OB location—which is on Newport Avenue in the two-room site that last housed a tasting space for Oceanside-based Belching Beaver Brewery—wasn’t able to open due to a delay in the issuance of its liquor license. The culprit in this unfortunate turn of events, as with so many things in modern-day life, was the pandemic. Staff at the local office of the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) came down with COVID-19, which severely impacted the agency’s ability to process and finalize licenses for 3R Brewery and a number of other hospitality venues and manufacturing facilities.
But after two months of waiting, REDCO has its license in-hand, quietly soft-opened late last week and has a date set for a grand opening celebration on March 26.
Teri O’Brien named partner
at Latham & Watkins’ San Diego office
Teri O’Brien has joined the Latham & Watkins’ San Diego office as a partner in the Capital Markets and Public Company Representation Practices within the Corporate Department.
O’Brien focuses her practice in all areas of corporate and securities law with a primary focus on capital markets transactions and public company representation.
O’Brien has substantial experience representing public and private companies in a wide variety of corporate transactions, including public and private debt and equity securities offerings and domestic and cross-border M&A transactions, as well as in connection with corporate governance and SEC reporting and corporate and securities compliance matters.
O’Brien has represented companies in a broad range of industries, including the life sciences and biotechnology, information technology, telecommunications, semiconductor, software, defense, financial services, and clean technology industries.
She joins Latham from Paul Hastings LLP. She received her JD from the University of San Diego School of Law and BS from San Diego State University.
As gas prices soar, residents turn to transit for relief
With gas prices hitting record highs and no end in sight, more and more San Diego residents are turning to transit to find relief. The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) has seen a significant spike in transit ridership in recent months, and even more so in recent weeks as gas prices continue to soar.
“MTS was budgeting for an 11 percent increase in ridership over last fiscal year. Our new estimates show ridership will jump 45 percent over the previous year,” said Sharon Cooney, MTS chief executive officer. “We still have room to grow to get back to pre-pandemic levels, but these are great indicators. This sustained growth coupled with recent ridership spikes prove that people are motivated to save money, and still know that transit is a safe and affordable way to get around.”
MTS has developed a dedicated webpage with a commute calculator for those interested in learning about the cost of driving alone vs. taking transit. The calculator factors in information such as commuting miles, estimated miles per gallon, parking costs, number of days commuting and price per gallon of fuel. The agency has also launched digital advertisements to educate commuters about the costs of driving vs. taking transit.
University of San Diego to continue ‘test free’
admissions policy for 2023 admission cycle
After enrolling one of the most academically qualified and most diverse first year classes in its history, the University of San Diego (USD) will continue its “test free” admissions policy for the 2023 admissions cycle. Under this policy, admissions staff do not consider SAT or ACT test scores during the admissions selection process.
USD reviewed data related to student success for the first entering class to be admitted without test scores and found no evidence that the first year students performed any differently than previous classes.
“These students experienced extraordinary disruptions during their high school career,” said Steve Pultz, assistant vice president for enrollment. “However, after reviewing the available student success data, there was no reason to think that having had a test score would have made any difference in the admissions decisions we made.”
Adult congenital heart disease care
now accredited at UC San Diego Health
In recognition of its multidisciplinary approach to treating adults with congenital heart disease, the Adult Congenital Heart Disease program at UC San Diego Health has received accreditation from the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA) as a comprehensive care center, a first for San Diego.
As the name implies, congenital heart disease is present at birth, caused by a malformation of the baby’s heart while still in utero. Defects can involve the valves within the heart, the interior walls of the organ or the veins and arteries associated with the heart. The majority of babies born with congenital heart disease require multiple operations during childhood to ensure survival and the chance to reach adulthood.
Patients with congenital heart disease require specialized adult cardiac care to address complex health needs throughout their lives. The Adult Congenital Heart Disease program
is the only one of its kind south of Los Angeles. It features a multidisciplinary team of cardiologists, surgeons, congenital interventional cardiologists, imaging specialists, anesthesiologists, nurses, and social workers. The team also collaborates with cardiologists across the county.
Tricking the body to treat breast cancer
With the help of two new grants from the National Institutes of Health totaling more than $4.4 million, Sanford Burnham Prebys Assistant Professor Charles Spruck and his team are refining a cutting-edge breast cancer treatment. The new approach, known as viral mimicry, tricks the body into thinking that it has a viral infection, stimulating immune responses that can help the body fight cancer and improve the effects of other treatments.
“Modern cancer treatment relies on using multiple treatment strategies to minimize the risk of resistance, so the beauty here is that while we’ve found that our approach has anti-tumor properties when used alone, it also has the potential to work synergistically with other treatments,” says Spruck. “Fortunately, it is cancer-specific, so unlike chemotherapy, this treatment won’t harm healthy cells, thus also limiting adverse side effects.”
Simplifying RNA editing for treating genetic diseases
New research led by bioengineers at the University of California San Diego could make it much simpler to repair disease-causing mutations in RNA without compromising precision or efficiency. The new RNA editing technology holds promise as a gene therapy for treating genetic diseases. In a proof of concept, UC San Diego researchers showed that the technology can treat a mouse model of Hurler syndrome, a rare genetic disease, by correcting its disease-causing mutation in RNA. The findings are published Feb. 10 in Nature Biotechnology.
What’s special about the technology is that it makes efficient use of RNA editing enzymes that naturally occur in the body’s cells. These enzymes are called adenosine deaminases acting on RNA (ADARs). They bind to RNA and convert some of the adenosine (A) bases to inosine (I), which is read by the cell’s translation machinery as guanosine (G).
Researchers have been exploring RNA editing approaches with ADARs to correct the G-to-A mutation behind genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis, Rett syndrome and Hurler syndrome. A big advantage of RNA editing—over DNA editing, for example—is that changes to RNA are only temporary, since RNA has a short lifespan. So even if off-target edits occur, they wouldn’t be there to stay.
