Daily Business Report: March 28, 2024
Will California restock its emergency reserve
of abortion pills after Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearing?
California’s emergency stockpile of abortion pills is totally depleted. But after Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing over whether to restrict medication abortion, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office says he’s still deciding whether a resupply is necessary.
Last year Newsom announced the state had purchased 250,000 abortion pills after a ruling by a federal judge out of Texas temporarily halted the availability of some medications used for abortions. The state has since distributed its entire stockpile to abortion providers, but conversations about buying more “remain ongoing,” Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for the Newsom administration, said.
“California remains ready to purchase up to another 1.75 million pills given the ongoing attacks to abortion care access happening across the country – not just at the Supreme Court,” Richards said.
Newsom and other Democratic lawmakers have previously pledged to make California a “safe haven” for abortion, signing dozens of laws strengthening abortion protections, but drug regulation is one thing they can’t touch. Richards stressed that the stockpile was to provide a “worst-case scenario backup,” in case challenges elsewhere in the country led to supply chain disruptions.
Top photo: A container with boxes of Mifepristone, a drug used for medication abortions, at the Alamo Women’s Clinic in Carbondale, Illinois on April 20, 2023. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)
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Roboticists shine at Human Robot Interaction 2024 Conference
By Katie E. Ismael | UC San Diego
University of California, San Diego robotics research– from supporting patient home care and stroke rehabilitation to facilitating mission critical teamwork among first responders– was on display during the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).
Researchers from UC San Diego’s Healthcare Robotics Lab are at the epicenter of human robot interaction and its applications in the medical field. Led by the lab’s director Laurel Riek, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the Jacobs School of Engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Emergency Medicine, the group’s groundbreaking research shined at the 19th Annual HRI conference held in Boulder, Colorado.
An impressive nine papers from the Healthcare Robotics Lab were presented at the conference, covering the technologies, clinical practicalities, and ethical considerations of implementing robotic systems into complex, socio-technical medical settings.
Riek, who has worked at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for decades, spoke at four HRI conference workshops and was keynote speaker for three of them: Scarecrows in Oz: Large Language Models in HRI; Disability Ethics, Accessibility, & Assistive Applications in HRI; and HRI for Aging in Place.
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Angela Liou, M.D., tackles pediatric brain tumors head-on
Despite improvements in treatments, survival rates among children with brain and central nervous system (CNS) cancers are decidedly mixed, ranging from close to 100 percent to almost zero five years after diagnosis. Angela Liou, M.D.,who recently joined the faculty at Sanford Burnham Prebys as a physician-scientist, is acutely aware of the numbers.
“I’m motivated by my passion for cancer research, my drive to improve care for my patients and the dismal prognosis of most malignant brain tumors despite advances in cancer treatment,” said Liou. “I have taken care of many children who have died from CNS tumors and each child instilled in me an urgency to find effective therapies.”
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How neural inhibition could reduce alcohol use
Neuroscientists at Scripps Research have found that inhibiting neurons involved in the body’s stress response may reduce alcohol consumption in people who have both post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD)—even if they still experience trauma-related anxiety.
The findings were published March 21 in Molecular Psychiatry. These discoveries are helping untangle the complex role that stress and trauma play in neurological disorders like PTSD and AUD, while also informing the development of new treatment options for people who experience both these conditions simultaneously.
“Traumatic experiences in life can increase vulnerability to alcohol drinking and exacerbate symptoms of depression and anxiety,” says senior author Marisa Roberto, the Schimmel Family Endowed Chair and vice chair of the Department of Molecular Medicine. “Alcohol is often used as a coping strategy to blur trauma-associated memories and diminish negative emotional states.”
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Suzie Alarcón honored by Girl Scouts San Diego
She’s recognized for leadership in science, business, and community service
Suzie Alarcón, Director of the Next Generation Sequencing Core at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), has been named a 2024 Cool Women honoree by Girl Scouts San Diego. This award, given to five San Diego women each year, recognizes Alarcón’s leadership in the field of genetic sequencing and immune system research. The award also celebrates Alarcón’s dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at LJI—as well as Alarcón’s role as a Girl Scout Troop Leader.
Alarcón’s Her highly skilled LJI team uses advanced sequencing equipment to uncover the roles of different immune cells in infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, allergies, and more. Alarcón is also co-founder of AUGenomics, which provides next-generation sequencing services through an independent laboratory in San Diego.
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Lytx awards top drivers and coaches for road safety
Lytx Inc., a global leader in video safety and video telematics, recognized the winners of the 2024 Driver and Coach of the Year awards and their positive influence on roadway safety. Each winner successfully implemented the Lytx Driver Safety Program, which combines industry-leading machine vision and artificial intelligence (MV+AI) technology with customizable coaching tools and reporting, to advance their fleet safety skills. Read more
Surglogs selected as compliance management software option
Surglogs, the nation’s leading regulatory and accreditation platform for health care facilities, announced its selection as the preferred provider of compliance management software for one of the largest national ambulatory surgery center (ASC) companies in the United States. With this partnership, Surglogs is set to streamline and enhance regulatory compliance processes across more than 300 ambulatory surgery centers within the ASC company’s portfolio.
Kintara Therapeutics announces expansion of REM clinical study
Kintara Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of new solid tumor cancer therapies, announced the expansion of the inclusion criteria in the open label 15- patient REM-001 study in cutaneous metastatic breast cancer to include patients receiving pembrolizumab for at least three months at screening. CMBC patients are being screened and dosed in the 15-patient study.
Aqtual to present poster at Cancer Research annual meeting
Aqtual Inc., a precision medicine company using its novel cell-free DNA platform to develop products for chronic diseases and oncology, announced that it will present a poster at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting, held April 5-10, 2024, in San Diego. Aqtual Inc. is a precision medicine company developing products for chronic disease management and oncology
Eoptolink launches optical transceiver portfolio
Eoptolink dives into Immersion cEoptolink Technology Inc. Ltd., a leading innovator and provider of advanced optical transceiver solutions, expands its product portfolio to address a new market for optical transceiver modules operated in the environments using Immersion Cooling. Eoptolink Technology Inc. Ltd., a publicly traded company in China, is a leading innovator and provider of advanced optical transceiver solutions for data center, enterprise and telecom networks.
Algenesis unveils groundbreaking biodegradation
The University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) and Algenesis Corporation, a forward-thinking material science company born from the innovative spirit of UC San Diego, announced the publication of a seminal scientific study in the fight against microplastic pollution. The study, titled “Rapid biodegradation of microplastics generated from bio-based thermoplastic polyurethan published this week in Nature’s Scientific Reports.
Firestorm Labs announcd $12.5 million in seed funding
Firestorm Labs, a California-based Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) manufacturer that is leading the charge in expeditionary additive manufacturing, has announced $12.5 million in seed investment by Lockheed Martin Ventures and prominent defense investors.
Boundless Bio announces pricing of initial public offering
Boundless Bio Inc., a clinical stage oncology company interrogating extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) biology to deliver transformative therapies to patients with previously intractable oncogene amplified cancers,announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 6,250,000 shares of its common stock at an initial public offering price of $16 per share. All of the shares are being offered by Boundless Bio.
Iambic Therapeutics announced first patient dosed in clinical study
Iambic Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing novel therapeutics using its unique AI-driven discovery platform, announced that the first patient has been dosed in its Phase 1 clinical study evaluating IAM1363, a selective and brain-penetrant inhibitor of HER2 signaling for the treatment of HER2-driven cancer. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in San Diego, California, Iambic Therapeutics is disrupting the therapeutics landscape with its unique AI-driven drug-discovery platform
Liquid Instruments brings its Moku test platform to Apple Vision Pro
Liquid Instruments, a leading innovator of reconfigurable test instrumentation, announced that its Moku platform is available for Apple Vision Pro, launching the first interactive 3D test system for optics researchers. Integrating the versatile Moku platform with a camera-based vision system helps users maximize efficiency in the lab. Combining Moku with Apple Vision Pro gives users a robust 3D mission control center for optics and photonics research.
