Daily Business Report: Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022
San Diego State University sets new
record for students seeking admission
San Diego State University has set a new record for the number of students seeking admission to the university, receiving 76,792 first-year undergraduate applications for fall 2022 — the highest number ever.
This total includes students from all 50 states — with a record number of first-time applicants from California — as well as 74 countries at a time when many universities across the nation are reporting declines in admissions during the pandemic. Including both first-year and transfer students, the university has received 99,027 undergraduate applications, another record.
“This is an incredibly positive testament to the resilience of students and their families, as well as the value they place on higher education,” said SDSU President Adela de la Torre. “A record number of San Diegans, Californians, and students everywhere see SDSU as their pathway for a brighter future.”
SDSU has also received more than 7,000 graduate applications to date, bringing total applications to more than 106,000. Total applications are on track to set a new university record.
TOP PHOTO: Students with facial coverings walk across campus. (Credit: SDSU)
Illumina partners with Agendia to expand
genomic testing in breast cancer care
Illumina Inc. announced a multi-year partnership with Agendia N.V., a world leader in precision oncology for breast cancer, to co-develop in vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests for oncology testing.
The partnership is intended to advance the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) for decentralized oncology testing and aligns with Illumina’s approach to IVD partnerships in oncology. Agendia joins Illumina’s growing portfolio of more than 30 IVD partners developing over 40 sequencing-based solutions for cancer prognosis, therapy selection and other applications.
Illumina and Agendia plan to develop new tests to enhance the care and management of breast cancer patients, utilizing the Illumina MiSeq™Dx sequencing platform to expand the range of gene panels available for solid tumor analysis.
Sanford Burnham Prebys researchers awarded
$3.6 million to study antibiotic resistance
Sanford Burnham Prebys professor Andrei Osterman has been awarded a $3.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to expand current knowledge of antibiotic resistance, which will inform more precise antibiotic prescribing practices and help researchers develop drugs that are harder for bacteria to resist.
Antibiotic resistance is responsible for at least 700,000 deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization. This number is expected to increase in the coming decades, making antibiotic resistance a growing and pressing threat to public health.
“The emergence of antibiotic resistance is inevitable for any single drug, new or old. It’s only a question of time,” says Osterman. “But how much time is different for every drug and every microbe, so studying when and how resistance to antibiotics evolves gives us powerful information for improving antibiotic treatment.”
Longtime real estate investment executive
launches Elevation Land Company here
Brig Black, who founded and successfully led Lincoln Property Company’s San Diego regional office for more than nine years, has launched the commercial property investment firm Elevation Land Company.
Elevation Land Company is an entrepreneurial venture that seeks to acquire investment properties in California and high-growth markets in the Southwest and Mountain West regions.
The company looks to use its expertise in enhancing those assets through entitlement, development, capital improvements, capital stack restructuring and superior leasing and management.
The company has formed a strategic joint venture with long-time relationship partner Artemis Real Estate Partners. Elevation Land Company will co-invest alongside Artemis, targeting value-add acquisitions of industrial, life science and R&D buildings, as well as land aggregation for future development.
The joint venture will target deals ranging in size from $30 million to $150 million in total cost.
Black has more than 24 years of experience in the real estate industry and successfully invested, developed, leased and managed $2 billion worth of commercial real estate properties. His previous experience also includes 12 years as a partner at The Shidler Group.
Your San Diego Gas & Electric
bill just got more expensive
If you’re getting a jolt after looking at your monthly San Diego Gas & Electric bill, you’re not alone.
SDG&E rolled out higher rates in January and many customers have seen their statements jump more than 10 percent compared to one month ago. Utility officials attribute the increases to a host of reasons, including higher natural gas prices seen throughout the country.
SDG&E officials say the class average electric rate for residential customers rose 7.8 percent, from 32 cents per kilowatt-hour to 34.5 cents.
NASA to deploy SpaceX resupply craft
from International Space Station
NASA is deploying a SpaceX Dragon resupply craft from the International Space Station on Friday, Jan. 21, bringing with it scientific experiments fostered in the station’s microgravity environment.
The spacecraft will touch down off the coast of Florida, so as to enable the expeditious transport of the experimental cargo to NASA’s Space Station Processing Facility at the agency’s Florida-based Kennedy Space Center.
Doing so will expose the experiments to a minimal amount of Earth’s gravity, aiding the data collection process.
At 10:40 a.m. on Friday, Dragon will undock from the space-facing port of ISS’s Harmony module and fire its thrusters to create ample distance between itself and the launch site. After a deorbit burn, the craft is scheduled to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, and make a splashdown via parachute at approximately 4:25 p.m. on Saturday, Jan 22.
There will be an estimated 4,900+ pounds of supplies and scientific investigations onboard the spacecraft. Notably among them is the Light Microscopy Module (LMM), a light imaging microscope that has been on the station for 12 years doing colloid research, plant studies and thermophysics experiments.
Santos Vera named the new executive director
of the Imperial Beach Community Clinic
Health Center Partners (HCP) of Southern California announced the appointment of Santos Vera as the new chief executive officer of Imperial Beach Community Clinic (IBCC), a member organization of HCP that serves communities in San Diego’s South Bay region. Santos succeeds Connie Kirk, who retired after more than three decades in leadership at IBCC.
Santos brings extensive experience in leading large community health centers and academic systems to his role at IBCC. He will oversee the strategic direction and ensure a “patient first” philosophy of health care is delivered to every patient IBCC serves.
Santos brings over 25 years of mission-driven experience to the IBCC team, with notable expertise in managing the operations of safety-net health centers and improving the public health system. Prior to joining IBCC, he served as the executive vice president for Avenue 360 Health and Wellness in Houston, Texas, where he led the planning and execution of services in urban and rural communities across the third largest county in the U.S.
Previously, in California, Santos served as the executive director for Solana County Medical Services, a large academic safety-net Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), overseeing the day-to-day operations of the health system.
General Atomics and Boeing team to develop
laser weapon system for U.S. Army
A General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and Boeing team has been awarded a U.S. Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office contract to develop a 300kW-class solid state Distributed Gain High Energy Laser Weapon System. Delivery will be a 300 kW-class distributed gain laser with an integrated Boeing beam director. The objective of this contract is a demonstration of the design.
The partnership combines both companies’ expertise in Directed Energy to deliver best-in-class, combat-ready protection for the warfighter with unmatched speed, performance, safety and affordability.
Specifically, the system will leverage GA-EMS’ scalable Distributed Gain Laser technology with Boeing’s beam director and precision acquisition, tracking and pointing software to provide a complete demonstrator with sophisticated laser and beam control.
Immune cells in arteries can ‘sniff’ out
surroundings and cause inflammation
An artery is not like a nose. Or is it? Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) have discovered that immune cells in arteries can “sniff” out their surroundings and cause inflammation.
“Smelly molecules can be pro-inflammatory,” says study leader LJI Professor Klaus Ley, M.D., a member of the LJI Center for Autoimmunity and Inflammation.
The new study, published in Science, shows that this inflammation can lead to cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis in mice. The researchers reversed this inflammation by blocking immune cells called macrophages from sensing a compound called octanal.
Everyone has a small amount of octanal in their blood, but LJI scientists have shown that people with markers of cardiovascular disease, such as high LDL cholesterol, also have higher levels of octanal. This extra octanal can end up in blood due to diet or a phenomenon in cells called oxidative stress.
The human nose is already good at smelling octanal. Ley describes it as a warmed-over chicken kind of odor. “Like chicken that is not so nice anymore,” he says.
North County police under fire
for sharing license plate data
Three North County police departments have been allegedly violating state law by sharing information from license plate readers with out-of-state police forces, according to an investigation by inewsource.
The publication reported on Jan. 6 the police departments in the cities of Carlsbad, Escondido and Oceanside have been sharing data with law enforcement agencies nationwide, although state law only allows for agencies in California to share with each other.
Police in La Mesa and Coronado also were found to allegedly have violated state laws, according to inewsource
Carlsbad officials blast Oceanside’s
sand replenishment plans
A battle over sand is brewing between the neighboring cities of Oceanside and Carlsbad.
During its Jan. 11 meeting, the Carlsbad City Council approved a resolution opposing the City of Oceanside’s plan to construct four groins and a sand bypass system designed to minimize sand loss at the city’s beaches.
Hundreds of residents, mostly from Oceanside, either wrote letters or called into the meeting urging Carlsbad officials to work collaboratively with their neighbors to the north, despite the Oceanside City Council approving a pilot program without first contacting any other coastal city.
Oceanside has been struggling with beach erosion for nearly 80 years following the construction of Camp Pendleton’s harbor in 1942, and sand nourishment projects alone have not been helping to keep sand on the beach.
Kyle Lancaster, Carlsbad’s director of parks and recreation, said Oceanside experiences a loss of sand between 100,000 to 200,000-cubic yards each year.
