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DECEMBER 2013
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Dear Colleagues and Friends, This year, IPIRA celebrated increased licensing activity and some wildly popular new programs – among which include our oversubscribed SBIR workshops, inventor office hours and our most recent software/copyright licensing and commercialization conference – both in response to your valuable feedback as well as IPIRA's mission to empower Berkeley's incredible innovators and to further advance even more research projects to market. As we near the end of 2013, we would like to thank our entire community for making our growth a smashing success.
In celebration of the holidays, we are offering our students deeply discounted tickets to The 2014 Personalized Medicine World Conference (PMWC), though Friday December 27! PMWC brings together business, government and technology thought-leaders from Stanford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UCSF, Genentech, Merck, Novartis, Baxter, Celgene, Life Technologies, EMC, Oracle, Aetna and more in a two-day conference to tackle the advances and challenges of Personalized Medicine.
IN THIS ISSUE
License, Sponsor Berkeley Research Tools for Entrepreneurs, Researchers Office + Portfolio News Affiliate News Events
We have many new and exciting programs in the works, and we look forward to reconnecting with you all in 2014! All the best, Your IPIRA team
License or Sponsor a UC Berkeley Research New Berkeley technologies available for license or collaboration: Patent Pending Programmable photoactuators and motors based on carbon nanotubes with tuned chirality distributions. Read More NiO nanoparticle synthesis and solutionprocessed NiO thin film. Read More Porous organic polymers for cooperative ammonia adsorption. Read More Piezoelectric voltage transformer for low voltage transistors. Read More Automated twodimensional electrophoresis in microfluidic chamber. Read More Hydrogenfree amorphous silicon with no tunneling states. Read More Combined blockade of VEGFR3 and VLA1 to improve corneal and other tissue/organ transplant survival. Read More High throughput DNA topology assay. Read More Trending Light responsive hydrogel actuators. Read More Viscous liquid extruder for 3D printing. Read More Virus based biomimetic colorimetric sensor. Read More
View All University of California, Berkeley Technologies Tools for Entrepreneurs and Researchers 2013 TechBridge Challenge – microgrids R&D and validation awards available for innovative microgrid solutions (sponsored by the Shell GameChanger program) The 2013 TechBridge Challenge is seeking innovative hardware and software proposals for microgrid
operation. TechBridge – a program within the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE) – will award select startups technology validation and development services, such as prototyping help or field demonstration, valued at more than $25,000. Over the past three years, over 20 cleantech startups have been awarded approximately $400,000 in services through TechBridge. These startups have subsequently raised over $40 million in follow-on funding from a variety of sources. The application deadline is January 15, 2014.
France-Berkeley Fund (FBF) annual grant competition The Fund provides seed-money for innovative, bi-national collaborative research. Successful projects bring together senior and junior researchers in a variety of ways, from workshops and conferences to exchanges of researchers in laboratories. Open to applicants from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory only. The application deadline is January 21, 2014.
NIH announces six funding opportunities for the BRAIN Initiative in fiscal 2014 The opportunities announced focus on developing tools and technologies for advancing the understanding of brain circuitry – high priority areas identified by the NIH Advisory Committee. Awards are expected to be announced in September 2014 and will constitute NIH’s initial investment of $40 million in the initiative.
QB3 Start Up in a Box QB3 is dedicated to helping Berkeley scientific entrepreneurs launch successful startups. Candidates are evaluated by their their project's commercial potential and will be mentored to apply for an SBIR grant within a month. Services cover selection of the form of business organization, help with setting up the initial capital structure (vesting schedule and issuance of shares), registration with appropriate authorities, standard legal documents (NDA, consulting, employment, and SAB agreements, etc.), preliminary review of IP position, SBIR application workshop, and pitch deck workshop.
Use Pivot to access a comprehensive list of funding opportunities Pivot combines the most comprehensive, editorially maintained database of funding opportunities worth an estimated $33 billion with a unique database of 3 million scholar profiles. Take advantage of Berkeley's access to Pivot, get started today to receive funding alerts and find research collaborators.
Office + Portfolio News Amyris continues successful commercialization Amyris announced that the number of São Paulo city buses using Amyris Renewable Diesel, branded locally as Diesel de Cana, has increased to 400. Separately, Amyris has successfully produced its first fragrance oil for its partner Firmenich SA, a leading global flavors and fragrances company. (12/17)
James Allison awarded $3 million 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences sponsored by Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Jack Ma, Yuri Milner, Anne Wojcicki, and others James Allison was recognized for the discovery of T cell checkpoint blockade as effective cancer therapy. His research in the 1990s at Berkeley led to the clinical development of ipilimumab (Yervoy), which was fasttrack approved in 2011 by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. (12/13) IPIRA managed the patenting process and eventual commercialization through NeXstar Pharmaceuticals / Gilead Sciences and Medarex / BristolMyers Squibb, generating $87.5 million upfront royalties directed towards UC Berkeley scientific research needs. Such funding paid for new undergrad biology teaching labs, improvements to the Cancer Research Laboratory (where the invention was discovered), funding for Berkeley's Stem Cell building, graduate student funds, and faculty retentions. Related articles:
Scientist’s Drive Puts the Brakes on Cancer (2012) Drug development: Releasing the Brakes (2013)
IPIRA supports new partnership to kick off fire detection satellite initiative The costs of fire damage to federal and state governments, the insurance industry, and society in general is substantial, with fire-fighting costs alone in the billions per year. UC Berkeley researcher Carl Pennypacker and a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Berkeley's Space Sciences Lab and College of Natural Resources published an article in Remote Sensing on October 17 on a proposed fire detection satellite based on Berkeley technology called Fire Urgency Estimator in Geosynchronous Orbit (FUEGO) – view press release. With FUEGO, Pennypacker and his team have identified a pathway to mitigate this extraordinary cost burden to society. However, no single funding agency or industry sector has yet allocated sufficient funding for a program to launch this new fire detection technology. On December 10, IPIRA hosted and facilitated a kick-off meeting for industry, government, and academia to plan a broad-based public-private partnership focused on developing FUEGO. Multiple players are needed to provide guidance, research contributions, technology, data, business planing, and funding for this ground-breaking effort. In a day of presentation and discussion, we surveyed the fire detection landscape, explored the political and economic forces and potential commercial opportunities, and began planning a multi-party public-private partnership for research and commercialization of satellite-based fire detection. (12/10) Stay tuned for our next FUEGO meeting, planned for March, 2014 on the Berkeley campus.
Fluxion Biosciences' first pilot study shows early detection of circulating tumor cells in challenging patient group Fluxion Biosciences' IsoFlux System demonstrates high sensitivity circulating tumor cell (CTC) recovery in early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patient group obtained in collaboration with Dr. Max Diehn’s lab at Stanford University. (11/25)
Affiliate News UC Berkeley professor and Nobel Laureate Randy Schekman answers Reddit questions UC Berkeley professor Randy Schekman stopped by Reddit to answer questions about winning a 2013 Nobel Prize, his boycott of top academic journals and some of his favorite things. (12/12)
Facebook taps UC Berkeley researchers to study emotions The 4th Facebook Compassion Research Day discussed the application of the science of how people relate to each other to social technology. Speakers included: Dacher Keltner and Paul Piff from Berkeley's The Greater Good Science Center, Marc Brackett and Robin Stern from Yale's Center for Emotional Intelligence, and Emma Seppala from Stanford's CCARE, among others. (12/5)
Events Personalized Medicine World Conference (PMWC) 2014 Silicon Valley – January 27 & 28, 2014 Join other academics, researchers and industry leaders for the 7th annual Personalized Medicine World Conference on January 27th and 28th in Silicon Valley. The fourtrack program will include close to 100
speakers from all around the world. PMWC 2014 SV provides a magnificent opportunity to meet and learn from worldrenowned experts about the latest cutting edge advances in clinical molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine. It is a unique opportunity to hear from speakers and panelists like: James Herman, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions: “Epigenetic Changes in Cancer: Use for Detection and Prediction of Therapies” Steve Quake (Stanford University), Cliff Reid (Complete Genomics), Stefan Roever (Genia), Mike Hunkapiller (PacBio), Maneesh Jain (Ion Torrent), Moderator: Kevin Davies (ACS): “Killer Apps, Genome Interpretation & The Future of NGS” Eric Green, National Human Genome Research Institute: “A Research Agenda for Genomic Medicine: Opportunities and Challenges” Conference program: http://2014sv.pmwcintl.com/program.php Registration: Academic promo for IPIRA (runs December 23 December 27): $225 (versus $1,300) Go to: https://pmwc2014.eventbrite.com Enter promo code: IPIRA_225 Save the Date for New Faculty Outreach – February 11, 2014 Location: UC Berkeley Faculty Club Time: 12:00 1:30 pm * Refreshments will be served If you are a new faculty member in the last three years, or you’d just like a refresher, we invite you to attend an informative overview of the central campus research offices here to serve you. Come hear how the services of Berkeley’s campus offices can help you get started, or keep you going, at Berkeley. You’ll hear from offices that assist faculty with contracts and grants, industry collaboration, human subjects, animal research, conflict of interest, accounting, and disclosing and licensing inventions. Topics covered: How each office can help you, and whom to contact Opportunities for research funding and partnerships What to expect when working with research sponsors and licensees Keeping ahead of compliance Where your funds are and how they’re doing Startup Series: "Build Your Financial Model" – February 25, 2014 Presenter: Rob Schock Location: SkyDeck at 2150 Shattuck Avenue, Penthouse Floor, Berkeley Time: 6:00 7:30 pm IPIRA will feature a free workshop with serial Chief Financial Officer Rob Schock on "Building Your Financial Model". The workshop will focus on the "why"s and "how to's" of building a financial model for a business. Rob Schock is a parttime and interim CFO for startups with 30 years of senior management experience. Rob’s experience spans Fortune 100 companies to Silicon Valley startups. >> RSVP Save the Date for NSF SBIR/STTR Grant Application Bootcamp – May, 2014 Presenter: Shauna FarrJones Location: UC Berkeley, Stanley Hall, Room 117 Schedule: Two 2.5hour classes
This newsletter was edited and produced by Ophelia Yeung at IPIRA in collaboration with IPIRA and affiliate staff. Please send any correspondence and content suggestion to Ophelia at ophelia@berkeley.edu. Copyright Š 2013 UC Berkeley Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances, All rights reserved.