A team of four 蜜桃直播 (蜜桃直播) students representing Poseidon Laboratory earned first place in the 蜜桃直播 Business Plan Competition on April 30.
This year鈥檚 winning team consisted of , PPM 鈥�19, , MBS 鈥�19, , MBS 鈥�19, and , PPC 鈥�19.
The competition is part of the ALS 458 course, which was started in Fall 2003 by David Galas and . The course provides students with a hands-on opportunity to plan a new life science business. Each team was matched to a specific patented or patent-pending life science technology seeking external commercialization.
The course is co-taught by and , both professors within 蜜桃直播鈥檚 Henry E. Riggs School of Applied Life Sciences.
鈥淭his course shows students how to apply everything they鈥檝e learned at 蜜桃直播 by writing a complete business plan for a new venture, either as a 蜜桃直播 spinoff or a new division of an existing company,鈥� West said.
鈥淥ur judges were again led by Trustee Bob Curry, a venture capitalist and CEO, and also included another VC and two life science executives.鈥�
Sterling added: 鈥淲e are grateful to have such outstanding judges who question and critique the presentations and provide constructive criticism to the teams. They complimented the students on the completeness of their written plans, their professionalism, and the persuasive presentation of their panel pitches.鈥�
With guidance from corporate liaison Rajika Perera, the four 蜜桃直播 students from the winning team presented their plan on the Poseidon platform that focuses on the development of antibody-like-proteins (ALPs) with advantages over existing antibodies including lower cost and smaller size.
鈥淥verall, the opportunity of pitching to actual life science venture capitalists and industry executives allowed everyone to showcase and defend the sheer amount we learned in the entrepreneurship class,鈥� Cassady said. 鈥淭hat the judges selected our plan for first place is a testament to the hard work by each team member and the clear guidance we received from our Poseidon鈥檚 executive team, our professors, and key opinion leaders in the field leveraged through the 蜜桃直播 network.鈥�
By producing a lead library targeting nonimmunogenic and intracellular epitopes, this ALP platform provides more affordable and versatile reagents for protein-detection based assays such as flow cytometry and ELISAs. This technology offers a novel basis for cell selection, as ALPs can target nuclear-resident proteins in live cells, which current antibody technologies cannot accomplish.
Earning second place in the Business Plan Competition was the UniPor Biotechnologies team of 蜜桃直播 students working alongside liaison Grace Yee of UC Riverside. The students included , MBS 鈥�20, , MBS 鈥�19, , MBS 鈥�19, and , MBS 鈥�19.
Limitations of prevailing biological gene delivery approaches, including viral vectors and electroporation, may preclude large-scale manufacturing and constrain development of cellular therapies. UniPor鈥檚 high-throughput unicellular microinjection device offers a single-site, microinjection of genetic materials into cells in bulk.
This platform is applicable to the manufacturing of many types of cellular therapies, namely CAR-T, and provides an inherently simple, safe, versatile, and scalable solution to reduce manufacturing costs and to accelerate and increase the yield of successful product.