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BrightEdge's Farnaz Bakshi (center) presents Golden Ticket to Brad Niles, CEO of ARIZ (third from left) along with the BrightEdge and Bakar Labs teams
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ARIZ and Catena Awarded Golden Tickets to Bakar Labs, Sponsored by ACS BrightEdge Fund

With the Golden Tickets, ARIZ and Catena each win one year of free office and lab space at Bakar Labs and access to BrightEdge’s robust network of resources to develop their cancer therapies. They will be able to access Berkeley campus resources, connect with Bakar Labs' business affiliates, and network with more than 30 fellow tenant companies. The combination of support from Bakar Labs and BrightEdge will, most importantly, allow ARIZ and Catena to bring their technology to patients sooner.

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Paul Bresge

Inspired by Founder’s Daughter, East Bay Startup Ray Therapeutics Raises $100M to Tackle Eye Diseases

Ray Therapeutics, housed in the Bakar Labs incubator at UC Berkeley, will use the new funding led by Novo Holdings A/S to push a unique treatment for eye diseases into a clinical trial within the next year, if not sooner. It is zeroing in on diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration that slowly degrade vision. Read post
Katy Digovich

“Can I Cure My Diabetes With Stem Cells?” Katy Digovich Delivers TED Talk

CEO Katy Digovich recently gave a passionate TED Talk about her motivation for launching and leading Minutia. A former Princeton basketball player, Katy lives with diabetes. Working with the Clinton Global initiative in Africa, she learned that people with diabetes in the Third World face an early death sentence due to the cost of insulin monitoring and delivery. Minutia is developing cell therapy in the form of cells engineered with nanosensors to measure insulin levels and deliver dosage. Read post
Ray Therapeutics homepage with close-up of human face and eye

Ray Therapeutics: Anatomy Of A Biopharma VC Deal

Until 2010, leading a biotech wasn’t on Paul Bresge's radar. He’d built a long and successful career as a leader in unrelated industries -- industrial tools and a courier service, for example. Then, his 15-year-old daughter was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease that causes degradation of retinal cells over time. She was going blind. Ophthalmologists told him there was nothing that could be done to save his daughter’s vision. Read post
View into the back of an ambulance responding to a call

Coagulant Therapeutics Announces Publication in Blood Advances Describing Novel Nanobody Library to Activated Protein C and Initial Leads for Treatment of Trauma and Hemophilia

By using assays specific for coagulation, inflammation and cell survival functions of APC, the investigators were able to identify an array of human APC specific antibodies able to retain or eliminate these functions. This represents a tool chest for APC targeted therapies that has already identified a lead candidate for the treatment of trauma and hemophilia. Read post
Schematic protein structure

Profluent Announces Launch With $9 Million Seed Round

Profluent is using deep generative models to ‘learn the language of biology’ in order to design new, functional proteins. The goal of protein design is to create novel or enhanced proteins with specific uses. These could include lasting cures for diseases that are free from patent restrictions or new enzymes that can break down unrecyclable plastics. Read post
Three burgers made with Black Sheep plant-based lamb

Black Sheep Foods Grabs $12.3M to Craft Tastier Plant-Based Meats

Venture capital into the food tech sector has been waning recently. However, by making flavors and also using them, Kumar believes Black Sheep Foods’ new funding is the result of setting the company up for a vertical integration approach that puts it in a unique space done only by Impossible Foods thus far. He adds the new round was planned and follows progress on some of the key things the company has set out to do in 2022, including the rate of product adoption and R&D milestones on its flavors. Read post
Katy Digovich at Bakar Labs

At Minutia, Katy Digovich Is Tackling Diabetes Cell by Cell

But while continuing to work in Africa with the Clinton Health Access Initiative, she learned she couldn't get far enough away. People were surprised when they learned that the nearly 6-foot-tall, athletic-looking Digovich — a former basketball player in college — was living with Type 1 diabetes, a diagnosis in Africa that often translates into stunted growth, amputation and high mortality. "Ultimately, I got really angry and the switch flipped. If I was born there, I would be dead. That really hit close to home," she said. "I took stock of my career and threw myself into the diabetes space." Read post
Valitor CEO Steven Lo (left) and President & CSO Wes Jackson (right)

Valitor Raises $28M Series B to Develop Therapy for Age-Related Macular Degeneration

The company will spend next year testing its multivalent polymer to prep for a clinical trial in 2024. The goal is to create an injectable that can last six months, meaning patients with wet AMD, a chronic eye condition that blurs vision and can sometimes cause blind spots, would only need two injections per year, kind of like going to the dentist, quipped Wesley Jackson, co-founder, president and CSO, in an interview with Endpoints News ahead of the launch. Read post
Illustration of protein being sequenced

Glyphic Biotechnologies Wins $409K SBIR Grant From NIH

Congratulations to Glyphic Biotechnologies! NIH recently reported the company had been awarded a $409 SBIR grant for their project "Single-molecule protein sequencing by iterative isolation and identification of N-terminal amino acids." The company is developing and commercializing technology to sequence proteins — instead of DNA. They're hiring! Read post