Congratulations to the
2024 Catalyst Awardees!
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Catalyst Awards are the centerpiece of the Catalyst Program. UCSF principal investigators with promising early-stage research projects designed for patient benefit and with commercial potential spanning therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices, and digital health can apply. Awarded projects receive mentorship and advice from the Catalyst Industry Advisor network as well as seed funding.
The Catalyst Program is very grateful to the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences for co-funding the neuroscience projects. As a result of funding from the Weill Institute, the Catalyst Program was able to significantly expand the number of neuroscience projects. Additionally, neuroscience projects cross all four of the Catalyst Program tracks.
Continued thanks to Mukesh Patel for his generous contributions to the Catalyst Program over the years. Mr. Patel has provided critical funding to the Catalyst Awards for several years now and all are very grateful for his substantial support.
The most recent Catalyst Award cycle was very competitive and the Catalyst Advisor Selection Committee selected the following 15 projects as the 2024 Catalyst Awardees:
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Aaron Kornblith, MD - AI-enabled Point-of-care Ultrasound Solution and Clinical Integration in the Emergency Department
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Adam Abate, PhD and Charles Chiu, MD, PhD - Hundred-plex Digital PCR with PACE to Advance Neurologic Infection Diagnostics
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Andreas Rauschecker, MD, PhD - Finding Our Neuroimaging Twins and Imaging Neighbors (FOUNTAIN): A Brain MRI Similarity Search Engine
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Doris Wang, MD, PhD - Development of Personalized Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Enhancing Gait Functions in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease
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Charles Craik, PhD - A Structure-Guided Approach to Antibody-Based Herpesvirus Inhibition
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Jacob Young, MD - Development of Hand-held Intraoperative Focused Ultrasound Device for Glioma Patients
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Joseph Sabatino, MD, PhD - Novel Bispecific Antibody to Disrupt the B Cell-T Cell Axis in Multiple Sclerosis and Other Autoimmune Diseases
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Juan Qin, PhD - Harnessing Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors for Cardiac Repair
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Kyle Cromer, PhD - Enhancing Erythropoiesis Using Base Editors
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Linda Giudice, MD, PhD and Susan Fisher, PhD - Biomarker Discovery to Diagnose Endometriosis: A Pilot Study
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Luis Savastano, MD, PhD and Can Senol, MD - A Minimally Invasive System for Brain Surgery
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Nadav Ahituv, PhD - Engineered Adipocytes that Outcompete Tumors for Reagents as a Novel Cancer Therapy
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O'Rese Knight, MD - Mercury: A Wearable Intraocular Pressure Monitor
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Tommaso Di Ianni, PhD - Minimally Invasive Closed-loop Neuromodulation via Combined Focused Ultrasound and Functional
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William Krause, PhD - Optimizing a Novel Osteoanabolic Hormone to Treat Fragile Bone Diseases Ultrasound Imaging
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The UCSF LaunchPad and UC Berkeley Coleman Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership came together for the third iHackHealth Appathon. The Appathon paired select UCSF app proposals with a team of UC Berkeley engineering students to develop a prototype of a mobile app for iOS that could improve health, patient care, or simply make life easier!
After ideating on proposals, teams pitched their final apps at an in-person event at UC Berkeley for prizes awarded by an accomplished judging panel.
The judges awarded UCSF Resident Physician Derrick Cheng, MD and team with the top prize for developing an app called “Visualyze,” a mobile pupillometer for physicians and medical providers. Visualyze is able to recognize and measure the diameter of a pupil using a phone camera and its flashlight. UCSF Medical Student Daniel Chan was the PI for "Phantom Mirror,” an app that provides free therapy for phantom limb pain by leveraging augmented reality. "Phantom Mirror" took home second place. The third-place team was led by UCSF Medical Student Lourdes Kaufman. The team developed “Pinnacle,” an which exports hearing settings to AirPods to amplify and/or safeguard hearing, allowing AirPods to serve as an accessible alternative to hearing aids.
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Sira Medical Receives 510(k) Clearance for Pre-operative Planning
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Fall 2017 Catalyst Awardee Jesse Courtier, MD along with Catalyst Advisor and Sira Medical CEO Rick Beberman, received FDA 510(k) clearance for their pre-operative planning application. Sira Medical’s augmented reality software with patient-specific images enables surgeons to be better at what they do, making their lives easier in the process. Additionally, Sira Medical allows clinicians, patients, and students to view anatomy in a completely new way. Sira Medical can deliver models through head-mounted augmented reality devices or through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
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Catalyst Awardee in the News |
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Alexander Lin, MD, MBA, FACS, Professor of Plastic Surgery and Director of Surgical Innovations at UCSF, made headlines for his creation of a 3D printed skull model construction for a twelve-year-old who had been in an automobile accident from the patient’s CT scan. The model was used to guide the identification and removal of a small bone near the optic nerve to restore left eye vision.
Additionally, Alex was recently issued a patent titled "Real-time Intraoperative Blood Loss Monitoring" which is the basis of a current UCSF-UC Berkeley Masters of Translational Medicine Capstone Project.
Alex won a Catalyst Award in 2023 for "Improving Health Equity for Children with Cleft Palate" with the use of artificial intelligence to improve early detection of surgical speech problems.
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Join UCSF Entrepreneurship on Thursday, March 28 from 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM to learn more from Dr. Varma, a former UCSF postdoc, and his journey from trainee to founder and CTO of Phyla Skincare. The session will also highlight the UCSF Entrepreneurship Program and discuss the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur. This event is open to the entire UCSF community and is especially geared towards trainees and early career investigators.
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Join the UCSF LaunchPad, Theranova, Wilson Sonsini, and Levine Bagade Han for this Spring's MedTech Happy Hour on Thursday, March 28 at Mediterranean Kitchen in Burlingame from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM.
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Virtual Fireside Chat with Patrick Beattie
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Join the UCSF LaunchPad and Catalyst Program for a virtual Fireside Chat on Wednesday, April 10 from 4 PM to 5 PM, with MedTech Entrepreneur Patrick Beattie. Patrick has spent over 15 years developing new and innovative technologies to create change in biotechnology, pharmaceutical research & development, and healthcare delivery.
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In recognition of the over 350 million people worldwide with a rare disease, the UCSF Catalyst Program and Foundation Ipsen hosted its third UCSF Rare Disease Symposium on Tuesday, February 6, 2024, titled "Catalyzing Innovation and Bridging Gaps in Rare Diseases." Please click the link below to watch the full symposium and continue scrolling for the full program, list of speakers, notes on the importance of research in the rare disease space, and a poem from a rare disease patient.
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