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Catalyst Program

Newsletter

Winter 2025

Congratulations to the

2025 Catalyst Awardees!

The Catalyst Program is excited to announce the recipients of the 2025 Catalyst Awards! UCSF principal investigators with promising translational 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 for their projects.


In addition to the University of California Office of the President and UCSF Innovation Ventures, the 2025 Funding Partners include: the Weill Institute for Neurosciences, the Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine, the Cardiovascular Research Institute, School of Pharmacy, the Quantitative Biosciences Institute, Department of Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology, and the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.


This Catalyst Award cycle was very competitive and the Catalyst Advisor Selection Committee selected the following 19 projects as the 2025 Catalyst Awardees:


Steven Altschuler, PhD, Lani Wu, PhD, and Cathy Lomen-Hoerth, MD, PhD - Beyond Genetics: A Digital Health Platform for ALS and other Complex Diseases

 

Mandar Aras, MD, PhD, Arun Padmanabhan, MD, PhD, and Yaser Abu-Mostafa, PhD - Automated Analysis of Echocardiographic Variables in Heart Disease

 

Maryam Bijanzadeh, PhD, Reza Abbasi Asl, PhD, Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, and Andrew Krystal, MD - Towards Objective Depression Screening: Developing a Multimodal Brain Body Wearable Biomarker System

 

Frank Brodie, MD, MBA and Daniel Schwartz, MD - Vitreoretinal Adhesion Therapy to Prevent Retinal Detachment

 

Mauro Caffarelli, MD and Edilberto Amorim, MD - NeuroSentry: EEG Software for Non-Expert In-Hospital and Periprocedural Stroke Detection

 

Ritchie Chen, PhD, MSc - Targeted Gene Delivery in the Brain Using Bio-derived Lipid Nanoparticles to Treat Intractable Epilepsies

 

Roshanak Irannejad, PhD, Kevan Shokat, PhD, and Jeffrey Olgin, MD - Novel Approach to Inhibit Beta-Adrenergic Signaling in Diastolic Heart Dysfunction Using a Spatially Restricted Beta-Blocker

 

Tyson Kim, MD, PhD - Multiphoton Aqueous Flowmetry and Multimodal Glaucoma Therapy

 

Bin Liu, PhD, and Tom Arnold, MD - Tissue-specific Choline Transporter Antibody for GBM and AML Therapy

 

Susan Lynch, PhD - Preclinical Development of Protoporphyrin-Producing Escherichia Coli as a Prophylaxis for Anaphylaxis

 

Kristen Mengwasser, MD, PhD, and Alexander Marson, MD, PhD - B-Scan: Mapping B-Cell Receptor and Antibody Specificity using a Mammalian Genome-wide Screening Platform

 

Julian Motzkin, MD, PhD, and Prasad Shirvalkar, MD, PhD - Intracranial Neural Biomarkers for Chronic Primary Pain Diagnosis and Treatment Selection

 

Feroz Papa, MD, PhD and Bradley Backes, PhD - Kinase Inhibitors of the Unfolded Protein Response Sensor/effector IRE1alpha to Treat Type 1 Diabetes

 

Neel Pasricha, MD, and Onur Cil, MD, PhD - Repurposed Macropinocytosis Inhibitor Eye Drop for Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) Corneal Toxicity

 

Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas, PhD, Bruce Miller, MD, Katherine Possin, PhD, Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini, MD, PhD, Bill Seeley, MD, and Andreas Rauschecker, MD, PhD - Memory and Aging Center Co-pilot: A Multi-Agent AI System for Neurodegenerative Disease Diagnosis

 

Danielle Swaney, PhD, and Einar Krogsaeter, PhD - Correcting Subcellular Protein Trafficking to Treat Alzheimer’s Disease

 

Raymond Swanson, MD - Blocking Cytotoxicity of α-Synuclein Aggregates for the Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease

 

Jet Vonk, PhD and Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini, MD, PhD - A Speech-Based Algorithm for Differential Diagnosis and Longitudinal Monitoring of Dementia

 

John Yue, MD, Mahmoud Elguindy, MD, PhD, and Geoffrey Manley, MD, PhD - Evaluation of Blood-Based Proteomic and RNA Biomarkers to Improve Traumatic Brain Injury Diagnosis and Prognostication


UCSF Joins NSF I-Corps’ New Regional Innovation Hub for the Northwest


UCSF is a partner of the new Northwest Region Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Hub funded by the National Science Foundation to train faculty and student entrepreneurs on how to commercialize their research. This initiative will be led by the Catalyst Program at UCSF.


The Hub, which will receive up to $15 million over five-years, will be led by UC Berkeley and includes UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, Oregon State University, University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Washington. 


Learn More


Congratulations to Catalyst Awardee

Nicole Paulk

Catalyst Awardee and CEO, Founder, and President of Siren Biotechnology, Nicole Paulk was recently named one of the Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business by the San Francisco Business Times. Siren Biotechnology is based on the technology from Nicole Paulk's Catalyst Award and combines the promise of two transformative therapeutic technologies, AAV gene therapy and cytokine immunotherapy, into a single, powerful new treatment modality to fight cancer.

Learn More


In other Siren Biotechnology news, the company revealed SRN-101 as a lead asset for high-grade gliomas with both orphan drug and rare pediatric disease designations from the FDA.


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$15 M Follow-on Funding Grant for Catalyst Awarded Project led by Lauren Asarnow

Catalyst Awardee Lauren Asarnow received a $15 million grant from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute to test the app designed to improve sleep health care for youth that was created with her Catalyst Award. The research team will compare two ways of treating sleep health problems among youth ages 12 to 18, including using a website with videos, worksheets and tools as well as an evidence-based cognitive behavioral sleep intervention called the Transdiagnostic Sleep and Circadian Intervention.


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New Gene Therapy Company Formed Based on Catalyst Project

Catalyst Awardees Alexander Haddad, Manish Aghi, and Noriyuki Kasahara have spun out a company based on their Catalyst Awarded project titled "Synthetic Replicating Retroviral Platform for Glioblastoma Viral Immunotherapy." Kopra Bio has recently raised $4 million through Y Combinator and is now moving forward with translating their IL-15–delivering replicating retrovirus into human clinical applications.


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Catalyst Awardee Diane Barber Recognized as ASCB Fellow

Catalyst Awardee Diane Barber was recently recognized as American Society for Cell Biology Fellow. Election as a Fellow of ASCB is an honor bestowed upon ASCB members by their peers.



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Catalyst Advisor in the News

Previous Director of Catalyst and current Catalyst Advisor June Lee recently announced that she is starting a new position as Co-Founder and Board Member at ElevAAte Biotech, a non-profit committed to furthering and supporting East Asian American leadership in the biopharma industry.



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Intellectual Property Essentials for Life Sciences and Healthcare

Join UCSF Innovation Ventures and Morrison Foerster for an intensive, four-week, in-person short course on critical IP issues for life sciences and healthcare companies. This comprehensive course is designed to equip participants with essential knowledge and strategies to navigate the complex world of intellectual property in the life sciences sector. 


Register Here

Get Non-Dilutive Funding for Your Startup

This opportunity is designed for entrepreneurs looking for non-dilutive federal funding to fuel their companies! Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants from the NIH typically provide $300K (Phase I) or $2M (Phase II) for startup R&D. Nonethless, applying can be a complex, frustrating affair if you are not ready for it. We get you ready. Companies must be incorporated to take part. In the workshop, experienced grant writer Shauna Farr-Jones walks you through your NIH and NSF SBIR/STTR applications to ensure you complete everything properly and submit by the deadline.

Register Here

Early-Stage Mentoring

Are you a life science startup founder looking for real mentorship on advancing your technology? Apply to QB3's Early-Stage Mentoring to get in-depth support for your biotech startup. Friday, February 14 is the deadline to join the next cohort.

Learn More & Apply

Applications Now Open for Early-Stage MedTech Acceleration.

Step into the future of MedTech with Rosenman Innovators, an accelerator program designed to catapult early-stage startups to the forefront of the industry. The program blends practical expertise with powerful network connections, ensuring your groundbreaking solutions reach the market swiftly and effectively. Applications are open through March 10.


Learn More & Apply

Innovation Investigator Award

This year’s Arc Institute Innovation Investigator Program has been announced, with focus areas in Immunology, Neurobiology, and Machine Learning. Innovation Investigators receive $1,000,000 direct costs in unrestricted funding from the Arc Institute over 5 years and gain access to Arc resources and facilities, including the opportunity to collaborate with Technology Centers and to use Arc scientific core facilities, while maintaining their UCSF lab and position at their home university.


Learn More and Apply

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