What You Should Know: Berkeley SkyDeck, the global hub for entrepreneurship and a leading accelerator, today announced that it has welcomed the first three companies for its new SkyDeck LSEC Bio Track: AsparaGlue, Editpep, and MZR Neurotech.The inaugural track, created in partnership with the UC Berkeley Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Center (LSEC) through LSEC’s new Venture Grant Program, will assist the UC Berkeley faculty-led teams to launch their own biotech and life sciences
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Biotech
Exploring The Value of Metaverse Use Cases in Life Sciences
What once seemed like science fiction, interacting with people across the world has become the new normal. While we have become increasingly accustomed to video calls and instant communication in recent years, forays into virtual worlds and extended realities are still relatively novel. In a post-Covid world, it seems strange to think that video conferences and calls were not the norm only three years ago. But the value created by virtual interactions during the last several years has
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Protai Raises $20M to Build an Oncology Drug Discovery Pipeline
What You Should Know: - Protai, a proteomics and AI-powered drug discovery startup revolutionizing the way new drugs are discovered, today announced a $12 million extension of its seed round, bringing the total amount to $20M. - The round includes existing investors Grove Ventures and Pitango Healthcare and was joined by Copenhagen-based Maj Invest Equity Fund. The additional funding will be used to build Protai’s oncology drug discovery pipeline, expand data
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3 Public Health Messaging Failures: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It
Public health crisis communications plans have the power to improve outcomes, reduce long-term healthcare costs, and save lives. These plans should convey crucial health information to impacted groups with recommendations on how and when to seek care and reduce spread. The consequences of ineffective, inconsistent, or absent public health messaging in times of crisis are grave, leading to the mistrust of healthcare institutions, stigmatization of impacted groups, and decreased likelihood of
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Biden Admin Builds on Cancer Moonshot with 13 More Initiatives
What You Should Know: - One year ago, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden reignited the Cancer Moonshot, setting an ambitious, achievable goal: to reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years, and improve the experience of people and families living with and surviving cancer, ultimately ending cancer as we know it today. - The Cancer Moonshot has spurred tremendous action across the federal government and from the public and private
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COVID-19 Health Systems Impact: What Will Stop The Cash Hemorrhage?
The material cost of COVID-19 has been at the center of public discourse since the early days of the pandemic. In 2020, growth in federal government spending on healthcare increased 36 percent, compared to the 5.9 percent bump in 2019. While the distribution of vaccines has allowed for a version of pre-pandemic life to resume, hospitals are still not recovered from the high rates of hospitalizations that occurred in March 2020, and the indirect costs of the pandemic continue to loom over the
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IT/Security Leaders Can No Longer Rely Solely on Perimeter Security
What You Should Know: - Imprivata, the digital identity company for life- and mission-critical industries, today released new research that reveals over 91% of security leaders agree they can no longer rely solely on perimeter security to combat and respond to cyber threats, with 99% having experienced a cyberattack in the past year. - The report outlines how healthcare, finance, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and biotech organizations are approaching cyber and privacy
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Pangea Biomed Adds $5M for its Multi-Cancer Response Predictor
What You Should Know: - Pangea Biomed, the biotech company behind ENLIGHT, the multi-cancer response predictor improving the effectiveness of precision oncology, announced $5M in additional funding reaching a total seed round of $12M. - The latest fundraising is led by angel investor Danny Tocatly and existing investor NFX, and will be used to expand US operations, drive commercial partnerships, and scale product offerings. Expanding US Operations and Fostering Commercial
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How Virtual-First Clinical Trials Scale Access for Participants
Making clinical trials equitable is one of the biggest challenges we face as an industry. We see this time and again, with one of the latest examples coming in the form of a study published in JAMA Network Open that found substantial underrepresentation of Black patients enrolled in pivotal trials for CAR-T therapy. Women are another demographic negatively affected by inequality in clinical research. Earlier this month [May 2022] the American Heart Association issued a
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Non-Invasive, Precision-Based Approaches for Diagnosis and Treatment of Inflammatory Skin Conditions
Inflammatory skin conditions such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, vitiligo, hidradenitis suppurativa and others impact a significant portion of the U.S. population. In fact, nearly half of all visits to primary care physicians include some level of dermatological indication. Many of these dermatologic conditions are accompanied by pain and severe discomfort for affected patients, and the resulting morbidity of the condition may have a negative impact on mental health, self-esteem and overall
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