CureMatch's Navid Alipour, Stephane Richard, and Martin Culjat representing San Diego at the Dubai Future Accelerators.

October 6, 2016 Comments (0) Views: 2512 Blog, Life on the Mesa

Life on the Mesa: CureMatch Goes to Dubai

Plus: Dr. Ohsumi wins a Nobel Prize, and a brief history behind “The Mesa”

Just Mesa’n Around

Little did we know, back in 2013, that we would be shaking hands with a future Nobel Prize Winner. The newly crowned laureate, Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi, was attending the SDCSB Autophagy Workshop at the Sanford Consortium. Constantly crowded by adoring scientists eager to make his acquaintance, I couldn’t help but wonder who he was and what he had discovered to attract so much attention. Dr. Ohsumi would be the first of many exciting introductions on the Mesa. Up here, you never know which great mind you’ll meet.

This week, Dr. Ohsumi has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy. Ummm… science talk. I’d like to use a lifeline.

According to friend, colleague, and local genius Dr. Suresh Subramani, Ohsumi got this Prize and many other scientific honors for his seminal work on autophagy, “a process in which our cells eat parts of themselves to survive starvation, combat pathogens and mop up large intracellular protein aggregates and other unnecessary or harmful subcellular compartments. The process is crucial for aging, cancer, neurodegeneration and development, among other things.”

Subramani added, “The prize could not have gone to a more humble human being and friend.” While Dr. Subramani sings praises about the work of Dr. Ohsumi, we can’t think of another scientist so humble, deserving, and poised to win next. I’m puttin’ all my chips on Subrami.

Upcoming Events (I’ll Be at the Fun Table)

With the Cell Gene Meeting well under way, the spotlight is once again on the Sanford Consortium and its surrounding Research Institutes. While most talks are designed for researchers and academics, tonight Cell Gene will host its public forum. This is it! Your chance to come learn about the science going down on the Mesa. But when exactly did we even start calling it “The Mesa”? One of the masterminds who helped ignite the movement, Roger Bingham of the Science Network, gives us the skinny on San Diego’s hottest innovation hub on the coast.

Back in 2004, the Science Network launched their first meeting, “Stem Cells: Science, Ethics and Politics at the Crossroads.” This talk came just one month prior to the critical vote which created CIRM (California Institute for Regenerative Medicine). Raising the topic and public awareness, this first meeting successfully impacted voter turn out to support CIRM. The following year, the Science Network hosted the first Scientific Meeting of CIRM, and in 2006, came the Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa. Ah! There it is—“The Mesa.” “The main drivers working collaboratively,” according to Bingham, “Larry Goldstein, Rusty Gage, and the late Duane Roth.” Bingham himself was also an essential part of the team that created that meeting. Last year was the 10th Anniversary of the Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa. This year, it’s evolved into the Cell Gene Meeting.

So there you have it. Costa Mesa? Mira Mesa? La Mesa? We are simply known in San Diego as THE Mesa. And it’s all thanks to four brilliant minds who had a clear vision and the willingness to collaborate.

5th Annual Public Forum
Part of the Cell & Gene Meeting on the Mesa
October 6, 5:45 p.m. , Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine
Featured Speaker: Elena Cattaneo, Ph.D., Full Professor, Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Pharmacology of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Department of Biosciences, University of Milan.
LGBTQ History Month Featured Speaker: Kim Katrin Milan
October 6, 5 p.m., Seuss Room, Geisel Library
The Trump Card
October 4-9, La Jolla Playhouse
Leader Salon with Peter Zahn
October 10, Lafayette Hotel
(Off the Mesa but so worth the drive)

Rumor Has It

Rumor has it CureMatch is representing our Miracle Coast in the Far East.

CEO Stephane Richard will be abroad representing our region’s best in startups and precision medicine for a total of three months. It’s been an absolute thrill following this company and hearing updates of their adventures abroad. I was able to grab a quote from the jet setter himself, Navid Alipour, co-founder of Analytics Ventures and CureMatch:

“The Dubai Future Accelerators program had a less than 1% acceptance rate. They picked companies such as HyperLoop and CureMatch, because their vision is bold. Dubai does everything big, and in the case of CureMatch, they want to make Dubai the epicenter of personalized precision medicine in the region and the world.”