Bakar Labs

MicroRNAs, suddenly in the Nobel spotlight, can also be employed as off-switches for targeted silencing of mRNA therapeutics -- but not easily as ON-switches. That's a challenge that Radar Therapeutics addresses with their approach to #RNAtherapeutics, which recruits the RNA-editing enzyme ADAR to remove a stop codon and switch mRNA on in targeted cells. This is an exciting new technology, and our industry and investing affiliates agree. Since winning their initial #GoldenTicket, in collaboration with AbbVie -- at a time when Radar had precisely zero funding! -- they've been on a tear, recently closing a $13.4 million seed round that saw participation from our affiliates Eli Lilly and Company and BEVC. As they've grown, Radar has built a diverse team, winning recognition last year from Amgen, who presented them with the inaugural Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Award. QB3 has also helped Radar: they've benefited from a #QWEST intern, and through the QB3 mentoring program, director David Schaffer joined their advisory board. We look forward to continuing to support Radar and other innovative companies spinning out of Bay Area universities and industry. Let's show California that Bakar Labs is the #1 biotech startup incubator! Vote for us in the California Life Sciences (CLS) #PantheonAwards. https://lnkd.in/ewrA47BB For more stories like this, follow UC Berkeley Innovation & Entrepreneurship Gino Segre Sophia Lugo Eerik Kaseniit Danjuma Q. Jason DeVoss Kelly Huggins, PhD Laura Parmer-Lohan Christopher Lalli Shea McMurtry, PhD

Our head of Lab Ops, Jim Koman, is recruiting a Lab Facility Operations Specialist. Apply soon: First date of review is this Friday, October 11! If lab ops is your field, don't miss this chance to join our team and work with top biotech startups at our UC Berkeley incubator. Apply at https://bit.ly/3BrvMS6 or contact Jim for more info.

Thanks to our friends at Bayer for holding office hours recently with our tenants on cell and gene therapy R&D. Oversubscribed! It was a smorgasbord of expertise. We had Katharine (Katie) Miller on CMC especially analytics; George (Yuechen Zhu Ph.D. / MBA Candidate) on CMC, formulation & drug product;?Ajit Smith-Iyer on clinical production; Bruce Frazier on biopartnering; and Heike Abeck on CMC & biopartnering. So cool to have Bayer's Cell Therapy Launch Facility in Berkeley.

Choosing the right indication for your biopharma is crucial to the near and long-term future of a startup. Learn why this is, and learn what to consider, in this Oct 22 expert panel live from our auditorium featuring Jennifer Leeds, Uri Lopatin, MD and Danjuma Q..

Exciting Opportunity to Leverage?MicroRNA Therapeutics Following the recent exciting Nobel Prize announcement, I wanted to highlight my lab's microRNA-targeting therapeutics efforts that are breaking new ground in tackling aging-related diseases that limit healthspan. We are leveraging cutting-edge ASO technology that has the exceptional ability to penetrate skeletal muscle and heart without delivery vehicles, addressing a range of conditions from myocardial infarction-linked heart failure to rare genetic skeletal muscle/cardiac diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Additionally, we have identified and effectively targeted pathological microRNAs in aging-related sarcopenic obesity and eye diseases such as dry age-related macular degeneration. Elenae Therapeutics, Inc., our biotech spinout located in the Bakar Labs biotech hub in Berkeley, CA, is at the forefront of developing healthspan-extending microRNA therapeutics. With our advanced microRNA-targeting antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapeutics showing remarkable efficacy and safety in preclinical studies, we are seeking seed or series A investment to accelerate the development of our first program focused on treating heart failure. If you are an investor looking to be part of groundbreaking research and development in microRNA-targeted therapeutics, please reach out for more information at [email protected] or [email protected]. Join us in revolutionizing microRNA therapeutics and shaping the future of healthcare. #Biotech #HealthcareInnovation #InvestmentOpportunity #MicroRNATherapeutics #biotechnology #pharmaceuticals #venturecapital #healthcare #innovation

"Cal student drills kick to win $100,000 on ESPN’s ‘College GameDay" Football kicked by Daniel Villasenor (in slip-on Vans!) finally located. https://lnkd.in/gsz2Gurh

Meet Aikium Inc.. An emerging company with trillion-protein display, #generativeAI, and sequence-specific SEQR proteins, developing therapeutics targeting chemokine receptors. The name "Aikium" is based on a Tamil word that means "union." Aikium's co-founders Eswar I., Shankar Shastry, and Venkatesh Mysore picked that name because the problem they are trying to solve in therapeutics requires three fields -- protein engineering, synthetic biology and deep learning -- to come together to crack this hard nut. What is the challenge? While most existing small molecules and biologics target known structures, Aikium is engineering a new class of "SEQR" protein therapeutics, selective for amino acid sequences in disordered regions. Generative AI enables their world's first trillion-protein display which they will ultimately apply to therapeutic needs in cancer, neural inflammation and autoimmune disease, targeting a subclass of GPCRs: chemokine receptors. Learn more in the upcoming #TenantSpotlight written by our own Niki Borghei. But before then: Vote for Bakar Labs in the California Life Sciences (CLS) #PantheonAwards! https://lnkd.in/ewrA47BB For more stories like this, follow UC Berkeley Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Interested in joining our excellent LabOps team to serve our biotech startup tenants? Apply for this open position or contact Jim Koman to learn more.

There's a reason that University of California, Berkeley is #1, #1, #1, #1, and #1 worldwide in generating venture-backed companies, founders, female entrepreneurs, female-founded startups, and capital raised by women. That reason is #community: A positive, changemaking attitude across campus that we can take action to change the world for the better. We have a flourishing ecosystem of mutually supporting orgs that lift up our students and faculty and those who come to us for help. We are proud to be part of this community! If #Cal has helped you in your entrepreneurial venture, you can give us a virtual Go Bears ?? ?? ?? here in the academia & nonprofit category https://lnkd.in/ewrA47BB For more stories like this, follow UC Berkeley Innovation & Entrepreneurship Rich Lyons David Schaffer Darren Cooke Laura Hassner

#AI is proving to be an increasingly important feature even in the biotechnologies that we and QB3 are seeing in the companies we support. It's powerful to be in the same ecosystem as Berkeley SkyDeck and their team who can hold a demo day of this quality and intensity. Note the climate tech and agtech companies in the cohort too.