Zion Biotechnology

[Apolito Ghosh]

TheUCSF Medical Center is made up of three medical centers, at the Parnassus, Mount Zion and Mission Bay campuses. In addition, research activities and administrative services based in the UCSF Medical Center are located around the city of San Francisco, including several large concentrations at the Laurel Heights campuses, and China Basin, 44 Montgomery Street, and 50 Beale Street.

UCSF Medical Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), is a 600-bed academic medical center that serves as both a tertiary and quaternary referral center and a community hospital. The inpatient general medical service consists of seven teams, each admitting every fourth night and composed of an attending, one resident, 2 interns, and 0 to 3 students. All attendings are full-time UCSF faculty members; there is virtually no "private practice." There is a separate cardiology service (staffed by faculty, fellows, residents, and hospitalists), and separate bone marrow, liver, and renal transplant services. In addition, there is a 30-bed non-resident medical service at Mt. Zion hospital. There are the usual array of subspecialty consulting services, plus a general medical consulting service, a palliative care service, and a number of hospitalist-subspecialist co-management arrangements.

UCSF Mission Bay is a vibrant and vital campus to the booming biotechnology industry with 4,000 faculty, staff, students, patients and other visitors. In 2015, UCSF Medical Center expanded to Mission Bay, bringing health care to children, women and cancer patients, and enabling an accelerated era of developing new therapies in conjunction with the research taking place there.

UCSF/Mount Zion Medical Center is approximately one mile north of the main UCSF campus and serves as a major ambulatory training site, providing continuity clinics for our residents in conjunction with the activities of faculty in the Division of General Internal Medicine. The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Center for Excellence in Women's Health, the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and many key ambulatory subspecialties are also located at Mount Zion.

Zion Pharma is a private, clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development of novel, small-molecule, anti-tumoral agents on therapeutic targets that drive tumor inhibition, including ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM), Kirsten rat sarcoma (KRAS G12D) and SMARCA2 (BRM).

BIO-CAT, Inc., a biotechnology company that specializes in enzymes and other advanced microbial solutions, plans to add at least 30,000 square feet to its fermentation facilities in Zion Crossroads. The expansion is projected to start in 2022. The company will add several new jobs and is considering building another 30,000-square-foot section in a second phase.

Similar to brewing and distilling fermentation processes, microbial fermentation can be costly; it requires substantial customization of both building design and equipment. Custom fermentation tanks, stainless steel piping, centrifuges, spray dryers, storage tanks and other unique equipment will be installed at the site, all of which require federal Food and Drug Administration oversight and regular inspections.

BIO-CAT recently celebrated 33 years of industry leadership, during the same year that the company lost its co-founder, Ed Schuler, at the age of 89. Ed, his son Chris and partner Brian Huffman founded the company in 1988.

In 2005, Chris Schuler decided to expand the business portfolio from a pure focus on enzymes, to producing and fermenting probiotics, via an acquisition of a biotech company in Minnesota. After 15 years of success in Minnesota, the company plans to expand that business through the expansion in Zion Crossroads.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA; at such a young age this rising star is already on course to be a whirlwind sensation. Zion Starred in the lead role as 'Paige' in Netflix's #1 worldwide film "Day Shift," alongside Academy Award-Winning actor Jamie Foxx. Zion was the only kid filming alongside the All-Star cast, including Dave Franco, Snoop Dogg, Karla Souza, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Meagan Good, Oliver Masucci, Steve Howey, and Scott Adkins. The action-comedy film was directed by stunt veteran and first-time feature helmer J.J. Perry who worked on the franchised John Wick movies. The young actress also stars as a lead voice actress in a recurring role on Paramount Plus / Nickelodeon's animation Transformers Earthspark.At seven, Zion landed her first lead role on BET Network in the movie "Holly Day" and a lead role in a national commercial with Frito-Lay one month after signing with her agent. The young starlet then won Best Supporting Actress at the 168 Films Festival for her role in "F8th," starring alongside actor and director Glenn Plummer ("E.R."). Her additional credits include Disney's "Sydney to the Max," Netflix's "Family Reunion," ABC's "Station 19" and "Abbott Elementary." Zion has also worked alongside multi-Grammy award-winning artist Alicia Keys on a voice-over advertisement (Black Sunshine). Zion can be seen in numerous nationalized commercials and short films.instagram.com/zionbroadnax/

Prior to joining the team at Weill Cornell Medicine, Ms. Fretes founded Gentroma Inc. (formerly Centragen) as an NYU spinout in 2017. Gentroma is developing an innovative graphene-based DNA/RNA sequencing nanodevice. She expanded her industry experience by working with life science startups as a community relations lead with Unite Life Sciences (ULS), the biotech-devoted B2B networking, market research and event production division of the International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC).

Dr. James Bellush is a manager of scientific scouting for the Business Development and Licensing team at Weill Cornell Medicine. In this role, he helps to continually expand the pipeline of Weill Cornell innovations by sourcing and developing research projects with high commercial translation potential. Dr. Bellush is also responsible for identifying external funding opportunities, research collaborations and strategic alliances with industry and academic partners.

Prior to joining the Center for Technology Licensing in 2024, Dr. Bellush worked as a venture associate with RTW Investments, a full-life cycle health care investment firm based in New York. In this role, he was responsible for the sourcing, scientific diligence and preclinical development of assets for RTW portfolio companies. Dr. Bellush has drug development experience across a range of therapeutic areas which include cardiovascular, neurological and rare disease.

Dr. Bellush received his doctorate in Molecular Biology from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, where he used genomics approaches to study how chromatin structure influences DNA replication and transcription dynamics during C. elegans embryogenesis (lab of Dr. Iestyn Whitehouse, Memorial Sloan Kettering). He holds a B.S. in Biology from Moravian University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Iris Bica joined the Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) at Weill Cornell Medicine as a Business Development and Licensing Associate in 2022. In this role, she assists the CTL team with identifying, assessing and marketing their portfolio of life science technologies.

Dr. Jamie Brisbois is a manager, business development and licensing based in New York City. In this role, he collaborates with Weill Cornell Medicine innovators to identify, market and license life sciences technologies.

Prior to joining the Center for Technology Licensing in 2021, Dr. Brisbois worked as a consultant with ClearView Healthcare Partners, a boutique health care consulting firm based in Boston. In addition, he served three years as a fellow with Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV), the technology transfer office of Columbia University.

Dr. Brisbois received his doctorate in Chemistry from Columbia University, where he helped develop a scalable signaling language for engineering multicellular communication in the laboratory of Dr. Virginia Cornish. He holds a B.A. in Chemistry, Biochemistry and French from Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Dr. Ivan Gando joined the Center for Technology Licensing at Weill Cornell Medicine as a business development and licensing associate in 2023. In his role, he supports the team's technology commercialization efforts.

Prior to joining the team, he gained experience in technology transfer by participating in the Mount Sinai Innovation Partners internship program as a business development fellow, where he completed didactic coursework on academic technology transfer and then, as a selected participant, gained immersive, hands-on experience.

Dr. Gando obtained his Ph.D. in Biomedical Science from New York University Grossman School of Medicine, where he worked on translational drug discovery efforts targeting ion channels across various therapeutic areas in Dr. William Coetzee's laboratory. He earned his B.A. from New York University, with studies in Biochemistry, Mathematics, and Anthropology.

Dr. Jeffrey Anson James has over 15 years of experience helping academic institutions to commercialize their early-stage inventions. Prior to joining the Center for Technology Licensing at Weill Cornell Medicine, he was associate director for licensing at the Penn Center for Innovation, University of Pennsylvania, where he managed commercialization activities in the life science space. He has also held positions as licensing manager at both the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. James partners with innovators from the Weill Department of Medicine and the departments of Anesthesiology, Neurology and Psychiatry, as well as the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, the Weill Center for Metabolic Health, and the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center.

Dr. Brian Kelly is the director of Business Development and Licensing in the Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) at Weill Cornell Medicine. He manages a portfolio of inventions focusing on oncology, gene therapy, metabolic diseases, the microbiome and endocrine disorders.

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