Downtown LA Biotech Mixer – Successfully connecting academia and industry!

In partnership with LA Bioscience Hub, BCLA hosted a mixer in Downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday December 9th. The event featured presentations from Jeremy Goodwin, Co-founder of SyncFab; and Howard Xu, Director of programing and innovation at BioSpace LA. Guests had ample opportunity to mingle and exchange ideas before and after the talks over drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

In his presentation to the attentive crowd, Jeremy Goodwin described the mission of his Santa Monica-based company SyncFab where they are using 3D manufacturing and design to bring production of products back from other countries to the United States and in particular, to the Los Angeles area. His company provides a platform for product design and local manufacturing marketplace for designers, scientists and entrepreneurs. He went on to explain how the technology of bioprinting could be relevant for the advancement of medicine in the generation and transplantation of human tissue. Other applications may include developing high-throughput 3D-bioprinted tissue models for research, drug discovery and toxicology. Finally, Goodwin mentioned that 3D bioprinting field is rapidly growing and that Southern California is leading the innovation in this area. Following Goodwin’s presentation, Howard Xu gave a brief description of Biospace LA California State University LA, which received a generous 3.5 million grant from Los Angeles County, to provide low-cost lab space, equipment and mentorship for start-up companies in the biomedical science field.

Overall these talks show that opportunities for biomedical science innovation and advancement are growing in the Los Angeles area. It is definitely an exciting time to be part of the biotech movement in LA.