Alumnus Dr. Amir Nasajpour (Ph.D. ’23 in chemistry from the Paul S. Weiss group) won the 2024 UCLA MedTECH Demo Track Entrepreneur competition for his startup, Entropic Biosciences, Inc., which he leads, based on his thesis work.
The award, which includes a $10,000 prize, was presented to Nasajpour at the 12th Annual UCLA MedTech Partnering Conference on March 12, 2024, at the UCLA Luskin Conference Center.
UCLA MedTech 2024 is part of #LAMedTechWeek – an opportunity for the region’s MedTech innovators and advocates to come together.
Nasajpour is the Founder and Chief Operating Officer of the biotech company Entropic Biosciences, Inc., an organization recognized by the National Inventors Hall of Fame and has been awarded a USPTO medallion for expediting the patent filing process. He has spun this organization with his former Ph.D. advisor, Professor Paul S. Weiss. Their research involves assembling cells into functional tissue, which addresses the grand challenge in biomedical engineering and healthcare of establishing tools for recreating functional human tissues and organs. The company has developed a bio-inspired rapid sample preparation kit that enables high-throughput culturing of multiple cell types and rapid self-assembly into 3D self-standing tissue. This technology can create an array of tissue types from numerous cell sources. It enables the development of functional tissue and cancer models faster than current technologies, accelerating life science research and drug screening and working toward individualized treatments for cancer patients.
Nasajpour earned his B.S. in molecular biology at the University of Florida and his Ph.D. in materials chemistry with Professor Paul S. Weiss in 2023.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
