Bioscience and medical technology leaders convened at UCLA from May 19 to May 22, combining two of Los Angeles’s premier innovation conferences.

The UCLA Technology Development Group united the UCLA MedTech Conference and LA Bioscience Ecosystem Summit for the inaugural LABEST Week with the hope of fostering collaboration across fields such as medical technology, therapeutics and artificial intelligence, according to a press release. Attendees were able to hear from CEOs of various companies and attend a research poster session.

Mark Wisniewski, the senior director of biopharmaceuticals at UCLA TDG, said the event was driven by a desire to showcase science innovation in LA. Wisniewski added that UCLA TDG’s technology transfer office plays a key role in licensing intellectual property developed at UCLA, emphasizing that industry increasingly looks to universities for STEM innovation.

“They’re separate but related marketplaces, but, because of that overlap, and quite frankly, when you’re trying to facilitate (and) raise awareness of all the great life science innovation we have at UCLA, quite frankly, across LA,” Wisniewski said. “You just want to showcase the best of the best to facilitate the relationships with industry and other stakeholders that are required to drive translation – which is so necessary for commercializing for patient benefit.”

Wisniewski said UCLA TDG attempts to recruit high-profile speakers, such as pharmaceutical CEOs and university leaders including Chancellor Julio Frenk. He added that TDG collaborates with partners across LA to spotlight emerging biotech hubs and support the region’s expanding startup ecosystem through the event.

UCLA Ventures – a department under UCLA TDG – aims to grow its philanthropic and alumni network to better support emerging entrepreneurs by connecting them with experienced executives in the Los Angeles innovation ecosystem, said Brija Johnson, a program manager for UCLA Ventures. Given the increasingly challenging funding landscape, she also said UCLA Ventures plays a key role in uniting campus resources – such as the Venture Accelerator, the California NanoSystems Institute and the Magnify Incubator – to help early-stage founders at the event build traction and navigate commercialization more successfully.

Nikki Lin, the director of entrepreneurship and commercialization at CNSI’s Magnify Incubator – which supports research by offering coworking laboratory and office spaces – said the goal of the incubator is to help academic founders across multiple campuses rapidly commercialize technologies that can improve health care and environmental sustainability.

The week included career fairs, panels, startup pitch events and the launch of a new development consortium led by real estate leaders.

Peter Schulam, the chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson gave the keynote address at the MedTech conference and said that academia and industry have an important intersection.

“Academia needs industry. Academia is the source of unmet needs,” Schulam said in the speech. “Industry provides the scale and reliability to bring things globally to market.”

In the speech, Schulam said the duty of innovators is to develop products that improve the standard of care. The greatest responsibility innovators hold is to create products that enhance judgement for care providers, he added.

“The best ideas in science don’t come from a group of like minded individuals sitting around the table. One of our core principles is inclusion. Part of inclusion means you need individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds to look at a frankly impossible problem and create a possibility out of that,” said Daniel O’Day, chairman and CEO of Gilead Sciences, who gave a keynote speech.

Igor Barjaktarevic, the medical director of the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease program at the David Geffen School of Medicine, said UCLA’s technology-forward environment allows for collaboration that will lead to new innovations. Barjaktarevic also said physicians must not only be empathetic and educated, but willing to bridge the gaps between medicine and technology through innovation.

William Lowry, the associate director of education and technology transfer at the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center, said he attended LABEST to speak on his aging research.

UCLA’s collaborative nature has served as an incubator for all types of research, Lowry said. The physical proximity that LABEST Week brings draws in individuals whose research thrives off collaboration, he added.

“It’s the kind of event where you don’t always have an agenda going in, but the hope is that you’ll meet somebody, you’ll make some connection or you’ll see something that sparks either a new interaction, collaboration or way of thinking,” Lowry said.

Kacee Doan, a Heal.LA program lead at the Larta Institute, also said LABEST has had a positive impact on fostering collaboration.

“Los Angeles … is one of the most diverse pool of people that you have in such a centralized area,” Doan said. “With that comes such great talent.”

Wisniewski said UCLA TDG is committed to making entrepreneurship and commercialization more accessible to underrepresented and historically marginalized groups – particularly women.

“It’s providing that opportunity to give a voice to those who are often overlooked,” Johnson said. “For instance, we are hosting a pitch gym live pitch showcase tomorrow as part of the LABEST bioscience conference, all focused on underrepresented founders, underrepresented entrepreneurs, getting them that feedback that they often don’t receive from experts in the space.”

Sofia Ramos, a program manager for UCLA Ventures, said one of the event’s goals is to highlight underrepresented groups in science, including women. She added that one company that was highlighted was FemSync, a company aimed at tracking female hormones.

Johnson said that the event could expand not just by location, but also beyond disciplines of bioscience and medical technology. Wisniewski added that he hopes the event can soon expand to inviting innovators from cities outside LA.

“Even though it’s a UCLA-based event, the mission is to advance LA as a whole,” Wisniewski said. “What’s the next step? We want to recruit San Francisco, San Diego to participate in our event, because we’re part of the Greater California ecosystem.”