Next-Generation Innovators: Meet the 2026 Chancellor’s Innovation Awards Finalists

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• Douglas T. Bonilla - [email protected]

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PolyVascular Builds a Heart Valve Designed to Grow With Children

Ten years in the making, PolyVascular is a medical device startup developing a minimally invasive heart valve designed specifically for young children with congenital heart disease who require pulmonary valve replacement. Children with severe congenital heart disease often undergo three to five open-heart surgeries during childhood because existing replacement valves do not grow with the patient. Current transcatheter devices - delivered through a catheter - are sized only for adults. PolyVascular's solution is a specialized pediatric-sized pulmonary valve delivered through a catheter rather than open-heart surgery. The device uses a patented biocompatible polymer valve mounted within a metal stent. Unlike existing animal-tissue valves, the device is designed to be expanded over time to accommodate a child's growth, potentially reducing the number of repeat surgeries and improving long-term quality of life. The company's design also lowers manufacturing costs and expands access to minimally invasive valve replacement for children worldwide. Learn more about PolyVascular.

UC San Diego Ecosystem Connection: PolyVascular is led by co-founder and CEO Henri Justino, M.D., a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the UC San Diego School of Medicine. The startup is a portfolio company of the Medtech Accelerator at the UC San Diego Institute for the Global Entrepreneur and has also engaged with regional incubator environments such as EvoNexus.

Founding Team: Henri Justino, MD (Co-founder/CEO); Kwonsoo Chun, PhD (Co-founder); Daniel Harrington, PhD (Co-founder)

Asayena Restores Movement Through Intelligent Neurotechnology

Asayena Inc. is a neurotechnology startup developing a neuromodulation-based treatment for paralysis designed to restore voluntary movement in patients with neurological injury. This first-in-class platform has the potential to fundamentally transform how weakness and paralysis are treated. The company is building a closed-loop peripheral nerve neuroprosthetic platform that dynamically adapts electrical stimulation based on patient intent and physiological signals. Unlike conventional neuromodulation systems that deliver fixed stimulation patterns to manage symptoms such as pain or tremor, Asayena's technology links stimulation to a patient's voluntary effort, allowing the nervous system to actively participate in motor relearning and recovery. The modular platform is designed to scale across multiple neurological conditions - including stroke, spinal cord injury and peripheral nerve damage - while integrating into existing surgical and rehabilitation workflows. By shifting neuromodulation from symptom management toward functional restoration, the company aims to help patients regain independence and reduce the long-term health care and societal burden associated with chronic neurological disability.

Founding Team: Ronald Sahyouni, MD, MS, PhD (Co-founder); Herbert Tsvi Goldenberg, PhD (CEO); Frank Litvack, MD (Board Chair)

UC San Diego Ecosystem Connection: Asayena, Inc. was co-founded by Ronald Sahyouni, M.D., M.S., Ph.D., a neurosurgery resident physician in the UC San Diego School of Medicine. The startup has been supported by UC San Diego-affiliated innovation and translational programs, including the UC San Diego Accelerating Innovation in Medicine program, the Center for the Future of Surgery, and the Device Acceleration Center. Externally, the company has also been awarded the NIH MedTech Blueprint Seedlings Grant and selected for the NIH Deep Dive incubator program. CEO Dr. Tsvi Goldenberg serves as an Industry Advisor to the UC San Diego Chancellor and several UC San Diego faculty members contribute as clinical advisors.

Hybrid Reefs Creates Nature-Inspired Technologies to Restore Coral Reefs

Hybrid Reefs, a climate technology startup emerging from UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is advancing a new model for coral reef restoration at a time when more than half of the world's coral reefs have already been lost and up to 90% could disappear by 2050. Addressing the limitations of labor-intensive and costly restoration methods, the company has developed a patent-pending platform of nature-inspired biomaterials designed to enhance coral growth, reproduction and survival while significantly reducing human labor. Its integrated system includes CoralGuard™, an antifouling coating that suppresses algal overgrowth and accelerates coral growth; Snap-X™, which attracts coral larvae to improve settlement and genetic diversity; and Symbion™, which mitigates bleaching during heat stress. Together, these technologies transform restoration from small-scale, manual efforts into scalable, climate-resilient reef infrastructure. Already piloted with leading global partners and generating early revenue, Hybrid Reefs is positioning itself as an enabling technology platform for the restoration industry, supporting ecosystems, coastal communities and economies that depend on healthy reefs. Learn more about Hybrid Reefs.

UC San Diego Ecosystem Connection: Hybrid Reefs was founded by Daniel Wangpraseurt, an associate research scientist at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where he leads the Coral Reef Engineering Lab. The company operates out of UC San Diego's Entrepreneurship Center in the Design and Innovation Building and is supported through the university's innovation ecosystem, including StartBlue, Triton Innovator and UC San Diego Horizon, with a founding team that includes UC San Diego postdoctoral researcher Samapti Kundu and other UC San Diego-affiliated researchers and advisors.

Founding Team: Daniel Wangpraseurt (Founder); Alex Ferre (Corporate Development Lead); Mike Poirier (COO/CFO); Samapti Kundu (CTO)

Student/Alumni Innovator of the Year Finalists 2026

Revolutionizing Military Training with Evidence, Not Memory

Inspired by her father's two decades in the military and his firsthand accounts of training challenges, Lanka Diunugala'25 is tackling a problem that observed in training environments have long faced but few have addressed systematically: the difficulty of organizing captured training data into actionable insights from field training. Her journey began while participating in the FORGE's Innovating for National Security (i4NS)program. Diunugala co-led field research at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Germany, conducting numerous interviews and usability engagements that revealed a systemic problem - after action reviews relied on memory, were fragmented, and often left critical lessons disorganized. Diunugala and her team recognized that this was an undeniable opportunity, and out of this research grew Prasync (formerly OrcaLink), a prototype platform that integrates training data (e.g GPS, audio, photos and Observer Coach Trainer notes), organizes them, and makes them searchable while preserving human judgment. Iteratively refined with end-user feedback, Prasync intends to reduce cognitive load for Observer Coach Trainers, improves consistency of feedback and enables trend tracking across training cycles. After i4NS, the recent alumna advanced Prasync beyond its initial research phase, focusing on infantry and platoon-level training, where evidence-based insights can most directly improve operational readiness, make after action reviews faster and more effective, and ensure lessons learned are reliably applied to future operations.

UC San Diego Ecosystem Connection: Beyond having origins with the i4NS program, Lanka's work was further supported by The Basement, as well as externally by the Defense Innovation Unit Student Fellowship -Commercial (DISF-C).

Founding Team:Lanka Diunugala (Founder/CEO), Vivian Liu (CPO), Gunjan Shah (CTO), Erika Lee (Former CEO/Co-founder)

Turning Weeks of Lab Work Into Hours: A New Era for Hydrogel Innovation

Hydrogels play a quiet but critical role in everything from drug delivery to wound care, yet the process of testing them has long remained slow and manual. When Sinan Gölhan arrived at UC San Diego from Istanbul to study nanoengineering, his mother's cancer diagnosis back home struck him deeply. In time, this formative experience deepened his interest in drug delivery and biomaterials - drawing him into the very lab work where he would encounter these limitations firsthand. After spending countless hours repeating manual tests, the current Jacobs School of Engineering graduate student set out to build a better system, founding GelTech Labs to develop Carousel, a robotic instrument that automates hydrogel testing from start to finish. By combining specialized sample handling, precision microfluidics and integrated software, Carousel reduces workflows that once required more than 200 hours of labor to just a few hours, while significantly improving data consistency. Now in early use across academic and industry labs, the platform is helping accelerate research in areas such as drug delivery, wound healing and sustainable materials - freeing scientists to move faster and focus on discovery, all the while potentially shortening the path from concept to impact. Learn more about GelTech Labs.

UC San Diego Ecosystem Connection: Sinan's work has been supported through UC San Diego programs including the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur (IGE), the MedTech Accelerator, NSF I-Corps, and the UC San Diego Horizon, with additional support from the Office of Innovation and Commercialization and access to prototyping and workspace facilities in the Design and Innovation Building. GelTech Labs has also received institutional funding and in-kind support from the Jacobs School of Engineering. The startup has closed $1.5M from grants, awards and investments from UC San Diego, Next Fab Ventures, NSF and others. The underlying innovation has been advanced through UC San Diego-affiliated research environments and early laboratory validation as well.

Founding Team: Sinan Gölhan (Founder/CEO); Sunghwan Cho (CTO); Alex Kraus (Lead Mechanical Engineer)

A "Clinical Trial in a Dish" to Accelerate Brain Disease Therapies

After watching her grandmother's battle with dementia, Maya Gosztyla '24 set out to change how brain diseases are treated - founding BrainStorm Therapeutics to tackle one of medicine's most persistent failures: the inability of traditional models to predict what will work in the human brain. Drawing on her Ph.D. training at UC San Diego, Gosztyla built a platform that uses patient-derived brain organoids, or "mini-brains," combined with AI to test thousands of drug candidates directly in human-like systems - creating what she describes as a "clinical trial in a dish." This human-first approach addresses a core bottleneck in drug development, where reliance on animal models has led to high failure rates, by generating more predictive, reproducible data earlier in the process. The company has already raised more than $1 million in non-dilutive funding, secured early partnerships, and advanced a repurposed drug candidate for Rett syndrome to an FDA-cleared investigational new drug application without new animal efficacy data. This progress demonstrates a faster and more efficient path to potential treatments. By integrating biology and computation, Gosztyla and her team aim to reduce costly failures, accelerate therapies for both rare and common neurological conditions, and ultimately bring more effective treatments to patients and families who cannot afford to wait. Learn more about BrainStorm Therapeutics.

UC San Diego Ecosystem Connection: Beginning in the Gene Yeo lab and the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, Gosztyla's work has been largely supported through UC San Diego's research and academic ecosystem, as well as the broader San Diego biotech ecosystem. Additional support includes Nucleate San Diego and through non-dilutive funding sources including NIH, NSF, and the CURE5 Foundation.

Founding Team: Maya Gosztyla (Co-founder/CSO); Robert T. Fremeau Jr. (Co-founder and CEO)

Turning Everyday Conversations into a Classroom for the World

For Ray Miao, a UC San Diego master's student in engineering, her innovation journey began with a personal realization: fluency in English grammar does not guarantee confidence in real conversations. After arriving in the United States as an international student, Miao saw how slang, idioms and cultural references often left non-native speakers feeling excluded from everyday dialogue, even when they understood the language academically. Motivated by that experience, Miao started thinking about how a human-centered AI system could quietly support people in the moments when communication matters most. The vision is a smart platform that could detect spoken expressions and cultural references from media or live conversations and explain them in real time, turning everyday exposure to English into an ongoing learning experience. By shifting language learning from formal study to real-world support - and pairing linguistic explanations with cultural context - Miao's innovative idea aims to help international students, immigrants and global professionals participate more confidently in classrooms, workplaces and social spaces. At scale, the approach could help reduce the invisible barriers that language and cultural nuance create, expanding opportunities for connection, inclusion and professional mobility.

UC San Diego Ecosystem Connection: Ray Miao's idea has been shaped by UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering and its AI research ecosystem, where access to faculty and labs, together with the university's culture of innovation has helped support their early-stage student inquiry and experimentation.

Project Team: Ray Miao; Yiwen Deng

Rewiring the Aging Brain to Preserve Memory and Identity

Driven by a deeply personal loss that turned scientific curiosity into purpose, Carter Palmer '23 founded Third Element Bio in 2022 to tackle one of medicine's most elusive challenges: the irreversible decline of the aging brain. After watching his grandmother lose her memory and identity to neurodegeneration, Palmer channeled his doctoral training in biomedical sciences into building a human-centered therapeutics platform that moves beyond symptom management to address the root causes of diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and ALS. Third Element Bio uses advanced integrated analysis of human brain cells combined with AI-driven drug design to develop RNA-based therapies that precisely target and reset the cellular programs driving aging and inflammation - an approach that differs from conventional treatments focused on single pathways or animal model targets. Backed by nearly $1 million in funding, including a competitive National Institute on Aging SBIR award, the startup is setting out to transform how neurodegenerative diseases are treated while extending healthy cognitive lifespan at scale. Through Third Element Bio, Palmer is working to ensure that brain health - and the identity and independence it sustains - can be protected for millions. Learn more about Third Element Bio.

UC San Diego Ecosystem Connection: Palmer's work on Third Element Bio has been supported by UC San Diego programs, such as the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur's MedTech Accelerator, StartR and Rady School of Management venture fellow programs. These resources provided early financial support, guidance in refining business strategy, and access to mentorship networks, collaborators and industry partners that have been essential to the company's development.

Founding Team:Carter Palmer (Co-Founder); Christine Liu (Co-founder); Tony Ngo (Co-founder)

Join us in celebrating the remarkable accomplishments of this year's finalists as they illuminate the path for the next wave of innovation. Winners in each category will be announced in late April, so stay tuned. Learn more about the Chancellor's Innovation Awards.

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