Medical Innovations Win Big in 20th Annual UC Davis Business Competition
UC Davis Grad Students Develop Stroke Diagnosis Method
By Simon Santos on May 19, 2020
"A team of UC Davis graduate students captured both the $20,000 first prize and the $10,000 Health Sector Award in the 20th annual Big Bang! Business Competition at the University of California, Davis, Wednesday night.
Biochemistry and molecular medicine doctoral students Shabnam Jafari and Diedra Shorty along with Teri Slack, an MBA student at the Graduate School of Management (who earned her organic chemistry doctorate from UC Davis in 2017), made up the winning team. A team of undergraduates from Johns Hopkins University won the $10,000 People’s Choice Award (decided by an online vote on team presentations) and the $3,000 Food, Ag & Health Innovation Award.
The first-place team’s venture, Davis, California–based StarBio, has developed a new diagnostic method that quickly and accurately identifies ischemic stroke patients. In a medical emergency where speed is critical, the Rapid Homogenous Point-of-Care Evaluation (HoPE) reduces assessment from hours to minutes to improve time-to-treatment and patient outcomes."