OC LIFe - Building Life Science Startups

Dina Lozofsky serves as the Senior Director of Business Development, Physical Sciences and Engineering. Dina joined UCLA TDG in August 2019, bringing more than 25 years’ experience working in and around science and technology in Southern California. Most recently, Dina was the Executive Director at Biocom, leading Biocom’s efforts to help grow and support the LA life science industry, raising awareness around the regional cluster’s many research accomplishments. Before joining Biocom, Dina was the Associate Director for Licensing and Business Development at UC Santa Barbara’s Office of Technology and Industry Alliances, where she managed a program to mentor and support startup companies formed around UCSB technology. 

Dina has deep experience in intellectual property (IP) management and in leveraging IP to structure strategic alliances for both companies and universities, facilitating university collaboration with industry and fostering startup formation and licensing. She was also Vice President, Corporate Development for Solarmer Energy, a next generation solar startup spun out of UCLA, leading the company’s efforts in strategic relationships, business development, intellectual property, legal affairs, and marketing and worked with BTG International as Associate Vice President in their acquisitions group.  

Dina holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering from MIT, an MBA from USC’s Marshall School of Business and is a registered Patent Agent.

Bardia Moayedi is a corporate and securities partner, chair of the firm’s Technology Industry Group and co-chair of the firm's Life Sciences Industry Group. He primarily advises emerging growth and public companies throughout their life cycles as well as venture capital and private equity firms, particularly in the life sciences, high-technology, financial technology, food and beverage, and clean-technology industries.

Bardia has significant experience representing companies and financial firms in a broad range of general corporate governance and transactional matters, including venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, debt offerings, spin-offs/divestitures, joint ventures, IPOs, follow-on offerings, and tender offers. He is a trusted advisor, often serving as the go-to outside counsel or lead counsel to his clients.

Prior to attending law school, Bardia worked at a prominent investment bank, where he focused on hedge funds and private equity funds. As an undergraduate, he played ice and roller hockey at UCLA.

Maysam Pessian is an associate in the Century City office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. His practice focuses on patent prosecution and intellectual property counseling, serving clients in a wide range of technology fields, including the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries.

Brian M. Paegel (rhymes with “bagel”) earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Duke University and his doctoral degree in chemistry from UC Berkeley working on miniaturized and integrated DNA sequencing technology development in collaboration with the Human Genome Project. He pursued postdoctoral studies in chemical biology and molecular evolution at Scripps Research. There, he studied the continuous evolution of catalytic RNAs, developing microfluidics for automation, reaction monitoring, and droplet compartmentalization. He was the recipient of both a NIH National Research Service Award (F32) and a Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00). In 2008, Paegel was appointed to the Scripps chemistry faculty, starting his independent career at the new east coast campus of Scripps Research in Jupiter, Florida. He received the NIH Director’s New Innovator award and an NSF CAREER award in recognition of his contributions in reaction miniaturization for enzyme evolution, and Scripps granted him tenure in 2017 for his work in the field of DNA-encoded libraries and drug discovery technology development. In 2019, Paegel rejoined the University of California System where he is Professor in the Departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemistry, and Biomedical Engineering at Irvine. His laboratory aims to deliver advanced parallel synthesis and screening platforms to support cross-disciplinary translational research initiatives. Paegel is deploying these platforms to eliminate the canonical sense of what is “druggable” within the cellular milieu and to democratize the discovery of new medicines. To this end, he has co-founded four start-up companies in the biotechnology and drug discovery space.