Meet the 2026 UC San Diego Chancellor’s Innovation Award Recipients

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• Catherine Poland - [email protected]

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Meet Carter Palmer, co-founder Third Element Bio

Carter Palmer received his PhD in Biomedical Sciences from UC San Diego in 2023. The work that he did on campus led him to co-founding Third Element Bio, which focuses on rejuvenating the brain's immune system.

Chronic inflammation can drive neurodegeneration, resulting in deteriorating cognitive function or motor control. Through Third Element Bio, Palmer and his co-founders have developed a promising therapeutic approach that has the potential to reverse disease pathways and promote brain healing - offering a possible paradigm shift in how neurological disorders can be treated.

"We're trying to solve the problem of human brain aging," Palmer says "As we age, our brain ages and that leads to multiple different diseases, be that Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS and others," he says.

Third Element Bio combines an AI-driven drug design with an advanced integrated analysis of human brain cells to develop RNA-based therapies that target and reset the cells that drive aging and inflammation.

Palmer's work aims to extend healthy cognitive lifespan and protect the independence and identity tied to brain health - at scale. "We're opening a new era in generation research that's going to be able to really allow us to make meaningful steps forward to push these diseases away," he says.

For Palmer, memory and cognition are crucial to who people are as humans. And his goal is to be able to give that back to people. "We envision a future where we can prevent or significantly delay cognitive decline and neurodegeneration, helping people and their families thrive as they age," he says.

The Student/Alumni Innovator of the Year receives a cash prize of $25,000.

"This award is an amazing recognition for the team at Third Element Bio and the progress we have made so far," Palmer says. "It provides valuable validation of our approach, connects us more deeply with UC San Diego's exceptional entrepreneurial ecosystem, and helps accelerate our efforts to advance new therapeutics toward patients."

Meet Daniel Wangpraseurt, founder Hybrid Reefs

Across the globe, coral reefs are dying at an alarming rate. "We have probably lost about 50% of the world's coral reefs," says Daniel Wangpraseurt. "And there's estimates out there that we're going to lose up to 90% within the next 25 years." This loss threatens ecosystems that support 25% of all marine life and sustain over one billion people through food security, tourism, and coastal protection, representing an estimated $10 trillion in global value, he says.

Increasing the genetic diversity of coral reefs can improve their long-term health.

Wangpraseurt's work involves two parallel efforts: reversing coral reef loss through enhancing coral recruitment and genetic diversity, and arresting future coral reef loss from bleaching. Coral bleaching occurs when increasing ocean temperatures stress coral and cause it to expel the symbiotic algae that lives on its tissues, resulting in it turning completely white.

The three-part system that Hybrid Reefs has developed includes a coating and substrate system that suppresses algal overgrowth and accelerates coral growth without the need for human-powered maintenance cleaning; a coral recruitment material that attracts larvae from the ocean to increase settlement success and genetic diversity and an anti-bleaching material designed to stabilize the coral-algal symbiosis during heat stress to mitigate bleaching.

Wangpraseurt's work operates at the interface between marine biology, engineering and material science. "I believe in a future where technology and biology merge in creating the first bio-engineered hybrid living systems," he says.

The nature-inspired biomaterials enhance coral growth, reproduction, and survival while reducing manual labor by up to 90%.

"Rather than replacing natural processes, our technologies amplify reefs' inherent capacity to regenerate," Wangpraseurt says. "Together, these technologies form an integrated hybrid reef platform that enables restoration at scales previously unattainable with conventional methods."

"What excites me the most right now is seeing that technologies we develop in the lab at small scale are able to be scaled and have real world impact," he says. "I think the future for coral reefs is a challenging one, but I feel if we all work together we can turn it around."

The Startup of the Year receives a cash prize of $50,000.

"Winning the Chancellor's Innovation Award is incredibly meaningful to me," Wangpraseurt says. "Building a company is ultimately about finding the right people who believe in your vision and UC San Diego has provided an exceptional environment and support system to make that possible. This recognition is not only a win for Hybrid Reefs, but also a clear signal that coral reefs and reef restoration are rapidly emerging as important economic opportunities."

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