San Diego’s Cottage Industry of Marine Technology Innovation

The Security Network, a related industry group focused strictly on defense and homeland security technologies.

Pool tells me he self-funded Sidus Solutions, and his key customers are typically specialized companies that drill exploratory holes as well as the main holes for offshore platforms. “In order to monitor their equipment, they need cameras to watch the subsea operations,” Pool says. Sidus Solutions also developed positioning technology that orients an ROV so it remains oriented with its cameras pointing at a target, and the company has patented some of its technology innovations. (Sidus also is currently seeking venture capital to expand its operations, Pool says.)

Pool also identified some other subsea technologies that will likely be discussed at the conference:

—Doppler acoustics systems developed in San Diego by SonTek are used to measure river and ocean currents as well as the speed and relative position of underwater robots. Pool says SonTek, part of Ohio-based YSI, also has developed deep-ocean sensors that measure a variety of environmental conditions, from water temperature and salinity to available light and how much biomatter is floating in the water.

—Nereus Pharmaceuticals is a San Diego-based biotech that has been identifying and developing new drug candidates derived from marine microbes. Nereus describes its two anti-cancer drug candidates as “potentially best-in-class small molecules.” One drug candidate, which was derived from a marine fungus, disrupts the formation of tumor blood vessels and is being evaluated in a Phase 2 clinical trial for non-small cell lung carcinoma. Another drug derived from marine bacteria is being evaluated in multiple Phase 1 trials for multiple myeloma, solid tumors, lymphomas and leukemias.

—A variety of startup companies throughout the U.S., U.K., and Canada have been working on renewable energy innovations that can reliably and economically generate electricity from ocean waves. In Vancouver, BC, SyncWave Systems is developing what it calls the SyncWave Power Resonator, a 98-foot-long buoy designed to generate about 25 kilowatts as it bobs up and down among coastal waves. The company is planning a field demonstration next year off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.