Building a Rainforest in the Desert | August 2026

Following her appointment as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Barbara Rodríguez will continue serving on the UNM Rainforest Innovations Board of Directors.

As provost, Rodríguez brings leadership in academic affairs, research, faculty development, and student success, providing valuable insight to the Rainforest Innovations Board as it advances innovation and technology commercialization at UNM.

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Circular Genomics recently announced the launch of its CircPATH™ platform, a proprietary circular RNA discovery and validation platform designed to advance the early detection and monitoring of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. The announcement follows the publication of a landmark Nature Medicine study demonstrating that the company’s blood-based circular RNA biomarkers can predict Alzheimer’s disease progression with greater accuracy than current leading blood-based biomarkers. Validated across nearly 2,400 participants in three independent cohorts, the technology has the potential to improve early diagnosis, identify people at higher risk for developing Alzheimer’s before symptoms appear, and support more effective clinical trials and drug development.

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Accepting Applications for UNM Rainforest Innovations Fall Rainforest Accelerator

The Rainforest Accelerator encourages and supports entrepreneurial researchers from the University of New Mexico to explore commercial viability of their technologies, create new start-up businesses, generate business models, and submit proposals to other funding opportunities. Participants must be a faculty, staff, student, post-doc or other member at the University of New Mexico and have disclosed the underlying technology in your application to UNM Rainforest Innovations – please inquire if you have any questions about eligibility.

This program walks you through the customer discovery process along with conducting interviews directly with your target audience to help you gather necessary data, which is also essential for preparing stronger SBIR/STTR proposals or other funding opportunities.

Is your technology ready for the market?

• Explore the transition of your technology to the marketplace through entrepreneurial training.
• Determine the value proposition, customer, the size of the market, and market trends for your technology.
• Receive a dedicated mentor to provide one-on-one guidance through the program and the responsible Innovation Manager from UNM Rainforest Innovations will also participate.
• Prepare a formal presentation to investors at the end of the program to receive feedback on the commercialization opportunity of your technology. 

Program dates:

The program will run on Mondays, 4:00-5:00 p.m. from September 21-November 9, 2026, online via Zoom meetings.

Deadline to apply

Submit your application by Friday, September 11.

America’s Innovation Agency, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), released the latest edition of its series of reports highlighting the profound economic contributions of industries that predominantly rely on intellectual property (IP) protection, including patents, trademarks, and copyrights, titled “Intellectual property and the U.S. economy in 2024.”

The new report found that, in 2024, 128 IP-intensive industries in sectors such as manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, and professional, technical, management, and administrative services:

• Accounted for $11.4 trillion in U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), or 44% of total GDP 
• Provided direct employment to 49.6 million workers, or 33% of total U.S. employment 
• Provided indirect employment—that is, jobs created in other industries that depend at least partially on final sales in IP-intensive industries—that accounted for an additional 11% of total U.S. employment

Overall, IP-intensive industries contributed 44% of U.S. employment.

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Meet with SCORE mentors at the Lobo Rainforest Building or on Zoom! Mentors are available for one-on-one, confidential discussions and mentoring to inventors, students, and start-up companies.

SCORE mentors are successful business people and entrepreneurs who want to give back to the community by helping other entrepreneurs become and stay successful. SCORE has been helping small businesses start and grow in the Albuquerque area for over 50 years through mentoring and workshops and seminars. SCORE is the largest National resource partner of the Small Business Administration (SBA) with about 11,000 SCORE volunteers sharing their time and talents to help America's small businesses.

Interested? Contact Cara Michaliszyn at cmichaliszyn@innovations.unm.edu to arrange.

Advanced Economic Development Leadership Program Accepting Applications for the 2026 Cohort

November 2–5, 2026 in Fort Worth Texas

Participants receive an Economic Development Master Practitioner certificate from the partner universities.

AEDL immerses participants in a collaborative, team-centric approach that fosters learning through exploration, debate, exercises and team competition. The program attracts practitioners from across the U.S. bringing a wide range of thought, ideas and experiences to these sessions. Through this approach and the diversity of thought represented, participants often learn as much from interaction with fellow professionals as they do from faculty instruction.

Learn more and apply

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