Lifeboat Foundation

Physicists have invented a new type of analog quantum computer that can tackle hard physics problems that the most powerful digital supercomputers cannot solve.

New research published in Nature Physics by collaborating scientists from Stanford University in the U.S. and University College Dublin (UCD) in Ireland has shown that a novel type of highly-specialized analog computer, whose circuits feature quantum components, can solve problems from the cutting edge of quantum physics that were previously beyond reach. When scaled up, such devices may be able to shed light on some of the most important unsolved problems in physics.

For example, scientists and engineers have long wanted to gain a better understanding of superconductivity, because existing superconducting materials —such as those used in MRI machines, high speed train and long-distance energy-efficient power networks—currently operate only at extremely low temperatures, limiting their wider use. The holy grail of materials science is to find materials that are superconducting at room temperature, which would revolutionize their use in a host of technologies.

At our StrictlyVC event a few nights ago, Altman was generous with his time, spending an hour with those gathered to talk about the latest at OpenAI (the hottest startup in the world at the moment), as well as answering questions about how his other investments fit into larger themes that he expects to play out — and in the not-distant future.

This is part one of that interview, focused on Altman’s investments, including in Helion Energy, a nuclear fusion company that Altman described at the event as “the other thing beside OpenAI that I spend a lot of time on.” We also talked Twitter, supersonic jets, making babies out of skin cells, and why he’s “not super interested” in crypto.

Continue reading “StrictlyVC in conversation with Sam Altman, part one” »

Year 2022 face_with_colon_three

Pathologist Aaron LeBeau has been studying how nurse shark antibodies could help fight covid-19, cancer and other diseases.

Cancer vaccines are an active area of research for many labs, but the approach that Shah and his colleagues have taken is distinct. Instead of using inactivated tumor cells, the team repurposes living tumor cells, which possess an unusual feature. Like homing pigeons returning to roost, living tumor cells will travel long distances across the brain to return to the site of their fellow tumor cells. Taking advantage of this unique property, Shah’s team engineered living tumor cells using the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 and repurposed them to release tumor cell killing agents. In addition, the engineered tumor cells were designed to express factors that would make them easy for the immune system to spot, tag, and remember, priming the immune system for a long-term anti-tumor response.

The team tested their repurposed CRISPR-enhanced and reverse-engineered therapeutic tumor cells (ThTC) in different mice strains, including the one that bore bone marrow, liver, and thymus cells derived from humans, mimicking the human immune microenvironment. Shah’s team also built a two-layered safety switch into the cancer cell, which, when activated, eradicates ThTCs if needed. This dual-action cell therapy was safe, applicable, and efficacious in these models, suggesting a roadmap toward therapy. While further testing and development is needed, Shah’s team specifically chose this model and used human cells to smooth the path of translating their findings for patient settings.

Year 2022 face_with_colon_three

Precision-controlled CAR-T-cell immunotherapies could be used to tackle a range of tumour types.

Year 2019 😗

Genetically modified microbes release “nanobodies” that alert the immune system to cancer in mice, scientists report.

Radiotherapy (RT) is an established treatment modality of malignant tumors. Currently, photon beam therapy is the most widely used in clinical settings. Intensity-modulated photon radiotherapy (IMRT) was introduced in the mid-1990s, and it took the radiotherapy with photons to a huge leap forward. As the development of IMRT, it has been considered to be the advanced and the standard of treatment for many malignancies [1]. Although the IMRT technique can typically provide a more conformal dose distribution than the traditional RT mode, it is necessary to improve the tumor control and overall survival (OS), and reduce the RT toxicity. It is well known that the advantage of a proton beam is the physical characteristics of its depth-dose curve, with a dose peak (Bragg peak) at a well-defined depth in tissue (Fig. 1). For relatively shallow tumors, unlike the photon depth-dose curve showing an exponentially decreasing energy deposition with increasing depth in tissue, the Bragg peak allows for rapid fall-off of the radiation dose at the end of the range and a sharp lateral dose fall-off with the maximum energy deposition for each proton beam in the target region and almost no energy around it. Therefore, proton beam therapy (PBT) effectively allows the delivery of high-radiation doses to tumor cells and very low or zero doses to the normal cells, which is recognized as an ideal therapy modality for treatment of malignant diseases, especially for organs at risk (OARs) with less toxicity. As Dr. Herman Suit in the department of radiation oncology of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) said: “No advantage to any patient for any irradiation of any normal tissue exists; and radiation complication never occurs in nonirradiated tissues.”

In 1946, Robert R. Wilson proposed to use accelerator-produced beams of protons to treat patients with deep-seated tumors [2]. In 1954, the first patient with breast cancer was treated with proton radiation of the pituitary in the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory [3]. In 1961, protons commenced to be used for clinical treatment at Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory [4]. Initially, the clinical practice and research of PBT only focused on the tumors near a critical structure or those that responded poorly to photon radiotherapy such as ocular tumors, skull base tumors, paraspinal tumors, and unresectable sarcomas. Over the next 60 years, with the vast development of technology, the application of PBT has been gradually expanding to various neoplasms. Although increasingly more evidence has been indicated for the advantages of PBT in clinical experience, PBT is not good for all cases all of the time. It is very important to understand the benefits and limitations of protons as well as the biology and the behavior of the tumor. In this review, we summarized the latest advances and clinical applications of PBT. We also considered the challenges of treatment optimization in the era of precision medicine.

Year 2022 Nanotransfection can essentially cure cancer for pennies destroying cancer on a cellular level non-invasively not causing problems for other cells either.

Tumor cells release extracellular vesicles (EVs) containing miR-126 angiomiR cargo, which, when delivered to tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), generate a tumorigenic TAM subset as identified by single-cell RNA sequencing (RNA-seq). Nanoscopic imaging reveals miR-126 in single EVs. Tissue nanotransfection intervention to inhibit miR-126 (TNTanti-miR-126) prevents tumor-related death and ensures tumor-free survival.

We speak at a rate of roughly 160 words every minute. That speed is incredibly difficult to achieve for speech brain implants.

Decades in the making, speech implants use tiny electrode arrays inserted into the brain to measure neural activity, with the goal of transforming thoughts into text or sound. They’re invaluable for people who lose their ability to speak due to paralysis, disease, or other injuries. But they’re also incredibly slow, slashing word count per minute nearly ten-fold. Like a slow-loading web page or audio file, the delay can get frustrating for everyday conversations.

A team led by Drs. Krishna Shenoy and Jaimie Henderson at Stanford University is closing that speed gap.