Lifeboat Foundation

Novel drugs, such as vaccines against COVID-19, among others, are based on drug transport using nanoparticles. Whether this drug transport is negatively influenced by an accumulation of blood proteins on the nanoparticle’s surface was not clarified for a long time.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have now followed the path of such a particle into a cell using a combination of several microscopy methods. They were able to observe a cell-internal process that effectively separates blood components and nanoparticles.

Nanoparticles are a current field of research and it is impossible to imagine modern medicine without them. They serve as microscopic drug capsules that are less than a thousandth of a millimeter in diameter. Among other things, they are used in current vaccines against COVID-19 to effectively deliver active ingredients to where they are actually needed. In most cases, the capsules dock onto cells, are enveloped by them, and are absorbed into them. Inside the cell, chemical processes can then open the capsules, releasing the active ingredient.

Metastasisation — the spreading of cancer cells from the primary tumour into surrounding body tissues and organs — is the leading cause of death in cancer patients. Now a new study has found a potential way to stop these cancer cells from entering a person’s blood. Scientists from Israel are working to produce the world’s first preventative drug to help stop tumours that cause secondary cancer, as reported byThe Times of Israel.

University of Queensland researchers have identified a pathway in cells that could be used to reprogram the body’s immune system to fight back against both chronic inflammatory and infectious diseases.

Dr. Kaustav Das Gupta and Professor Matt Sweet from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience discovered that a molecule derived from glucose in immune cells can both stop bacteria growing and dampen inflammatory responses. Dr. Das Gupta said that the finding is a critical step towards future therapeutics that train immune cells.

The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

See the people building up Atlas.

How does Atlas recognize and interact with objects? How do we develop new Atlas behaviors? Why is manipulation important for the future of robotics?

Continue reading “Inside the Lab: Taking Atlas From Sim to Scaffold” »

A new study has identified a promising drug candidate that can protect neurons from degeneration in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease. The research is published in Science Translational Medicine.

Addressing an unmet need

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, and over the last 25 years, the prevalence of PD has doubled, presenting a large health burden across the globe.

— Two papers show that large language models, including ChatGPT, can pass the USMLE.

The ultraviolet nail polish drying devices used to cure gel manicures may pose more of a public health concern than previously thought. Researchers at the University of California San Diego studied these ultraviolet (UV) light emitting devices, and found that their use leads to cell death and cancer-causing mutations in human cells.

The devices are a common fixture in nail salons, and generally use a particular spectrum of UV light (340-395nm) to cure the chemicals used in gel manicures. While tanning beds use a different spectrum of UV light (280-400nm) that studies have conclusively proven to be carcinogenic, the spectrum used in the nail dryers has not been well studied.

“If you look at the way these devices are presented, they are marketed as safe, with nothing to be concerned about,” said Ludmil Alexandrov, a professor of bioengineering as well as cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego, and corresponding author of the study published Jan. 17 in Nature Communications. “But to the best of our knowledge, no one has actually studied these devices and how they affect human cells at the molecular and cellular levels until now.”

The approval was granted by the Singapore Food Agency, and means Good Meat is allowed to use synthetic processes to create its products.

Cultured meat is grown from animal cells and is biologically the same as meat that comes from an animal. The process starts with harvesting muscle cells from an animal, then feeding those cells a mixture of nutrients and naturally-occurring growth factors (or, as Good Meat’s process specifies, amino acids, fats, and vitamins) so that they multiply, differentiate, then grow to form muscle tissue, in much the same way muscle grows inside animals’ bodies.

Usually, getting animal cells to duplicate requires serum. One of the more common is fetal bovine serum, which is made from the blood of fetuses extracted from cows during slaughter. It sounds a bit brutal even for the non-squeamish carnivore. Figuring out how to replicate the serum’s effects with synthetic ingredients has been one of the biggest hurdles to making cultured meat viable.

Alphabet, parent holding company of Google, has announced that it’s cutting around 6% of its global workforce.

In an open letter published by Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, the narrative followed a similar trajectory to that of other companies that have downsized in recent months, noting that the company had “hired for a different economic reality” than what it’s up against today.

Put simply, it had bolstered its workforce during the pandemic-driven digital boom times, but it’s now having to reverse course as the world curtails its spending in the face of economic headwinds.