Biologist Michael Levin—creator of living robots—reveals a radical, evidence-based view of evolution driven by a fundamental mind, where agency emerges in unexpected places and what this means for humanity’s co-evolution with AI and AGI. This video is a compilation of interviews I conducted with Levin over the course of year for my Forbes reporting on his research.
Developers have married gene-modulating oligonucleotides with the targeted precision of antibodies, and the first filings using such conjugates in Duchenne muscular dystrophy are imminent.
Although the CNS has been considered for a long time an immune-privileged organ, it is now well known that both the parenchyma and non-parenchymal tissue (meninges, perivascular space, and choroid plexus) are richly populated in resident immune cells.
Oxidative stress is a direct consequence of an excess in the body of so-called free radicals—reactive, unstable molecules that contain oxygen. Free radicals are normal metabolic by-products and also help to relay signals in the body. In turn, oxidative stress (an overload of these molecules) can be caused by lifestyle, environmental, and biological factors such as smoking, high alcohol consumption, poor diet, stress, pollution, radiation, industrial chemicals, and chronic inflammation.
When this occurs, it creates an imbalance between the production of free radicals and the body’s antioxidant defenses, which are responsible for neutralizing them.
In this episode of the Oncology Brothers podcast, we engaged in a thought-provoking discussion with Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a pioneer in oncology and the innovator behind the approval of nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane). We delved into the exciting potential of Anktiva (N-803), an IL-15 receptor super agonist designed to expand and activate natural killer (NK) cells and CD8 T cells, with the hope of revolutionizing cancer treatment.
Dr. Soon-Shiong shared insights into the mechanism of action of Anktiva, its current approvals in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, and extended approval in non-small cell lung cancer in Saudi Arabia, and the promising clinical trial data that suggests a significant increase in overall survival for patients. The conversation also touched on the importance of restoring lymphocyte counts and the implications for treating various tumor types.
Join us as we explore the future of immunotherapy, the challenges of regulatory approval, and the potential for Anktiva to change the landscape of cancer treatment. Key Topics: • Mechanism of action of Anktiva. • Current approvals and clinical trial data. • The role of lymphocyte counts in cancer treatment. • Future directions for immunotherapy.
Follow us on social media: • X/Twitter: / oncbrothers. • Instagram: / oncbrothers. • Website: https://oncbrothers.com/
Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more discussions on the latest in oncology!
A combined experimental and theoretical study reveals the emergence of quantum chaos in a complex system, suggesting that it can be described with a universal theoretical framework.
Consider the following thought experiment: Take all the air molecules in a thunderstorm and evolve them backward in time for an hour, effectively rewinding a molecular movie. Then slightly perturb the velocity directions of a few molecules and evolve the system forward again to the current moment. Because such systems are chaotic, microscopic perturbations in the past will lead to dramatically different futures. This “butterfly effect” also occurs in quantum systems. To observe it, researchers measure a mathematical entity called the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC). Loosely speaking, the OTOC measures how quickly a system “forgets” its initial state. Unfortunately, the OTOC is notoriously difficult to measure because it typically requires experimental protocols that implement an effective many-body time reversal.
Amino acids, the building blocks necessary for life, were previously found in samples of 4.6-billion-year-old rocks from an asteroid called Bennu, delivered to Earth in 2023 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. How those amino acids—the molecules that create proteins and peptides in DNA—formed in space was a mystery, but new research led by Penn State scientists shows they could have originated in an icy-cold, radioactive environment at the dawn of Earth’s solar system.
According to the researchers, who published new findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, some amino acids in the asteroid Bennu samples likely formed in a different way than was previously thought, in the harsh conditions of the early solar system.