SAXON Q launches commercial diamond-based NV-center quantum computers, offering room-temperature systems designed for research and industrial workloads.
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Creating a healthspan digital twin: A new era for humanity to better living — Jul 30
Zahi A. Fayad, PhD, is the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Medical Imaging and Bioengineering at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he also serves as Vice Chair for Research in Radiology and holds professorships in Medicine (Cardiology) and AI & Human Health. He is the founding Director of the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute (BMEII), home to one of the nation’s top NIH-funded radiology programs (#2 in 2025 per Blue Ridge rankings). Dr. Fayad also co-leads Mount Sinai’s system-wide Healthspan initiative, coordinating research, clinical, and digital infrastructure to advance precision prevention across the enterprise.
Dr. Fayad is Principal Investigator on multiple major grants, including five NIH-funded projects (3 R01s, 2 P01s) supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIAID, and NIDA. A leader in biomedical engineering, his interdisciplinary work integrates advanced imaging, AI, and nanomedicine to drive precision medicine, with research interests focused on how lifestyle stressors — chronic stress, diet, exercise, and sleep — affect long-term cardiovascular and whole-person health.
A Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher since 2018 (~190,000 citations; h-index 142), Dr. Fayad’s seminal contributions include MRI vessel wall imaging (leading to Carotid Plaque-RADS), FDG PET imaging of vascular inflammation, and defining the link between amygdala activity, systemic inflammation, and cardiovascular risk. His research on HDL-based nanoparticles for immune modulation is progressing toward clinical translation for cancer, autoimmune diseases, and transplant rejection — work he is advancing commercially as co-founder of Trained Therapeutix Discovery (TTxD), an early-stage biotech company. He is also a recipient of the Jean Paul II Award for Medicine and Research.
His current projects span cardiovascular, neuroimmune, and transplant-focused research, including stress-induced immune dysregulation; mitral valve prolapse and arrhythmia risk; cocaine use–related carotid atherosclerosis and cognitive impairment; cardiac sarcoidosis therapy monitoring; and immune tracking in organ rejection using nanobiologics — together shifting care upstream toward risk prediction and intervention before clinical events.
He also leads the Mount Sinai DigiTwin Project, an AI-driven platform designed to personalize health optimization by integrating imaging, multi-omics, and real-time physiologic data — initially focused on cardiovascular health and now expanding to whole-person healthspan modeling. Dr. Fayad and colleagues at Mount Sinai are finalists in the $80m XPRIZE Healthspan competition, where they are evaluating a multimodal strategy to meaningfully extend human healthspan.
Rogue DNA can move from cell to cell and change how they function
“We were looking at this in a two-dimensional culture, but in actual human tissue where cells are packed together very tightly, you might anticipate that this would occur even more frequently,” said Gary Gorbsky, OMRF professor and study co-author. “This opens up the possibility of a new process of genetic transfer of information.”
What effect did rogue DNA have on the new cell?
To test whether this new DNA that came from another cell had a functional impact on the new cell, the scientists engineered donor cells with resistance to a specific antibiotic. After combining donor and recipient cells in culture and inducing chromosome damage, they found that recipient cells acquired the same antibiotic resistance – direct evidence that mammalian cells can trade genetic material through simple cell-to-cell contact.
Startup founders urge Trump not to shut off Chinese open weight AI
Almost 200 Silicon Valley companies, including Proton and Y Combinator, are urging the Trump administration not to cut off access to Chinese open-weight artificial intelligence models or risk crippling the next generation of U.S. startups.
“American leadership requires two things: world-leading American open-weight models and continued access for U.S. builders to open models already available worldwide,” the startup founders wrote in , also sent to Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. Instead of broad prohibitions, they argue the government should adopt targeted safeguards…
Pregnancy complications linked to long-term risk of peripheral artery disease
Women who experience pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes, preeclampsia or preterm delivery have a significantly increased long-term risk of developing peripheral artery disease (PAD) later in life, according to a new study published in PLOS Medicine by Casey Crump of the University of Texas, U.S., and colleagues.
PAD, a condition in which narrowed arteries reduce blood flow to the limbs, affects more than 230 million people worldwide and is a strong predictor of future stroke, ischemic heart disease and premature mortality. Adverse pregnancy outcomes have been identified as risk factors for other cardiovascular diseases, but their association with long-term PAD risk had not been well established.
‘Cellular behavioromics’ reveals how immune cells swarm during sepsis
Despite the best efforts of intensive care unit (ICU) staff and physicians and the most advanced life support, Dr. Bryan Yipp, witnesses many deaths in the ICU attributed to sepsis. “Sepsis is the body’s overwhelming immune response to an infection, and sometimes that response can cause death,” says Yipp, a critical care physician and clinician-scientist at the Cumming School of Medicine. “While many cases involve people with long-term illnesses, seemingly healthy people can be at work or home one moment and then, within hours, be admitted to the ICU.”
Earlier this year, 41-year-old NASCAR race champion Kyle Busch died after pneumonia progressed to sepsis. Yipp says a recent discovery in his lab, published in Science, could lead to new treatments for this often-fatal condition.
