Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Log in for authorized contributors

Encapsulation of AAVs into Protein Vault Nanoparticles as a Novel Solution to Gene Therapy’s Neutralizing Antibody Problem

My vaultAAV gene therapy invention for circumventing preexisting anti-AAV immunity has been published in ACS Synthetic Biology! This technology was the basis for my first company, Cathedral Therapeutics![Cathedral was acquired in 2025, now I’m an advisor and board member]. You can read the Open Access paper at this link https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.6c00512

Additionally, here is Cathedral’s new (post-acquisition) website for those interested: https://www.cathedraltx.com/

Thank you to everyone who helped along the way. I’d particularly like to extend special gratitude to my mentor David T. Curiel!

Abstract. Although adeno-associated virus (AAV) has enjoyed enormous success as a delivery modality for gene therapy, it suffers from high prevalence of preexisting neutralizing antibodies in human populations, limiting who can receive potentially life-saving treatments. As a novel solution to this issue, we employed SpyTag-SpyCatcher molecular glue technology to facilitate packaging of AAVs inside of recombinant protein vault nanoparticles. Vaults are endogenous particles produced by mammalian cells. We therefore hypothesized that they may shield packaged molecules from neutralizing antibodies. Vaults have previously been utilized to deliver drugs and proteins into cells, but our study represents the first time anyone has packaged an entire virus inside of a vault. We showed that our vaultAAV delivery vehicle transduces cells in the presence of anti-AAV neutralizing serum. VaultAAV is positioned as a new gene therapy delivery platform with potential to overcome the neutralizing antibody problem, expanding the scope of AAV treatments.

A novel intervention to potentially improve the outcome of children with malnutrition

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital have uncovered an intervention that could potentially improve outcomes for children with malnutrition, a condition that contributes to nearly half of all deaths among children younger than 5. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“One poorly understood consequence of malnutrition is intestinal barrier erosion, which allows bacteria to escape the gut and cause invasive infections, including sepsis, which are leading causes of mortality in malnourished children,” said study lead and co-corresponding author Dr. Geoffrey Preidis, associate professor of pediatrics—gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition and member of the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor and Texas Children’s.

The intestinal barrier is a dynamic system maintained through coordinated functions of the mucus layer, the junctions between epithelial cells lining the gut and immune cells. In addition, gut microbes and products of their metabolism also play a role in regulating intestinal barrier function, but how this occurs is not well understood.

CRISPR roadblocks: Scientists identify genes blocking gene therapy success

Like a delivery driver navigating crowded city streets, a gene-therapy-toting lipid nanoparticle faces a gauntlet of potential detours on its journey toward a cell’s nucleus. First, there’s entering the cell’s plasma membrane; then navigating around organelles like the Golgi apparatus, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum—all destinations that can errantly absorb the particle’s payload, rendering it ineffective at best or harmful at worst. And that’s all before the particle even enters the nucleus and successfully makes a genetic change.

The universe is 13.8 billion years old. Webb is finding galaxies that look like they’ve been quietly forming stars for billions of years inside a cosmos that was, at the time of observation, only a few hundred million years old

Webb’s stunning early galaxies are forcing astronomers to rethink cosmic history—but not quite in the way the headlines suggest.

Anthropic Reportedly in Talks to Acquire Peer Decart for $6 Billion, Bolstering Compute Ahead of IPO

AI startup Anthropic is reportedly in talks to acquire peer Decart AI for approximately $6 billion (about NT$190 billion). If finalized, the deal would mark the largest acquisition in Anthropic’s history, coming at a time when the company is preparing for its highly anticipated IPO. Bloomberg first reported the deal on August 13, noting that the agreement has not yet been finalized and negotiations could still fall through.

Anthropic has been moving at a rapid pace on both fundraising and listing preparations this year. In February, it completed a $30 billion Series G round at a post-money valuation of $380 billion. Less than three months later, in May, it closed a $65 billion Series H round, pushing its post-money valuation to $965 billion — nearly $1 trillion. In early June, Anthropic confidentially filed its S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), paving the way for a future public listing. If this acquisition goes through, it would occur during a period when the company’s valuation and IPO preparations are both accelerating simultaneously.

Market sources indicate that Anthropic, which has historically made very few large acquisitions, has been investing heavily in compute capacity to develop new products and serve customers. According to sources, Decart’s software enables chips to operate more efficiently, thereby reducing the cost of training AI models. This technology would help Anthropic’s existing infrastructure handle greater demand. Upon completion of the deal, Decart’s team would join Anthropic’s inference and performance division. According to Forbes, FierceBiotech, and other media tallies, Anthropic has completed at least four acquisitions this year, including compiler startup Stainless and biotech startup Coefficient Bio (in a roughly $400 million stock deal), but all were far smaller than the Decart transaction — $6 billion would be more than ten times the size of any previously known deal.

Thermal detection of single photons using Dirac fermions

Single photon detectors are essential for various quantum and imaging applications. Here, the authors report graphene bolometers able to detect single near-infrared photons at temperatures up to 1.2 K with intrinsic quantum efficiency up to 87%, dark count  < 1 per second and effective noise equivalent power down to 2 × 10−22 W/ $$\sqrt{{{{\rm{Hz}}}}}$$ Hz.

Distinguishing true progression from treatment effects in glioblastoma: a practical, evidencegraded imaging framework for the multidisciplinary team NeuroOncology

Distinguishing true progression (TP) from treatment effects—pseudoprogression (PsP) and radiation necrosis (RN)—after chemoradiation for glioblastoma (GBM) is a consequential, unresolved decision that conventional MRI cannot reliably make in 30–40% of cases, and that is rarely made by any single specialty alone.

We synthesized and graded evidence from RANO 2.0, advanced MRI (perfusion, diffusion, and spectroscopy), amino acid PET (per PET RANO 1.0), and radiomics, based on a literature search of PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane (2010–2025).

In selected cohorts, combined MRI plus amino acid PET reports areas under the curve of 0.90–0.95 versus 0.65–0.72 for conventional MRI alone; however, these figures come from cohorts spanning the full range of post-treatment enhancement—including easily classified cases—rather than the ambiguous subset in which advanced imaging is actually used, and therefore likely overstate real-world accuracy. We organize the evidence around clinical modifiers of pretest probability—MGMT methylation, interval since chemoradiation, neurologic trajectory, antiangiogenic or immunotherapy exposure, reirradiation, and lesion location—that determine how heavily each imaging tier should be weighted. For amino acid PET, we address U.S. access, including recently published prospective and multicenter diagnostic-accuracy data for 18 F-fluciclovine.

/* */