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

Reconstructing signaling histories of single cells via perturbation screens and transfer learning

You want to reprogram a cell to heal a disease, but you don’t know what instructions it has already received. Throughout their lives, cells constantly receive chemical signals from their environment that tell them what to do and what to become. If scientists want to manipulate these cells for medical treatments, they first need to decode their “signal history.” However, reading this history inside living, developing tissues has been incredibly difficult—until now. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-026-03213-8

To solve this, researchers created a clever two-step workaround. First, in the lab, they exposed human stem cells to thousands of different chemical signals, creating a massive “dictionary” of how cells physically react to specific instructions. Next, they trained an artificial intelligence program named IRIS to memorize this dictionary, teaching it to recognize the unique “fingerprints” that different signals leave behind on a cell.

Once IRIS was trained, the researchers let it act as a detective on real, living mouse embryos. By looking at the current state of the embryo’s single cells, IRIS successfully reconstructed their past. It figured out exactly which chemical signals the cells had experienced to become the specific types they are today, revealing hidden differences between seemingly identical cells and tracing the exact chemical journey cells take as they develop.

Ultimately, this breakthrough reveals that cells across different types share a common, universal language of chemical signals. By giving scientists a scalable, highly accurate tool to map out how cells communicate and develop in the living body, this technology paves the way for designing highly targeted medical therapies and precisely engineering cell behavior.

#machinelearning #cellfateengineering #ComputationalBiology #CellularReprogramming

IRIS learns conserved signaling representations from in vitro perturbation data to reconstruct signaling states and histories across diverse in vivo cellular contexts.

Continue reading “Reconstructing signaling histories of single cells via perturbation screens and transfer learning” | >

New drug reverses severe fatty liver disease by repairing the gut

Scientists have discovered that a potential new drug can reverse severe fatty liver disease in animal models by restoring gut health and blocking harmful substances from reaching the liver. The breakthrough could pave the way for new treatments for liver disease and potentially other serious conditions, including cardiovascular disease.

Reason is not sacred: Finding a way when there is no magnetic north

Prof. Moreira argues that reason cannot generate intrinsic value; it merely operates on existing human needs and emotional commitments. While reason can expose contradictions, refine desires, and structure society, it cannot logically compel anyone to care about existence, honesty, or reciprocity. True human value begins with felt needs—most fundamentally, the recognition of the “Other” and their inner life. Ultimately, reason and need must work together to build a pluralistic society where individuals can coexist without needing universal agreement on what makes life meaningful.

Researchers Transform Old Blood Cells into Young Brain Cells

Researchers from the University Hospital of Bonn and the University of Bonn have succeeded in dramatically rejuvenating human cells in a test tube. To do so, they directly reprogrammed red blood cell precursors into stem cells from which neurons can be derived. During this process, the molecular clocks that indicate a cell’s age were reset. For example, blood cells from an 80-year-old were transformed into stem cells with a molecular age of less than 20 years. Since this rejuvenation process occurred very slowly, it is well-suited for a more detailed investigation of the underlying mechanisms. The results have been published in the journal Aging Cell.

Study: Aging Cell Abstract Protracted Fate Acquisition and Epigenetic De-Aging During Induced Neural Stem C https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acel.70751ell Conversion of Human Blood Cells.

The human body contains hundreds of different cell types. They all originate from the fertilized egg and therefore share the same genetic makeup. However, in the course of their development, they were committed to a specific fate: a skin cell cannot naturally become a liver cell, nor can a blood cell become a nerve cell.

Today, however, it is possible to reverse this determination in the laboratory. For example, nerve tissue can be grown from a skin cell, which may one day be used to treat neurodegenerative diseases. To achieve this reprogramming, researchers use a cocktail of various transcription factors. These factors cause the cell to read different genetic instructions and thus embark on a different developmental path.

Molecular clocks are reset dramatically

“Using this method, we have directly converted red blood cell precursors into neural stem cells,” explains Prof. Dr. Oliver Brüstle, director of the Institute of Reconstructive Neurobiology at the University Hospital of Bonn. In previous studies, the Bonn researchers had already shown that nerve cells produced in this way form connections with existing neurons after transplantation into the brains of mice.

Continue reading “Researchers Transform Old Blood Cells into Young Brain Cells” | >

Lone, starless cloud may be a ‘dark’ galaxy

Astronomers using China’s FAST radio telescope have discovered a compact cloud of hydrogen with no visible stars or galaxy around it. This could be one of the strongest candidates yet for an isolated “dark galaxy,” containing nearly 500,000 times the sun’s mass in neutral hydrogen. The discovery paper was posted to the arXiv preprint server on Sept. 24.

In the lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model, structure forms hierarchically: small dark matter halos form first and then merge to build larger halos and galaxies. The model also predicts that some low-mass halos never form stars at all.

Several processes can suppress star formation at low mass. One is that, after cosmic reionization, the halo’s gas is heated by the ultraviolet (UV) background (the diffuse radiation from quasars and galaxies) and so never becomes cold and dense enough to form stars. Such starless, gas-bearing halos are predicted to exist and are called reionization-limited H I clouds (RELHICs) or “dark galaxies.”