Lifeboat Foundation

The entirety of the known universe is teeming with an infinite number of molecules. But what fraction of these molecules have potential drug-like traits that can be used to develop life-saving drug treatments? Millions? Billions? Trillions? The answer: novemdecillion, or 10⁶⁰. This gargantuan number prolongs the drug development process for fast-spreading diseases like COVID-19 because it is far beyond what existing drug design models can compute. To put it into perspective, the Milky Way has about 100 thousand million, or 10⁸, stars.

In a paper that will be presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), MIT researchers developed a geometric deep-learning model called EquiBind that is 1,200 times faster than one of the fastest existing computational molecular docking models, QuickVina2-W, in successfully binding drug-like molecules to proteins. EquiBind is based on its predecessor, EquiDock, which specializes in binding two proteins using a technique developed by the late Octavian-Eugen Ganea, a recent MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic) postdoc, who also co-authored the EquiBind paper.

Before drug development can even take place, drug researchers must find promising drug-like molecules that can bind or “dock” properly onto certain protein targets in a process known as drug discovery. After successfully docking to the protein, the binding drug, also known as the ligand, can stop a protein from functioning. If this happens to an essential protein of a bacterium, it can kill the bacterium, conferring protection to the human body.

While many artificial materials have advanced properties, they have a long way to go to combine the versatility and functionality of living materials that can adapt to their situation. For example, in the human body bone and muscle continuously reorganise their structure and composition to better sustain changing weight and level of activity.

Now, researchers from Imperial College London and University College London have demonstrated the first spontaneously self-organising laser device, which can reconfigure when conditions change.

The innovation, reported in Nature Physics (“Self-organized Lasers of Reconfigurable Colloidal Assemblies”), will help enable the development of smart photonic materials capable of better mimicking properties of biological matter, such as responsiveness, adaptation, self-healing, and collective behaviour.

View insights.

Gene editing with CRISPR can cause off-target mutations, but this seems to happen less often with an enzyme that cuts one of the strands of DNA instead of both.

The Tennessee State Veterinarian talks about the new detection of a tickborne illness on cattle in the state.

The team of researchers who transplanted a genetically modified pig’s heart into a living human earlier this year have completed two more pig heart transplant surgeries, setting the protocol for such operations.

In January this year, 57-year-old David Bennett became the first man on the planet to receive a heart from a genetically modified pig. Before this, researchers transplanted kidneys from similarly modified pigs into patients that were brain dead.

The organs are sourced from a company called Revivicor which uses genetic engineering to remove specific genes in the pigs to help in reducing transplant rejection while adding some that make the organs more compatible with the human immune system.

The Neuro-Network.

𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐬

𝘼𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙢 𝙤𝙛 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙐𝘾 𝘿𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙨 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙖 𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙖… See more.

Continue reading “Global team of scientists discover new gene causing severe neurodevelopmental delays” »

A patient in New Zealand became the first person to receive the biotech’s medicine, which uses base editing to turn off a specific gene in the liver and thereby lower cholesterol.

The Neuro-Network.

𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧’𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬

𝘼 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙏𝙚𝙡 𝘼𝙫𝙞𝙫 𝙐𝙣𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙢𝙖… See more.

Continue reading “During sleep the brain’s reaction to sound remains strong but one critical feature of conscious attention disappears” »