Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: health

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.

Selfmonitoring of fat metabolic status with smartphoneassisted breath acetone detector

S. Hersberger et al. present a smartphone-guided handheld breath acetone detector for self-monitoring of fat metabolism at home. The device combines volume-controlled end-tidal breath sampling with humidity-robust sensor performance and was validated against proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) across 312 human breath samples during exercise and dietary interventions.

The Strange Case of Elias Thorne, the Imaginary Man AI Chatbots Are Obsessed With

No matter the company, AI chatbots were raving about the same guy named Elias Thorne. He must be pretty fascinating. And he is, at least on paper. Depending on the AI, he’s a lighthouse keeper, a clockmaker, a librarian, an explorer, and the star of countless stories. He’s appeared in books, music listings, YouTube videos, and even health guides. You’d think he was one of the most influential men on the planet.

But he doesn’t exist.

According to reporting by fine folks at 404 Media, researchers at Cornell University may have figured out why large language models invent and keep telling tales of the same fictional man. In a study examining roughly 20,000 AI-generated stories from all the big LLM models, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, the research team found that the same handful of names and occupations kept cropping up. Specifically, names and words like Elias, Mara, Elara, lighthouse keeper, clockmaker, and librarian showed up in 88 percent of stories. Elias the lighthouse keeper appeared in nearly two-thirds of them.

Generating red blood cell-like cells from canine induced pluripotent stem cells

Blood transfusions are crucial in human and veterinary medicine, yet human blood reserves are in constant need of donors, while blood bank systems in veterinary care are nearly nonexistent. This leaves canine transfusions largely reliant on donations from healthy dogs, but securing compatible blood remains a major challenge because dogs also have different blood types.

Fortunately, recent advances in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have created new opportunities for producing blood cells in the laboratory. This and the similarities between human and canine health have drawn attention to dogs as translational models that can bring about innovative changes in both fields. However, a method for generating red blood cells from canine iPSCs has not been fully established.

Updates on nature, land and biodiversity

Nature is humanity’s lifeline. Human health, food, economies and well-being depend on nature. Yet nature is in crisis. One million of the world’s estimated 8 million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction. Meanwhile, ecosystem degradation is affecting the well-being of 40 per cent of the global population.

The spotlight on nature and biodiversity highlights updates from around the UN System, from partners and others, helping to call attention to the need for a just, prosperous and sustainable future for all.

Pentagon disburses Havana Syndrome compensation, rebrands team focused on ‘Directed Energy BioEffects’

The Defense Department has paid out millions of dollars to personnel affected by so-called Havana Syndrome and renamed a key cross-functional team as the Directed Energy Bio-Effects CFT to investigate associated issues, the Pentagon announced Friday.

According to a press release, the disbursements were the first payments associated with the 2021 HAVANA Act made under any presidential administration. The release did not say how many individuals have received compensation thus far.

The term ‘Havana Syndrome’ emerged after U.S. government personnel and their family members began reporting mysterious, often debilitating symptoms including intense ear pain, vertigo, headaches, dizziness, hearing and memory loss, visual disturbances and more in 2016. The first incidents were reported by officials who were stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, hence the origin of the name.

Some experts and lawmakers have suggested that these health problems resulted from secretive attacks by a foreign power that used directed energy systems, also known as ‘non-kinetic’ capabilities, targeted at American officials overseas.

The Pentagon has paid out millions of dollars to personnel affected by so-called Havana Syndrome and renamed a related cross-functional team.

Machine learning improves identification of asthma risk in children

A machine learning tool that analyzes information already captured in a child’s electronic health record helped pediatricians more accurately assess asthma risk in standardized clinical case scenarios, according to a pilot randomized clinical trial led by a Regenstrief Institute researcher. The study was published in Scientific Reports.

The study evaluated a machine learning-enabled clinical decision support tool called the Passive Digital Marker, which uses routinely collected EHR data to classify young children as having a high or low risk of developing persistent asthma.

Asthma is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases, but predicting which young children with wheezing or other respiratory symptoms will go on to develop persistent asthma remains difficult. While some children outgrow these symptoms, others require ongoing treatment, making early risk assessment an important but challenging part of pediatric care.

UCLA scientists develop offtheshelf immunotherapy for ovarian cancer

When the team tested the novel CAR-NKT therapy on 35 ovarian patient-derived tumor samples, the results were striking. The CAR-NKT cells successfully killed ovarian cancer cells in every single sample — including samples from both newly diagnosed patients and patients whose cancers had recurred after chemotherapy.

“Combating this high rate of recurrence in ovarian cancer is my career mission,” said co-senior author Memarzadeh, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a member of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center and the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “When I see these results, I know we’re getting closer to offering patients like mine a more effective and permanent solution.”

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