Science And Engineering For Humanity — Dr. David Agus, MD — Founding Director & Co-CEO, Ellison Institute of Technology.
Dr. David B. Agus (https://davidagus.com/) is one of the world’s leading doctors and pioneering biomedical researchers.
Dr. Agus is the Founding Director and Co-CEO of the Ellison Institute of.
Science laboratories across disciplines—chemistry, biochemistry and materials science—are on the verge of a sweeping transformation as robotic automation and AI lead to faster and more precise experiments that unlock breakthroughs in fields like health, energy and electronics.
This is according to UNC-Chapel Hill researchers in a paper titled “Transforming Science Labs into Automated Factories of Discovery,” published in Science Robotics.
“Today, the development of new molecules, materials and chemical systems requires intensive human effort,” said Dr. Ron Alterovitz, senior author of the paper and Lawrence Grossberg Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science. “Scientists must design experiments, synthesize materials, analyze results and repeat the process until desired properties are achieved.”
By Chuck Brooks & Dr. Thomas A. Cellucci, MBA
Co-written by Chuck Brooks and Dr. Thomas A. Cellucci, MBA
Verticals that will be most impacted by innovative developments in technology and science are the disciplines of medicine, biotechnology, and health. Those industry verticals will see a profound growth of technological innovation in the near future.
Twenty years ago, Craig Venter and Daniel Cohen remarked, “If the 20th century was the century of physics, the 21st century will be the century of biology.” Since then, there have been some amazing advances in the fields of biotechnology and bioscience, with the promise of even more astounding breakthroughs to come. Over the past decade, we have seen significant strides in artificial intelligence, with radical long-term implications for every human endeavor. And now the convergence of the fields of physics, biology, and AI promises a far greater impact on humanity than any one of these fields alone. Even though a path to successfully integrating these fields exists, it is neither easy nor clear cut—but if done correctly, will revolutionize medicine and human health.
Protecting Human And Animal Health — Dr. Tristan Colonius, DVM — Chief Veterinary Officer & Deputy Director for Science Policy, Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Dr. Tristan Colonius, DVM is the Chief Veterinary Officer and Deputy Director for Science Policy at FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM — https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary).
Dr. Colonius previously worked in various positions at FDA, including as Deputy Chief of Staff to Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf and as an International Policy Analyst.
With liquid biopsies, detecting cancer and tracking treatment progress can be as easy as taking a blood test. This is an increasingly popular way of monitoring cancer, because it’s much less invasive than solid tumour biopsies. And liquid biopsies can become even more sensitive if they capture methylation information as well as genetic data.
Usually, liquid biopsies for cancer rely on the detection of small amounts of DNA that are shed from a tumour into the bloodstream. But especially in the disease’s early stages, circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) levels are very low and point mutations linked to cancer can be easy to miss.
“If we want to develop assays to detect cancer earlier, we need very sensitive detection of these rare tumour fragments,” says Charlotte Proudhon, group leader at the Research Institute for Environmental and Occupational Health in Rennes, France, whose team are among those now developing liquid biopsy methods that include epigenetic markers, such as methylation.
Research from the University of California, Irvine has revealed how disruption of the circadian clock, the body’s internal, 24-hour biological pacemaker, may accelerate the progression of colorectal cancer by affecting the gut microbiome and intestinal barrier function. This discovery offers new avenues for prevention and treatment strategies.
The study, published online today in the journal Science Advances, offers a more comprehensive understanding of how important changes occur in the function and composition of the gut microbiome when the circadian clock is disturbed in the presence of colorectal cancer.
“There is an alarming rise in early-onset colorectal cancer in adults under the age of 50,” said corresponding author Selma Masri, associate professor of biological chemistry. “Circadian misalignment through extended light exposure, late-night meals and other environmental factors could [be] driving these cases. Our study suggests that clock disruption, particularly through lifestyle choices, may play a significant role in gut health and, subsequently, cancer risk.”
An international team of neuroscientists, led by Duke-NUS Medical School, have uncovered a mechanism that controls the reactivation of neural stem cells, which are crucial for repairing and regenerating brain cells.
The research, published in Nature Communications, offers exciting potential for advancing our understanding and treatment of common neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Neural stem cells are the source of the brain’s primary functional cells. After the initial development of the brain, neural stem cells typically enter a dormant state, conserving energy and resources. They re-awaken only when the brain needs them, such as after an injury or with physical exercise.
How do plants and fungi communicate with each other? This is what a recent study published in Molecular Cell hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the “language” conducted between plants and fungi that enables fungi growth. This study holds the potential to help scientists and farmers better understand how to fight disease-causing fungi by growing crops with greater resilience and adversity.
“As we begin to understand how plants and fungi communicate, we will better understand the complexities of the soil ecosystem, leading to healthier crops and improving our approach to biodiversity,” said Dr. Shelley Lumba, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Toronto and a co-author on the study.
For the study, the researchers examined strigolactone (SL), which is a class of plant hormones and signaling molecules responsible for plant development, with the team focusing on how SL influences fungi growth and development by testing SL with yeast. In the end, the researchers found that SL triggered certain genes called “PHO” that are responsible for phosphate metabolism, along with finding that plants release SL when they are low on phosphate, forcing the yeast to alter the amount of phosphate consumes by triggering the protein, Pho84.
Australian, American and British researchers conducted a prospective analysis of light levels in almost 89 thousand people and concluded that more light exposure at night and less during the day are associated with an increased risk of death from all causes.
Light enhances or disrupts circadian rhythms, depending on the timing of exposure. Circadian disruption contributes to poor health outcomes that increase mortality risk. Whether personal light exposure predicts mortality risk has not been established. We therefore investigated whether personal day and night light, and light patterns that disrupt circadian rhythms, predicted mortality risk. UK Biobank participants (N = 88,905, 62.4 ± 7.8 y, 57% female) wore light sensors for 1 wk. Day and night light exposures were defined by factor analysis of 24-h light profiles. A computational model of the human circadian pacemaker was applied to model circadian amplitude and phase from light data. Cause-specific mortality was recorded in 3,750 participants across a mean (±SD) follow-up period of 8.0 ± 1.0 y.
Women worldwide could see better treatment with new AI technology, which enables better detection of damaged cells and more precisely predicts the risk of getting breast cancer, shows new research from the University of Copenhagen.
Breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. In 2022, the disease caused 670,000 deaths worldwide. Now, a new study from the University of Copenhagen shows that AI can help women with improved treatment by scanning for irregular-looking cells to give better risk assessment.
The study, published in The Lancet Digital Health, found that the AI technology was far better at predicting the risk of cancer than current clinical benchmarks for breast cancer risk assessment.
