Lifeboat Foundation

This looks extremely promising:

SAN DIEGO, June 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (Viking) (NASDAQ: VKTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel therapies for metabolic and endocrine disorders, today announced results from the company’s Phase 1 single ascending dose (SAD) and multiple ascending dose (MAD) clinical trial of VK0214, a novel, orally available small molecule thyroid receptor beta (TRβ) agonist in development for the potential treatment for X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD). In this study, VK0214 demonstrated encouraging safety and tolerability, as well as a predictable pharmacokinetic (PK) profile. The company expects to initiate a Phase 1b study of VK0214 in patients with X-ALD in the coming weeks.

The Phase 1 trial was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in healthy volunteers. The primary objective of the study was to evaluate the safety and tolerability of VK0214 administered orally for up to 14 days. The secondary objective was to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of VK0214 following single and multiple oral doses. The first portion of the study evaluated single doses of VK0214; in the second portion of the study subjects received VK0214 once daily for 14 days. Subsequent cohorts in both parts of the study received successively higher VK0214 doses.

VK0214 was shown to be safe and well-tolerated at all doses evaluated in this study. No serious adverse events were reported, and no treatment or dose-related trends were observed for vital signs, gastrointestinal effects, cardiovascular measures, or physical examinations. VK0214 demonstrated dose-dependent exposures, no evidence of accumulation following multiple doses, and a half-life consistent with anticipated once-daily dosing regimens.

Continue reading “Viking Therapeutics Announces Results from Phase 1 Clinical Trial of Novel Oral Thyroid Receptor Beta Agonist VK0214” »

Doctors are reporting improved survival in men with advanced prostate cancer from an experimental drug that delivers radiation directly to tumor cells. Few such drugs are approved now, but the approach may become a new way to treat patients with other hard-to-reach or inoperable cancers.

In a recent interview, Elon Musk stated that the human language could possibly end within five to ten years. The CEO of Neuralink went to talk with Joe Rogan, implying that with the innovation of the brain chip the company is currently developing, humans won’t have to speak anymore using traditional languages.

Neuralink develops a chip that will soon be able to attach to the human brain. The chip’s invention aimed to communicate faster and conveniently. Through a single universal language, Elon Musk believes that the way we talk today will soon improve. The brain chip is expected to be completed to be developed within a few years, and by then, our communication could possibly evolve.

Continue reading “Neuralink Brain Chip Will End Language in Five to 10 Years, Elon Musk Says” »

Each city is populated by a unique host of microbial organisms, and this microbial ‘fingerprint’ is so distinctive, the DNA on your shoe is likely enough to identify where you live, scientists say.

In a new study, researchers took thousands of samples from mass transit systems in 60 cities across the world, swabbing common touch points like turnstiles and railings in bustling subways and bus stations across the world.

Subjecting over 4700 of the collected samples to metagenomic sequencing (the study of genetic material collected from the environment), scientists created a global atlas of the urban microbial ecosystem, which they say is the first systematic catalog of its kind.

Researchers say we’re unlikely to ever be able to contain a large enough superintelligent artificial intelligence.

The premise sounds scary, but knowing the odds will help scientists who work on these projects.

Self-teaching AI already exists and can teach itself things programmers don’t “fully understand.”

Continue reading “Calculations Show Humans Can’t Contain Superintelligent Machines” »

Many people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. So suggest researchers who have identified long-lived antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-19¹.

The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting. Adding to the good news, “the implications are that vaccines will have the same durable effect”, says Menno van Zelm, an immunologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Antibodies — proteins that can recognize and help to inactivate viral particles — are a key immune defence. After a new infection, short-lived cells called plasmablasts are an early source of antibodies.

Of 25000+ people who tested positive for #COVID19 in Germany, 8% had very high viral loads; about a third of these had little to no symptoms. The results suggest asymptomatic people can be expected to be as infectious as hospitalized patients.

Read more from Science:

Two elementary parameters for quantifying viral infection and shedding are viral load and whether samples yield a replicating virus isolate in cell culture. We examined 25381 German SARS-CoV-2 cases, including 6110 from test centres attended by pre-symptomatic, asymptomatic, and mildly-symptomatic (PAMS) subjects, 9519 who were hospitalised, and 1533 B.1.1.7 lineage infections. The youngest had mean log₁₀ viral load 0.5 (or less) lower than older subjects and an estimated ~78% of the peak cell culture replication probability, due in part to smaller swab sizes and unlikely to be clinically relevant. Viral loads above 10⁹ copies per swab were found in 8% of subjects, one-third of whom were PAMS, with mean age 37.6. We estimate 4.3 days from onset of shedding to peak viral load (8.1) and cell culture isolation probability (0.75). B.1.1.7 subjects had mean log₁₀ viral load 1.05 higher than non-B.1.1.7, with estimated cell culture replication probability 2.6 times higher.

Continue reading “Estimating infectiousness throughout SARS-CoV-2 infection course” »

New CDC mask guidelines could increase the risk of spreading Covid-19 in public spaces and workplaces, the Infectious Diseases Society of America said Thursday.

In a major breakthrough, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have discovered how amyloid beta—the neurotoxin believed to be at the root of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—forms in axons and related structures that connect neurons in the brain, where it causes the most damage. Their findings, published in Cell Reports, could serve as a guidepost for developing new therapies to prevent the onset of this devastating neurological disease.

Among his many contributions to research on AD, Rudolph Tanzi, Ph.D., vice chair of Neurology and co-director of the McCance Center for Brain Health at MGH, led a team in 1986 that discovered the first Alzheimer’s disease gene, known as APP, which provides instructions for making amyloid protein precursor (APP). When this protein is cut (or cleaved) by enzymes—first, beta secretase, followed by gamma secretase—the byproduct is amyloid beta (sometimes shortened to Abeta). Large deposits of amyloid beta are believed to cause neurological destruction that results in AD. Amyloid beta formed in the brain’s axons and nerve endings causes the worst damage in AD by impairing communication between nerve cells (or neurons) in the brain. Researchers around the world have worked intensely to find ways to block the formation of amyloid beta by preventing cleavage by beta secretase and gamma secretase. However, these approaches have been hampered by safety issues.

Despite years of research, a major mystery has remained. “We knew that Abeta is made in the axons of the brain’s nerve cells, but we didn’t know how,” says Tanzi. He and his colleagues probed the question by studying the brains of mice, as well as with a research tool known as Alzheimer’s in a dish, a three-dimensional cell culture model of the disease created in 2014 by Tanzi and a colleague, Doo Yeon Kim, Ph.D. Earlier, in 2013, several other MGH researchers, including neurobiologist Dora Kovacs, Ph.D. (who is married to Tanzi), and Raja Bhattacharyya, Ph.D., a member of Tanzi’s lab, showed that a form of APP that has undergone a process called palmitoylation (palAPP) gives rise to amyloid beta. That study indicated that, within the neuron, palAPP is transported in a fatty vesicle (or sac) known as a lipid raft. But there are many forms of lipid rafts.