Lifeboat Foundation

DNA writing is an aspect of our industry that I’ve been closely watching for several years because it is a critical component of so many groundbreaking capabilities, from cell and gene therapies to DNA data storage. At the SynBioBeta Conference in 2018, the co-founder of a new startup that was barely more than an idea gave a lightning talk on enzymatic DNA synthesis — and I was so struck by the technology the company was aiming to develop that I listed them as one of four synthetic biology startups to watch in 2019. I watched them, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Ansa Biotechnologies, Inc. — the Emeryville, California-based DNA synthesis startup using enzymes instead of chemicals to write DNA — announced in March the successful de novo synthesis of a 1005-mer, the world’s longest synthetic oligonucleotide, encoding a key part of the AAV vector used for developing gene therapies. And that’s just the beginning. Co-founder Dan Lin-Arlow will be giving another lightning talk at this year’s SynBioBeta Conference in just a few weeks. I caught up with him in the lead up and was truly impressed by what Ansa Biotechnologies has accomplished in just 5 years.

Synthetic DNA is a key enabling technology for engineering biology. For nearly 40 years, synthetic DNA has been produced using phosphoramidite chemistry, which facilitates the sequential addition of new bases to a DNA chain in a simple cyclic reaction. While this process is incredibly efficient and has supported countless innovative breakthroughs (a visit to Twist Bioscience’s website will quickly educate you on exciting advances in drug discovery, infectious disease research, cancer therapeutics, and even agriculture enabled by synthetic DNA) it suffers from two main drawbacks: its reliance on harsh chemicals and its inability to produce long (read: complex) DNA fragments.

Three university teams will explore and take initial steps to mitigate risks associated with manufacturing capabilities that rely on biological processes in space. The DARPA Biomanufacturing: Survival, Utility, and Reliability beyond Earth (B-SURE) program aims to address foundational scientific questions to determine how well industrial bio-manufacturing microorganisms perform in space conditions.

Meeting the world’s energy demands is reaching a critical point. Powering the technological age has caused issues globally. It is increasingly important to create superconductors that can operate at ambient pressure and temperature. This would go a long way toward solving the energy crisis.

Advancements with superconductivity hinge on advances in quantum materials. When electrons inside of quantum materials undergo a phase transition, the electrons can form intricate patterns, such as fractals. A fractal is a never-ending pattern. When zooming in on a fractal, the image looks the same. Commonly seen fractals can be a tree or frost on a windowpane in winter. Fractals can form in two dimensions, like the frost on a window, or in three-dimensional space like the limbs of a tree.

Dr. Erica Carlson, a 150th Anniversary Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University, led a team that developed theoretical techniques for characterizing the fractal shapes that these electrons make, in order to uncover the underlying physics driving the patterns.

Eight years after the technology was approved by government authorities, it can be reported that at least one child with DNA from three different people has been born to parents in the United Kingdom.

The announcement isn’t exactly ‘new’ knowledge, but reporters at The Guardian were able to prompt an official confirmation with a freedom of information request.

The University of Newcastle in collaboration with the Newcastle Fertility Center are pioneers in what is known as mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), a special form of in vitro fertilization (IVF) designed to prevent severe genetic diseases in future babies.

In a development that could make quantum computers less prone to errors, a team of physicists from Quantinuum, California Institute of Technology and Harvard University has created a signature of non-Abelian anyons (nonabelions) in a special type of quantum computer. The team has published their results on the arXiv preprint server.

As scientists work to design and build a truly useful quantum computer, one of the difficulties is trying to account for errors that creep in. In this new effort, the researchers have looked to anyons for help.

Anyons are quasiparticles that exist in two dimensions. They are not true particles, but instead exist as vibrations that act like particles—certain groups of them are called nonabelions. Prior research has found that nonabelions have a unique and useful property—they remember some of their own history. This property makes them potentially useful for creating less error-prone quantum computers. But creating, manipulating and doing useful things with them in a quantum computer is challenging. In this new work, the team have come close by creating a physical simulation of nonabelions in action.

Scientists found a previously unrecognized organelle in fruit flies, a thoroughly studied organism.

Additionally, with the boom of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced language learning models, Astro’s capabilities will only continue to improve in being able to solve increasingly challenging queries and requests. Amazon is investing billions of dollars into its SageMaker platform as a means to “Build, train, and deploy machine learning (ML) models for any use case with fully managed infrastructure, tools, and workflows.” Furthermore, the company’s Bedrock platform enables the “development of generative AI applications using [foundational models] through an API, without managing infrastructure.” Undoubtedly, Amazon has the resources and technical prowess to truly make significant strides in generative AI and machine learning, and will increasingly do so in the coming years.

However, it is important to note that Astro is not the only gladiator in the arena. AI enthusiast and Tesla founder Elon Musk announced last year that Tesla is actively working on developing a humanoid robot named “Optimus.” The goal behind the project will be to “Create a general purpose, bi-pedal, autonomous humanoid robot capable of performing unsafe, repetitive or boring tasks. Achieving that end goal requires building the software stacks that enable balance, navigation, perception and interaction with the physical world.” Musk has also ensured that the bot will be powered by Tesla’s advanced AI technology, meaning that it will be an intelligent and self-teaching bot that can respond to second-order queries and commands. Again, with enough time and testing, this technology can be leveraged in a positive way for healthcare-at-home needs and many more potential uses.

This is certainly an exciting and unprecedented time across multiple industries, including artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, and healthcare. The coming years will assuredly push the bounds of this technology and its applications. This advancement will undoubtedly bring with it certain challenges; however, if done correctly, it may also empower the means to benefit millions of people globally.

A major barrier to creating photonic time crystals in the lab has been overcome by a team of researc.

Our homes are the places that define us; those warm private spaces that we depend on for work, respite, and haven from the harsh realities of the wider world. On Earth, the buildings and dwellings humans spend the majority of their lives in serve as reflections of our society’s culture, beliefs, and values. So if the shelters we make for ourselves truly mirror and influence our everyday lives, how might that sentiment be translated to living in space?

The kinds of structures future explorers might live in on other planets may be more critical to space exploration than sci-fi depictions of cities and homes in a galaxy far, far away suggest. As NASA’s desire for long-term human space colonization comes to fruition with planned crewed missions to Mars, establishing safe and well-made human settlements for life off-Earth is one of the agency’s most urgent tasks.

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