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Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, Ph.D. is the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H — https://arpa-h.gov/), an agency that supports the development of high-impact research to drive biomedical and health breakthroughs to deliver transformative, sustainable, and equitable health solutions for everyone. ARPA-H’s mission focuses on leveraging research advances for real world impact.

Previously, Dr. Wegrzyn served as a vice president of business development at Ginkgo Bioworks and head of Innovation at Concentric by Ginkgo, where she focused on applying synthetic biology to outpace infectious diseases—including Covid-19—through biomanufacturing, vaccine innovation and biosurveillance of pathogens at scale.

Prior to Ginkgo, Dr. Wegrzyn was program manager in the Biological Technologies Office at DARPA, where she leveraged the tools of synthetic biology and gene editing to enhance biosecurity, promote public health and support the domestic bioeconomy. Her DARPA portfolio included the Living Foundries: 1,000 Molecules, Safe Genes, Preemptive Expression of Protective Alleles and Response Elements and the Detect it with Gene Editing Technologies programs.

Dr. Wegrzyn received the Superior Public Service Medal for her work and contributions at DARPA. Prior to joining DARPA, she led technical teams in private industry in the areas of biosecurity, gene therapies, emerging infectious disease, neuromodulation, synthetic biology, as well as research and development teams commercializing multiplex immunoassays and peptide-based disease diagnostics.

Continue reading “Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, Ph.D. — ARPA-H — Transformative, Sustainable, Equitable Health Solutions For All” | >

Students often sacrifice sleep to study for exams, but lack of sleep can negatively impact memory. Now, University of Groningen neuroscientist Robbert Havekes has found that sleep deprivation hinders recall, not retention of information. Havekes and his team used optogenetics and the drug roflumilast to make “hidden knowledge” obtained while sleep-deprived accessible again days later. Their findings were recently published in the journal Current Biology.

Havekes, associate professor of Neuroscience of Memory and Sleep at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and his team have extensively studied how sleep deprivation affects memory processes. “We previously focused on finding ways to support memory processes during a sleep deprivation episode”, says Havekes.

However, in his latest study, his team examined whether amnesia as a result of sleep deprivation was a direct result of information loss, or merely caused by difficulties retrieving information.

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After six years of peace, the two tech giants are on course to butt heads again over the future of artificial intelligence.

Microsoft is about to go head-to-head with Google in a battle for the future of search. At a press event later today, Microsoft is widely expected to detail plans to bring OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot to its Bing search engine. Google has already tried to preempt the news, making a rushed announcement yesterday to introduce Bard, its rival to ChatGPT, and promising more details on its AI future in a press event on Wednesday.

The announcements put the two tech behemoths, known for their previous skirmishes with each other, on a collision course as they compete to define the next generation of search.

Both companies are chasing a revolutionary new future for search engines: one where the results look more like short, simple answers generated by AI than a collection of links and boxes to click on. Google teased its Bard chatbot yesterday, with queries that seem to be similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. And today, Microsoft is expected to boost its Bing search ambitions with the addition of a ChatGPT-like interface that will answer questions in a way no search engine has before.

The more humanlike answers could be revolutionary for search. ChatGPT — which is built by AI company OpenAI — brought conversational AI to the mainstream last year, and if the Bing integration works as intended, the use cases can genuinely shave hours off of research, spreadsheets, coding, and much more.

Continue reading “Microsoft will let companies create their own custom versions of ChatGPT, source says” | >

Saudi Arabian mining company Ma’aden, together with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Innovation Ventures Fund, are investing $6 million USD into Lithium Infinity (Lihytech). The KAUST startup’s battery-grade lithium will be a key component in driving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to developing the entire value chain of electric vehicles (EVs).

Lihytech has patented a membrane-based lithium extraction technology developed by Professor Zhiping Lai at KAUST. The innovative technology can extract the alkali metal from sources such as seawater, brine, red mud and more. Based on KAUST research, the startup was funded through the KAUST Near Term Grand Challenge, a research translation program, and the technology is being developed on the campus.

This investment will take the technology from lab to commercial pilot scale. Ma’aden is leading the investment with $4 million and KAUST Innovation Ventures is investing $2 million. The University’s venture capital arm, KAUST Innovation Ventures, supports deep tech startups that look to offer solutions to pressing scientific and technological challenges, such as lithium extraction. Lihytech will use the infusion of capital to build a pilot facility at KAUST to extract lithium from the Red Sea and other in-Kingdom resources.

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The “one-shot” process paves the path for cutting-edge 3D cell culture methods with biomedical engineering applications, claim the scientists.

German scientists have created a new technology that helps them print 3D objects with sound waves.

The design creates pressure fields using several acoustic holograms, which can be used to print solid particles, gel beads, and even living cells, according to the study released on Thursday.

Carloscastilla/iStock.

Continue reading “This tech can print 3D objects with sound in ‘one-shot’ process” | >

What’s next?

Increasingly it seems there is nothing that ChatGPT cannot do, even consulting judges in cases and boosting research. Now, the AI chatbot has been found to score at or around the approximately 60 percent passing threshold for the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), “with responses that make coherent, internal sense and contain frequent insights.”

This is according to a study published on Thursday in the open-access journal PLOS Digital Health.

AndreyPopov/iStock.

Continue reading “Doctor ChatGPT? AI-bot almost passes the US Medical Licensing Exam” | >

The design facilitates efficient land use and can even save water lost to evaporation.

Sunstall, a California-based company, has launched a vertical solar panel, Sunzaun, which can be used in existing fields and arable lands without sacrificing them for clean green energy. The installation is much like conventional solar systems, just that the system uses bifacial solar modules, and the entire array stands like a boundary wall in the field.

As countries look to move away from fossil fuels, the interest in solar energy has increased in recent years. Countries in Europe facing harsh winters are also finding new ways of tapping into solar energy, such as installing solar panels at high altitudes… More.

Sunzuan.

Continue reading “Vertical solar panels could save farm land and transform agriculture” | >

Its concept is maintenance-free, recyclable, and offers low rolling resistance.

The concept of airless tires is getting closer to production, with Bridgestone’s version going in for testing in February 2023. The firm’s product is based on its “Air Free Concept,” a technology that eliminates the need for tires to be inflated with air to support the weight using a unique structure of spokes stretching along the inner sides of tires.

According to DesignBoom, the testing will be done in association with Idemitsu Kosan Co, using one of its compact electric vehicles. More than 3 billion tires are produced around the world in a year, and the market for airless tires is expected to hit $77.

Continue reading “Bridgestone’s airless tires near production, testing to begin soon” | >