Lifeboat Foundation

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells have transformed the treatment of refractory blood cancers. These genetically engineered immune cells seek out and destroy cancer cells with precision. Now, scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering are deploying them against other diseases, including those caused by senescence, a chronic “alarm state” in tissues. The scope of such ailments is vast and includes debilitating conditions, such as fibrotic liver disease, atherosclerosis, and diabetes.

Key to the success of CAR T cell therapy has been finding a good target. The first US Food and Drug Administration-approved CAR T cells target a molecule on the surface of blood cancers called CD19. It is present on cancer cells but few other normal cells, so side effects are limited.

Taking their cue from this prior work, a team of investigators including Scott Lowe, Chair of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program in the Sloan Kettering Institute, and Michel Sadelain, Director of the Center for Cell Engineering at MSK, along with their trainees Corina Amor, Judith Feucht, and Josef Leibold, sought to identify a target on senescent cells. These cells no longer divide, but they actively send “help me” signals to the immune system.

I think that supporting technologies will be important for closing not just gaps in space, but also gaps in time: a message from Earth takes as long as 22 minutes to reach Mars (hence our email delay in sim), and the reply needs the same time to come back. And that delay is just for the next planet over! Clever tech will be needed to bring us together across space and time.

Learning From Today to Design Tomorrow

Continue reading “What Would Life on Mars Be Like? Millions of Us Are Getting a Taste” »

Researchers at Empa and EPFL have created one of the smallest motors ever made. It’s composed of just 16 atoms, and at that tiny size it seems to function right on the boundary between classical physics and the spooky quantum realm.

Like its macroscopic counterparts, this mini motor is made up of a moving part (the rotor) and a fixed part (the stator). The stator in this case is a cluster of six palladium atoms and six gallium atoms arranged in a rough triangular shape. Meanwhile, the rotor is a four-atom acetylene molecule, which rotates on the surface of the stator. The whole machine measures less than a nanometer wide.

Continue reading “Nano-motor of just 16 atoms runs at the boundary of quantum physics” »

There’s a deluge of apps that detect your covid-19 exposure, often with little transparency. Our Covid Tracing Tracker project will document them.

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• Patrick Howell O’Neill archive page
• Tate Ryan-Mosley archive page
• Bobbie Johnson archive page

The cocktail, now named REGN-COV2, consists of two antibodies—REGN10933 and REGN10987—that are designed to bind non-competitively to the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein. Regeneron says that such binding diminishes the ability of mutant viruses to escape treatment—with details from preclinical research to be published in upcoming research studies.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said today it has launched the first clinical trial of its dual-antibody “cocktail” designed to both prevent and treat COVID-19, as well as prevent viral escape. The cocktail, now named REGN-COV2, consists of two antibodies—REGN10933 and REGN10987—that are designed to bind non-competitively to the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein. [Regeneron].

Scientists working on-board the International Space Station have created what they describe as the fifth state of matter, a state referred to as the ‘Bose-Einstein condensate’, initially theorized by Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose in the 1920s.

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Chemistry Nobel

Olof Ramström, from the Nobel Committee, said lithium-ion batteries had “enabled the mobile world”.

Three scientists have been awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of lithium-ion batteries.

Continue reading “Lithium-ion batteries take chemistry Nobel” »

A new cosmic evolution-based calculation that say that there are likely to be more than 36 ongoing intelligent civilizations throughout our Milky Way galaxy.