Lifeboat Foundation

Artificial intelligence drug design company Iktos, and South Korean clinical research biotech Astrogen announced today a collaboration with the goal of discovering small-molecule pre-clinical drug candidates for a specific, undisclosed, marker of Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Under the terms of the agreement, whose value was not disclosed, Iktos will apply its generative learning algorithms which seek to identify new molecular structures with the potential address the target in PD. Astrogen, which has a focus of the development of therapeutics for “intractable neurological diseases,” will provide in-vitro and in-vivo screening of lead compounds and pre-clinical compounds. While both companies will contribute to the identification of new small-molecule candidates, Astrgoen will lead the drug development process from the pre-clinical stages.

“Our objective is to expedite drug discovery and achieve time and cost efficiencies for our global collaborators by using Iktos’s proprietary AI platform and know-how,” noted Yann Gaston-Mathé, president and CEO of Paris-based Iktos in a press release. “We are confident that together we will be able to identify promising novel chemical matter for the treatment of intractable neurological diseases. Our strategy has always been to tackle challenging problems alongside our collaborators where we can demonstrate value generation for new and on-going drug discovery projects.”

Completion of second tranche set to accelerate commercial launch of revolutionary enzymatic DNA printing technology.

Researchers from the University of Adelaide and elsewhere have sequenced and analyzed mitochondrial DNA from fossils of cave lions (Panthera spp.) and brown bears (Ursus arctos), two megafaunal carnivorans that dispersed from Eurasia into North America during the Pleistocene, to better understand the timing and drivers of their past movement between the continents across the Bering Land Bridge. Their results reveal striking synchronicity in the population dynamics of Beringian lions and brown bears, with multiple waves of dispersal across the Bering Land Bridge. The evolutionary histories of these two megafaunal animals underline the crucial biogeographical role of the Bering Land Bridge in the distribution, turnover and maintenance of megafaunal populations in North America.

Unlocking The Secrets Of Salamander Regeneration For Regenerative Therapies — Dr. Maximina Yun, Ph.D., CRTD / Center for Regenerative Therapies TU Dresden, Technische Universität Dresden.

Dr. Maximina Yun, Ph.D. (https://tu-dresden.de/cmcb/crtd/forschungsgruppen/crtd-forsc…oup-leader) is Research Group Leader at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD), Technical University Dresden, jointly affiliated with Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG).

Continue reading “Dr. Maximina Yun, Ph.D. — Unlocking Secrets Of Salamander Regeneration For Regenerative Therapies” »

An artificial intelligence (AI) system that can identify diabetic retinopathy (DR) without physician assistance, including the most serious form that puts patients at risk of blindness, has outperformed expectations in a clinical trial. The commercial system successfully detected the presence and severity of the disease in 97% of eyes analysed. Deployment of such AI systems in primary care facilities for use by non-specialists could significantly increase access to eye exams that include DR evaluation, aiding in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

An artificial intelligence system that simplifies diabetes retinal screening could help save the vision of millions of people around the world.

Yahoo Finance’s Dani Romero reports on the increasing use of robots and automation by restaurants and retailers amid the pandemic and labor shortages.
Don’t Miss: Valley of Hype: The Culture That Built Elizabeth Holmes.
WATCH HERE:

Watch the 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/gx-OzwHpM9k.

Continue reading “Robot use on the rise as restaurants and retailers experience labor shortages” »

B.1.640.2 was discovered in a traveler returning from Cameroon and has a high number of mutations. And a first “flurona” case has been confirmed in Israel.

Hi everyone, I’m Larry Tabak. I’ve served as NIH’s Principal Deputy Director for over 11 years, and I will be the acting NIH director until a new permanent director is named. In my new role, my day-to-day responsibilities will certainly increase, but I promise to carve out time to blog about some of the latest research progress on COVID-19 and any other areas of science that catch my eye.

I’ve also invited the directors of NIH’s Institutes and Centers (ICs) to join me in the blogosphere and write about some of the cool science in their research portfolios. I will publish a couple of posts to start, then turn the blog over to our first IC director. From there, I envision alternating between posts from me and from various IC directors. That way, we’ll cover a broad array of NIH science and the tremendous opportunities now being pursued in biomedical research.

Since I’m up first, let’s start where the NIH Director’s Blog usually begins each year: by taking a look back at Science’s Breakthroughs of 2021. The breakthroughs were formally announced in December near the height of the holiday bustle. In case you missed the announcement, the biomedical sciences accounted for six of the journal Science’s 10 breakthroughs. Here, I’ll focus on four biomedical breakthroughs, the ones that NIH has played some role in advancing, starting with Science’s editorial and People’s Choice top-prize winner:

Hackers breached the computer networks of a southeast Florida health care system in October and may have accessed sensitive personal and financial information on over 1.3 million people, the health care system announced this week.

Social Security numbers, patient medical history and bank account information are among the data that have been exposed in the breach of Broward Health, a network of over 30 health care facilities serving patients across roughly 2 million-person Broward County, Florida, according to a notice the health care provider filed with the Office of the Maine Attorney General.

About 470 of the data breach victims live in Maine. Like other states, Maine law requires organizations that hold state residents’ personal data to file a disclosure when they’ve been hacked.