Lifeboat Foundation

Artificial intelligence algorithms are being taught to generate art, human voices, and even fiction stories all on their own—why not give them a shot at building new ways to treat disease?

Atomwise, a San Francisco-based startup and Y Combinator alum, has built a system it calls AtomNet (pdf), which attempts to generate potential drugs for diseases like Ebola and multiple sclerosis. The company has invited academic and non-profit researchers from around the country to detail which diseases they’re trying to generate treatments for, so AtomNet can take a shot. The academic labs will receive 72 different drugs that the neural network has found to have the highest probability of interacting with the disease, based on the molecular data it’s seen.

Atomwise’s system only generates potential drugs—the compounds created by the neural network aren’t guaranteed to be safe, and need to go through the same drug trials and safety checks as anything else on the market. The company believes that the speed at which it can generate trial-ready drugs based on previous safe molecular interactions is what sets it apart.

Continue reading “Artificial intelligence could build new drugs faster than any human team” »

Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk said his latest company Neuralink is working to link the human brain with computers by creating micron-sized devices.

Neuralink is aiming to bring to the market a product that helps with certain severe brain injuries due to stroke and cancer lesion in about four years, Musk said in an interview with the website Wait But Why on Thursday.

“If I were to communicate a concept to you, you would essentially engage in consensual telepathy,” Musk said in the interview. Neuralink will be Musk’s third company along with Tesla and SpaceX.

Continue reading “Elon Musk’s new company wants to link human brains with computers in 4 years” »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkxgRIgo2dA

Primarily talking about CRISPR.

Daisy Robinton explores bioengineering and its potential to end ageing.

Continue reading “Daisy Robinton — The Fight Against Aging” »

In the far future, tricorders are invented and humanity spends many centuries prospering due in part to their widespread adoption. It’s too early to tell whether we’re on that timeline or a different one, but rest assured that one part of Gene Roddenberry’s quixotic vision for the future has indeed come to pass. Tricorders are coming to the mass market, courtesy of the just-awarded Tricorder XPrize.

The $2.5 million first prize went to Final Frontier Medical Devices, a team of seven including four Trekkie siblings, for their DxtER diagnostic device (below).

Continue reading “Real-life tricorders are here 230 years early, courtesy of the Tricorder XPrize” »

Starving cancer via amino acids looks like a promising approach.

Cutting out certain amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — from the diet of mice slows tumor growth and prolongs survival, according to new research published in Nature.

Researchers at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute and the University of Glasgow found that removing two non-essential amino acids — serine and glycine — from the diet of mice slowed the development of lymphoma and intestinal cancer.

Continue reading “Amino acids in diet could be key to starving cancer” »

Scientists hope they have found a drug to stop all neurodegenerative brain diseases, including dementia. In 2013, a UK Medical Research Council team stopped brain cells dying in an animal for the first time, creating headline news around the world. But the compound used was unsuitable for people, as it caused organ damage. Now two drugs have been found that should have the same protective effect on the brain and are already safely used in people. “It’s really exciting,” said Prof Giovanna Mallucci, from the MRC Toxicology Unit in Leicester. She wants to start human clinical trials on dementia patients soon and expects to know whether the drugs work within two to three years.

Why might they work?

The novel approach is focused on the natural defence mechanisms built into brain cells.

Facebook’s advanced hardware group is working on technology to let you “hear with your skin.” The technology could be used to help deaf people communicate, but Facebook also envisions it as a way to advance communications for people who can already hear, allowing for such things as a conversation to be automatically translated into another language.

The technology is being developed by Facebook’s Building 8 research group, led by ex-DARPA director and former head of Google’s experimental research group Regina Dugan.

Facebook today unveiled a project from its secretive Building 8 research group that’s working to create a brain-computer interface that lets you type with your thoughts. Regina Dugan, a former director of DARPA and the ex-head of Google’s experimental ATAP research group, announced the news today onstage at Facebook’s F8 developer conference. Dugan, who now heads up Building 8, says the goal is “something as simple as a yes-no brain click” that could fundamentally change how we interact with and use technology. While it does not exist today outside of very specific medical research trials, Dugan says her team is actively working to make it a reality.

Is the quest to collect comprehensive health data and use it as a map and compass, pointing the way to disease prevention.