TechBio Happenings! 🧵 1/ A full fly connectome 2/ A bacterial vaccine 3/ Schizophrenia drug approved 4/ RNAi drugs for obesity 5/ Rewiring the cancer transcriptome 6/ Improved Prime editing 7/ Bacteria boost tumor killing Research by @JuliaBauman2

Today in @NatureMedicine we report that AI can predict 130 diseases from 1 night of sleep🛌 We trained a foundation model (#SleepFM) on 585K hours of sleep recordings from 65K people—brain, heart, muscle & breathing signals combined. AI learns the language of sleep🧵

7/ Bacteria assist in tumor killing in a new paper out of @DanaFarber. Introduction of non-pathogenic, cytokine-expressing E. Coli into the gut of mice induced potent tumor immune responses & extended survival.

6/ Precision genome editing received two boosts: Prime editing efficiencies in primary cells are improved when increasing dNTP concentration, and when using a new synthesis method for pegRNAs. https://t.co/rNs4tuoBTg

5/ Bivalent molecules can be used to rewire cancer cells’ transcriptomes, as described in new work from @Stanford_ChEMH. The drugs bring an expression activator to genes inhibited by the cancer driver, reactivating apoptosis programs to kill the cancer.

4/ Could the next obesity drugs be RNAi-based? Scientists at @Alynylam and @Regeneron are working to drug brain-expressed genes linked to BMI & obesity risk. Other companies are pursuing their own RNAi strategies.

3/ For the first time in 35 years, a new drug for schizophrenia was approved in the US. @BMSnews’s Cobenfy is a cholinergic receptor agonist that led to >30% improvement in symptoms in 75% of patients in its phase III trial.

2/ Researchers developed a vaccine against C. Difficile (“c. diff”), a common & sometimes life-threatening bacterium, protecting mice from infection. The vaccine prevents C. diff gut colonization by targeting key bacterial enzymes required for this process.

1/ A full “connectome” of the fruit fly’s brain was described in a series of @Nature papers. Assembled from electron microscopy images with the help of AI, it contains ~140,000 neurons and 50 million synapses.

I agree @ItaiYanai —well written! 👏

BREAKING NEWS The 2024 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.

7/ Via delivery of 3 transcription factors, tumor cells can be “reprogrammed” to dendritic cell-like antigen-presenting cells that provoke T cell activation. This strategy enabled 50% complete response in mice with xenograft tumors.

6/ @NSF has granted $22M to establish a “biofoundry” supporting study of microbes that thrive in extreme environments, with the aim of discovering new tools for biotechnology from nature.

5/ Aiming to simplify the production of custom phages, which can be used therapeutically to treat bacterial infections, researchers from @seth_shipman’s lab present a retron-based method to achieve high efficiency, multiplexed phage genome editing.

4/ @moderna_tx’s mRNA monkeypox vaccine was shown to be more effective at preventing severe disease in monkeys than a leading mpox vaccine. The Phase 1/2 trial data is promising for combating the growing threat of monkeypox.

3/ Intrinsically disordered proteins have important functions in nature but are difficult to design due to their low structure. Work led by @LindorffLarsen’s lab shows design of such proteins with desired properties.

2/ 8 of 10 patients with high-risk acute myeloid leukemia remain in remission after receiving @VorBio’s CRISPR’ed stem cell transplant + high-dose CD33 targeting antibody treatment in an early stage study, a promising sign for the targeted drug combo.

1/ The skin of live mice becomes transparent when a dye is applied to the skin. The reversible tissue clearing method, described in work led by @HongNeuroTech, enables higher resolution imaging of internal structures in living animals.

TechBio Happenings! 🧵 1/ Making tissue transparent 2/ Pairing immunotherapy & HSC transplant 3/ Designing disordered proteins 4/ mRNA monkeypox vaccine 5/ Simplified phage genome editing 6/ ExFAB Biofoundry 7/ Making tumors attract immune cells Research by @JuliaBauman2

Enjoyed chatting with @AndrewE_Dunn @endpts about building AI meets Biotech companies Also might have said @RecursionChris is mucho awesome but might have been cut out due to word limits. Glad you’re building in TechBio Chris.