Weekly Links #5
Arc's Virtual Cell. Reward functions for AI chemistry models. French woman with new blood type.
Bacteria engineered to convert post-consumer PET plastic into acetaminophen.
Lots of exciting progress in delivering genome-editing tools into plants without requiring tissue culture.
Illumina acquires proteomics company, SomaLogic, for up to $425M.
Awesome blog post about the challenges of making good reward functions for AI chemistry models.
The story told about Phineas Gage is “largely fictional.” Great article.
Spectacular video tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.
A French woman living on the island of Guadeloupe may be the only person on Earth with this blood type: Gwada Negative.
More than 150 million people get their water from surface water that is likely to be contaminated.
NeuroPixels in non-human primates, with 4,416 recording sites.
Arc Institute releases v1.0 of their Virtual Cell Model. Also launches a Virtual Cell competition with $100,000 prize.
“…how plasma tau biomarkers correlated with cross-sectional and longitudinal AD-related outcomes and their diagnostic performance in 1,085 participants.” Plasma p-tau217 was the best biomarker in this study.
CryoFold is “a deep learning method that enables end-to-end training and one-shot inference” of cryo-EM images.
“From 1 July, researchers funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be required to make their scientific papers available to read for free as soon as they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.” Long time coming; first passed under Biden.
A high-throughput screen to find transcription factors that can be combined to differentiate cells.
Researchers tested 45 different lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) in macaques to see how they perform. “We characterize systemic physiological responses to LNP treatment using 47 clinically relevant variables and analyze the transcriptomic response alongside delivery in single cells from three tissues in vivo.”
Phase 3 trial where patients received two weight-loss drugs together: semaglutide and cagrilintide. “The estimated mean change in body weight from baseline to week 68 was −13.7% in the cagrilintide–semaglutide group and −3.4% in the placebo group.”
DeepMind releases AlphaGenome, AI tool that “predicts how single variants or mutations in human DNA sequences impact a wide range of biological processes regulating genes.”
Insane dataset; “3D single-cell spatiotemporal multi-omics profiling from Drosophila embryo to pupa.”
16,000 DNA “rings” locked together to form an elusive, soft matter gel.
Spontaneous formation of urea from carbon dioxide and ammonia in aqueous droplets.
Retinoic acid biosynthesis pathway as a target for “reactivating” organ regeneration in mammals.