Lifeboat Foundation

Understanding how major histocompatibility complex class (MHC) molecules and peptides interact within the immune system is crucial for the advancement of biological sciences and medicine. A better understanding of how and when the immune system is activated can lead to treatments in diseases such as cancer or for the development of new vaccines.

MHC-peptide exchange technology attempts to replicate the immune response where peptide exchange occurs on an MHC molecule. The combination of the peptide sequence and the MHC molecule define the strength of the binding affinity resulting in a weak or strong interaction. In order for in vivo T cell epitope to be immunogenic, it must be able to bind a compatible MHC molecule and remain bound for long enough to be presented to and recognized by T cells to elicit an immune response. This shows that a strong binding affinity of MHC/peptide sequence in vitro may indicate potential strong immune interactions of antigen specific T cells in the desired model test sample. Ultimately obtaining this crucial peptide-MHC partnership, where binding affinity is the optimal amount, and the subsequent T cell reaction is sufficient for a therapeutic response, is difficult and cumbersome. There are many different technologies to explore MHC-peptide binding.

When computer scientists at Microsoft started to experiment with a new artificial intelligence system last year, they asked it to solve a puzzle that should have required an intuitive understanding of the physical world.

“Here we have a book, nine eggs, a laptop, a bottle and a nail,” they asked. “Please tell me how to stack them onto each other in a stable manner.”

Continue reading “Microsoft Says New A.I. Shows Signs of Human Reasoning” »

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) therapies involve the use of engineered receptors capable of redirecting immune cells to recognize and destroy cancer cells expressing a specific antigen. Currently, CAR-T cells, T cells equipped with CAR, dominate the field of CAR therapy. Since 2017, over 700 clinical trials involving CAR-T therapy have been registered and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved six CAR-T therapies for the treatment of leukemia, lymphomas, and multiple myeloma (Fig. 1) ^[1]. However, despite its clinical significance, several factors contribute to the limitations of CAR-T therapy. First, as collecting T cells is costly and time-consuming, this may not be feasible for patients already suffering from a compromised immune system. Second, CAR-T therapies mainly focus on treating hematological malignancies, having limited effectiveness in treating solid tumors. Third, CAR-T cells struggle to penetrate the tumor microenvironment (TME), which can hinder their therapeutic function. To overcome these limitations, promising CAR designs have emerged for multi-target CAR-T alongside novel therapies that utilize other immune cell types such as CAR-Natural killer (NK) and CAR-Macrophage (M) cells.

Figure 1. Timeline of CAR-T FDA approvals in the US. B-ALL, B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia; LBCL, large B cell lymphoma; MCL, mantle cell lymphoma; MM, multiple myeloma; R/R, relapsed/refractorySource: adapted from Maakaron, J, et al. 2022^[1].

Beware, bad guys—your DNA is in the air.

Experiments that imitate solid materials with light waves reveal the quantum basis of exotic physical effects.

😗😁

Imagine having a building made of stacks of bricks connected by adaptable bridges. You pull a knob that modifies the bridges and the building changes functionality. Wouldn’t it be great?

A team of researchers led by Prof. Aitor Mugarza, from the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) and ICREA, together with Prof. Diego Peña from the Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials of the University of Santiago de Campostela (CiQUS-USC), Dr. Cesar Moreno, formerly a member of ICN2’s team and currently a researcher at the University of Cantabria, and Dr. Aran Garcia-Lekue, from the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and Ikerbasque Foundation, has done something analogous, but at the single-atom scale, with the aim of synthesizing new carbon-based materials with tunable properties.

Continue reading “Engineering graphene-based quantum circuits with atomic precision” »

Year 2020 o.o!!!

AI startup FutureAI has announced that its neural simulator software successfully tested one billion neurons on a desktop computer comprised completely of off-the-shelf components.

A new study has shown for the first time how electrical creation and control of magnetic vortices in an antiferromagnet can be achieved, a discovery that will increase the data storage capacity and speed of next generation devices.

Researchers from the University of Nottingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy have used magnetic imaging techniques to map the structure of newly formed magnetic vortices and demonstrate their back-and-forth movement due to alternating electrical pulses. Their findings have been published in Nature Nanotechnology.

“This is an exciting moment for us, these magnetic vortices have been proposed as information carriers in next-generation memory devices, but evidence of their existence in antiferromagnets has so far been scarce. Now, we have not only generated them, but also moved them in a controllable way. It’s another success for our material, CuMnAs, which has been at the center of several breakthroughs in antiferromagnetic spintronics over the last few years,” says Oliver Amin.

😀 😍

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, apparently has more up his sleeve than bringing about the AI apocalypse.

As the Financial Times reports, Altman is in advanced talks to secure around $100 million for Worldcoin, another of his ventures.

Continue reading “OpenAI CEO Raising $100 Million to Scan Every Eyeball on Earth” »