Biotech Buzz #1: Cancer Vaccines,Gene Editing finally here(?) & more
Hi everyone,
Welcome to the first edition of the Biotech Buzz newsletter! I am extremely excited to get this going.
Everything about this newsletter is a work in progress. If there is anything you would like to provide feedback on, feel free to do so!
Now why have I decided to start this newsletter?
As biotech innovations continue to revolutionize healthcare, diagnostics, and therapeutics, staying informed through a dedicated newsletter is essential for healthcare professionals, policymakers, researchers, investors, and the general public. In particular, the increasing prevalence of chronic illnesses and diseases necessitates an informed and proactive approach to healthcare that leverages the power of biotechnology. As someone personally affected by chronic illness, this especially resonates with me. With the emergence of novel treatments, gene editing, precision medicine, and innovative diagnostic tools, biotech breakthroughs hold the promise of addressing the unmet needs of individuals living with chronic conditions, improving patient outcomes, and enhancing quality of life. This newsletter serves as a vital conduit for disseminating the latest research findings, industry developments, and clinical advancements, fostering an environment of knowledge-sharing and collaboration that is instrumental in unlocking the full potential of biotechnology.
In this edition, we highlight groundbreaking advancements, including vaccines for cancer and heart disease, gene editing therapeutics, and innovations in epigenetics, gene editing tools, and lab-grown meat. We've also got news on photonic time crystals, illegal timber detection, and cutting-edge research on aging, immune modulation, and stem-cell derived embryos. Stay tuned for important definitions and insights on why these articles matter.
Business & Biggest news
Article: Cancer and heart disease vaccines ‘ready by end of the decade’ | Cancer | The Guardian
SUMMARY:
The success of the Covid jab has escalated the development of vaccines for cancer and other conditions such as heart disease.
A leading pharmaceutical firm said it is confident that jabs for cancer, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases, and other conditions will be ready by 2030.
Studies into these vaccinations are also showing tremendous promise, with some researchers saying 15 years' worth of progress has been unspooled in 12 to 18 months thanks to the success of the Covid jab.
Dr Paul Burton, the chief medical officer of pharmaceutical company Moderna, said he believes the firm will be able to offer such treatments for all sorts of disease areas in as little as five years.
He also said that multiple respiratory infections could be covered by a single injection.
Therapies based on mRNA work by teaching cells how to make a protein that triggers the body's immune response against disease.
In January, Moderna announced results from a late-stage trial of its experimental mRNA vaccine for RSV, suggesting it was 83.7% effective at preventing at least two symptoms, such as cough and fever, in adults aged 60 and older.
Why It's Important:
This article heralds a significant leap in vaccine development, with the potential to save millions of lives by preventing cancer, heart disease, and other conditions. The progress made during the COVID-19 pandemic has opened doors to revolutionize healthcare and treatment approaches. Now if only these leaps could be applied to Long Covid...
Article: Tally up! Consumer longevity company lands $10m
Important Definitions:Epigenetic age test: A test that measures changes in gene activity associated with aging.SUMMARY:
Raised $10m in a seed funding round led by Forerunner Ventures with participation from L Catterton, G9 Ventures and Second Sight Ventures.
Tally Health aims to extend longevity at a cellular level, and has developed the TallyAge epigenetic age test, personalised lifestyle recommendations and longevity supplements.
The company was founded in February and the funding will be used to develop new longevity products and expand the team, according to Melanie Goldey, CEO of Tally Health, who added that celebrity interest helped shift longevity to mainstream consciousness.
Article: Gene Editing Therapeutics Could Hit the Market in 2023 | BioSpace
Important Definitions:Biologics License Application (BLA): A request for permission to introduce a biologic product into interstate commerce.SUMMARY:
Gene Editing Therapeutics Could Hit the Market in 2023 Currently, there are no gene editing-based treatments on the market, but the technology continues its march toward potential FDA approval, with several products in mid- and late-stage trials.
CRISPR Therapeutics and Vertex Pharmaceuticals finished the Biologics License Application (BLA) submission for exa-cel, an ex vivo treatment designed to increase levels of fetal hemoglobin in red blood cells.
Intellia Therapeutics received a Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation from the FDA for NTLA-2002, an in vivo CRISPR-based treatment for hereditary angioedema (HAE).
Editas Medicine is working on EDIT-301 for SCD and TDT as well as initiating parallel patient dosing for SCD in the Phase I/II RUBY trial and doses the first patient for TDT in the Phase I/II EDITHAL trial.
Beam Therapeutics' most advanced pipeline product is BEAM-10, which is in Phase I/II BEACON trials.
Why It's Important:
Gene editing therapeutics have the potential to cure genetic diseases and transform medical treatments. As various gene editing-based products advance through trials, FDA approval could open the door for life-changing therapies. It seems likes like the long-wait for these technologies may be worth it.Tech & Innovation
SUMMARY:
David Liu has invented a revolutionary tool that can modify the human genome.
It has already saved the life of a girl with a very aggressive type of cancer.
His base editing tool is being used in clinical trials to treat various diseases, and his quality editing tool is in the experimental phase.
Liu receives five to ten letters each week from parents of children with genetic diseases, and he explains that while the technology exists, proving the effectiveness of gene-editing treatments takes time and solid science.
Liu hopes to see clinical trials with gene-editing tools and FDA-approved drugs that can change the genetic fates of millions of people in the next 10 years.
Liu supported a moratorium on germline gene-editing, but acknowledges that it may be reconsidered in the future once somatic cell gene-editing has been tried more and there are approved drugs.
SUMMARY:
Called "the hat", the 13-sided shape can be arranged in a tile formation such that it never forms a repeating grid.
Such a shape would be known as an aperiodic monotile, or "einstein" shape.
Now, mathematicians appear to have found what they were looking for: a 13-sided shape they call "the hat".
"There's been a thread of beautiful mathematics over the last 60 years or so searching for ever smaller sets of shapes that do this," Kaplan says.
Article: Lab-grown chicken meat is getting closer to restaurant menus and store shelves - ABC News
SUMMARY:
A scientific quest to feed the world, protect animals and simultaneously cut down on greenhouse gas emissions is on the cusp of a major milestone in the U.S., advocates say.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared two American producers of lab-grown meat to bring their products to market, finding "no questions" about the companies' claims the protein is safe for human consumption.
Regulators from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are now deciding how to label cultivated meat for public sale and inspect facilities that produce it.
Americans were estimated to consume roughly 75 billion pounds of red meat and chicken last year, according to USDA data.
UPSIDE Foods says it can produce 50,000 pounds of cultivated chicken per year at its Emeryville, Calif., facility.
Article: Physicists Create Photonic Time Crystal That Amplifies Light
Important Definitions:• Photonic time crystal: A structure that exhibits a repeating pattern in both space and time, which can manipulate and control light waves.SUMMARY:
A team of researchers has created a two-dimensional photonic time crystal that they say could be useful in various technologies.
The crystal amplifies light at microwave frequencies and the experiment results have been published in Science Advances.
Photonic crystals are optical structures that can refract light, and in lab settings, the electromagnetic properties of metamaterials can be fine-tuned to create photonic crystals that are very good at amplifying light waves.
Real-world applications of the discovery involve most devices that rely on photonics.
The crystal could improve wireless signals by coating devices with the 2D photonic time crystals, making signal strengths more robust.
Article: Ashland wildlife lab’s tools and know-how key to detecting illegal timber imports - OPB
SUMMARY:
Ashland is home to the United States' only full-service forensic lab dedicated to tracking illegally transported animals and plants;
it now plans to detect illegally imported timber by transporting forensic tools to the U.S. ports using a mobile lab;
the device analyzes the "chemical fingerprints" of trees and helps identify illegal logging operations
the equipment cost about $600,000, and the lab is expected to deploy it from Ashland to a US port of entry later this spring.
Research
Article: How air pollution causes lung cancer — without harming DNA
SUMMARY:
inflamed environment that encourages proliferation of cells with existing cancer-driving mutations rather than by mutating DNA, according to a study.
The research provides a mechanism that could apply to other cancers caused by environmental exposure, including how air pollution causes millions of illnesses worldwide, including adenocarcinoma, a type of lung cancer.
Diet could be one solution, as researchers found dietary interventions that combat inflammation might be able to reduce the risk of some cancers.
SUMMARY:
Inclusion of participants from a diversity of ethnicities, demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds will be required to assess the generalizability of our current finding.
Finally, some imaging modalities (for example, carotid imaging) were only acquired in select individuals, limiting the data available for some organ clocks.
Clinical translation could proceed by adding these to clinical assays, and/or removing others based upon the tradeoff between their added predictive value versus their cost.
Our work enhances the clinical utility of proxy measures of aging developed for older individuals, such as frailty indices, as well as existing DNA methylation (epigenetic) clocks.
Addressing this need, we showed that deviations from expected aging-related decline can be detected in certain organs (but not all) years before disease diagnosis.
Advanced pulmonary age was the strongest predictor of mortality (HR 1.24), consistent with epidemiological observations of associations between impaired lung function and increased risk of mortality.
Advanced age of the pulmonary, immune, renal and hepatic systems significantly raises a person's mortality risk, beyond that explained by existing chronic diseases, chronological age and sex.
Interventions designed to delay the rate of organ aging may thus effectively delay disease onset, resulting in an extended healthy lifespan.
Important DefinitionsMesencephalic astrocyte-derived neurotrophic factor (MANF) is a special protein that plays an important role in helping our brain cells stay healthy and function properly.SUMMARY:
The immune modulator mesencephalic astrocyte-derived neurotrophic factor (MANF) is induced following muscle injury in young mice but not in aged animals, and its expression is essential for regenerative success.
Regenerative impairments in aged muscle are associated with defects in the repair-associated myeloid response similar to those found in MANF-deficient models and could be improved through MANF delivery.
We propose that restoring MANF levels is a viable strategy to improve myeloid response and regenerative capacity in aged muscle.
Article: Stem-cell derived ‘embryos’ implanted in monkeys
Important Defintions:Blastoids are artificially created structures that resemble early-stage embryos. Scientists generate them in the lab using stem cells, which are cells with the potential to develop into many different types of cells in the body.SUMMARY:
blastoids that resemble the early stages of embryos have been implanted in macaques, offering a way to study pregnancy and its complications.
The blastoids could be used to understand human embryo development while avoiding the ethical issues of experimenting with real embryonic cells.
Scientists at the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai exposed monkey embryonic stem cells to growth factors so they'd differentiate into types found in natural blastocysts.
After a week, the stem cells had formed the spherical structure of a blastocyst and differentiated into three lineages that form the foundation of tissues and organs.
These topics are fascinating! I am curious to hear more about the ongoing development of regenerative repair of aged muscles and lab-made meat. Is there any research on whether lab-made meat will be healthier and safer than traditional meat?
Where is your “thank you” button? I hope you will have paid subscriptions available at some point. You’ve done a lot of work here and I truly appreciate you.