Hacker News with Generative AI: Biotechnology

How Unfair Is the Coin: Lessons from Building a Biotech Startup (ankitg.me)
I’m reviving my blog after some time away — it’s been an eventful 12 months. In February 2024, Reverie Labs, the startup I co-founded in 2017, was acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks. I’m now on leave from Ginkgo and I’ve joined Y Combinator as a Visiting Partner, giving me the chance to work with the next generation of companies. Especially in this new role, I’ve been thinking a bit about what worked, what didn’t work, and what lessons I can take forward.

Biotechnology, Startups, Entrepreneurship, Acquisitions

5 points by chaosprint 4 days ago | 0 comments

I Left Florida to Try Lab-Grown Meat (reason.com)
A company based in San Francisco just became the first in the world to sell direct to consumers what its founders call "cultivated meat," meaning it didn't originate from an animal that lived on a farm or in a muddy feedlot but from a giant steel vat.

Food Technology, Consumerism, Biotechnology

12 points by frankish 8 days ago | 1 comments

Printable molecule-selective nanoparticles enable wearable biosensor mass prod (phys.org)
The future of medicine may very well lie in the personalization of health care—knowing exactly what an individual needs and then delivering just the right mix of nutrients, metabolites, and medications, if necessary, to stabilize and improve their condition.

Biotechnology, Wearable Technology, Nanotechnology, Medical Technology

6 points by bookofjoe 17 days ago | 0 comments

Graphene tattoos that are biosensors (ieee.org)
Imagine it’s the year 2040, and a 12-year-old kid with diabetes pops a piece of chewing gum into his mouth. A temporary tattoo on his forearm registers the uptick in sugar in his blood stream and sends that information to his phone.

Biotechnology, Future Technology, Nanotechnology

3 points by headalgorithm 18 days ago | 0 comments

Biomachining (wikipedia.org)
Biomachining is the machining process of using lithotropic bacteria to remove material from metal parts, contrasted with chemical machining methods such as chemical milling and physical machining methods such as milling.

Biotechnology, Engineering, Materials Science

32 points by thunderbong 26 days ago | 1 comments

Schrödinger: The Nvidia biotech partner Jensen Huang told to "think bigger" (hntrbrk.com)
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had a message to deliver.

Nvidia, Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, Business, Technology

59 points by impish9208 27 days ago | 38 comments

Dutch pioneer files EU's second lab-grown meat application (politico.eu)
Mosa Meat has lodged the European Union’s second application for a cultivated or “lab-grown” meat, specifically a cell-based beef fat, as research and development continues to drive down the cost of the novel food, the Dutch food tech company announced Wednesday.

Food Technology, Biotechnology, EU Regulations, Meat Industry

10 points by Someone 30 days ago | 2 comments

De novo designed proteins neutralize lethal snake venom toxins (nature.com)
Snakebite envenoming remains a devastating and neglected tropical disease, claiming over 100,000 lives annually and causing severe complications and long-lasting disabilities for many more1,2.

Biotechnology, Medicine, Science, Snake Venom

4 points by aduffy 33 days ago | 0 comments

AI-designed proteins tackle century-old problem – making snake antivenoms (nature.com)
Proteins designed using artificial intelligence (AI) can block the lethal effects of toxins delivered in the venom of cobras, adders and other deadly snakes.

Artificial Intelligence, Science, Medicine, Venom, Biotechnology

3 points by eileen-stars 35 days ago | 0 comments

Researchers use AI to design proteins that block snake venom toxins (arstechnica.com)
It's a good example of how computer developments can be used for practical problems.

AI, Biotechnology, Science, Medicine, Venom

12 points by isaacfrond 36 days ago | 0 comments

Colossal Biosciences raises $200M at $10.2B valu. to bring back woolly mammoths (techcrunch.com)
Colossal Biosciences, the company that’s famously on a mission to bring back the woolly mammoth and two other extinct species, has raised a $200 million Series C at a $10.2 billion valuation from TWG Global, the investment company of Guggenheim Partners co-founder Mark Walter and the billionaire Thomas Tull.

Biotechnology, Extinct Species, Funding, Startups

9 points by this_weekend 37 days ago | 3 comments

Zebrafish protein unlocks dormant genes for heart repair (hubrecht.eu)
Researchers from the Bakkers group at the Hubrecht Institute have successfully repaired damaged mouse hearts using a protein from zebrafish.

Biotechnology, Heart Health, Regeneration, Animal Research, Genetics

135 points by manmal 49 days ago | 61 comments

Storing 3D scans in a grain of wheat (wafaabilal.com)
Splicing ancient Mesopotamian civilization with post-cultural planetary futures through a poetic act of preservation, my latest work, In a Grain of Wheat, is an interdisciplinary artwork that archives the 3,000 year-old Winged Bull of Nineveh inside the DNA of Iraqi wheat seeds.

Art, Biotechnology, Archaeology, Ancient History

20 points by whoisstan 56 days ago | 4 comments

Technical Report on Mirror Bacteria: Feasibility and Risks (purl.stanford.edu)
This report describes the technical feasibility of creating mirror bacteria and the potentially serious and wide-ranging risks that they could pose to humans, other animals, plants, and the environment.

Biotechnology, Microbiology, Risk Assessment, Environmental Science

20 points by Hooke 68 days ago | 1 comments

How Cultivated Meat Carved Out Its Plate in History (synbiobeta.com)
With Thanksgiving right around the corner in the US, Americans are preparing to consume 46 million turkeys across the country (based on USDA estimates). That’s a lot of turkeys. But what if we could reimagine this holiday staple? Picture a future where the Thanksgiving turkey on your table didn’t grow up on a farm but instead grew inside a bioreactor. Science fiction or an anticipated reality?

Food, Biotechnology

9 points by maivjj 68 days ago | 6 comments

Anti–USAG-1 therapy for tooth regeneration through enhanced BMP signaling (nlm.nih.gov)
Cell-free molecular therapy targeting USAG-1 is effective in the treatment of a wide range of congenital tooth agenesis.

Biotechnology, Dentistry, Stem Cells, Regeneration, Genetics

4 points by thunderbong 70 days ago | 1 comments

Animals as Chemical Factories (worksinprogress.co)
Horses bled for antivenom, crabs drained for endotoxin tests, and silkworms boiled for silk. Science can now replace these practices with synthetic alternatives — but we need to find ways to scale them.

Animals, Science, Biotechnology, Animal Welfare, Sustainability

47 points by royalroad 70 days ago | 62 comments

How BioNTech's "revolutionary" lung cancer vaccine works (bigthink.com)
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.

Medicine, Cancer, Vaccines, Biotechnology

11 points by Brajeshwar 70 days ago | 0 comments

Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn (the-scientist.com)
As synthetic biologists, we have spent the last few decades in awe of the breakthroughs in the field. In the last fifteen years, synthetic biologists have stored books, images, and even videos in DNA, developed the ability to modify and engineer genes with remarkable accuracy, and even created an organism with chromosome designed using a computer and synthesized in the lab.1-5

Biotechnology, Science, Synthetic Biology, Research, Ethics

305 points by conqueso 70 days ago | 240 comments

Noninvasive imaging method can penetrate deeper into living tissue (news.mit.edu)
Using high-powered lasers, this new method could help biologists study the body’s immune responses and develop new medicines.

Biotechnology, Medical Imaging, Science

199 points by rbanffy 70 days ago | 24 comments

A 'Second Tree of Life' Could Wreak Havoc, Scientists Warn (nytimes.com)
On Thursday, 38 prominent biologists issued a dire warning: Within a few decades, scientists will be able create a microbe that could cause an unstoppable pandemic, devastating crop losses or the collapse of entire ecosystems.

Science, Biology, Pandemics, Ecosystems, Biotechnology

60 points by michae2 71 days ago | 3 comments

Engineering tunable catch bonds with DNA (nature.com)
Unlike most adhesive bonds, biological catch bonds strengthen with increased tension.

Biotechnology, Science, DNA, Engineering, Materials Science

15 points by PaulHoule 71 days ago | 1 comments

Structure-Based Search of the Entire AlphaFold Protein Structure Database (muni.cz)

Biotechnology, Protein Folding, Databases, Artificial Intelligence

6 points by cernocky 72 days ago | 0 comments

Two Biotech CEOs Convicted in Securities Fraud Scheme (justice.gov)
A federal jury in Maryland convicted two men yesterday for their roles in a scheme to lie to investors in CytoDyn Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company based in Vancouver, Washington.

Biotechnology, Securities Fraud, Law, Business

13 points by sandwichsphinx 73 days ago | 0 comments

New funding could make whole-eye transplants a reality (news.northwestern.edu)
A multi-institutional team of researchers, including two Northwestern University engineers, has received up to $56 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to help make vision-restoring, whole-eye transplants a reality, the agency announced today.

Biotechnology, Medical Research, Eye Health, Transplantation

11 points by gnabgib 81 days ago | 0 comments

Advances in Biorefinery of Cattle Manure for Value-Added Products (mdpi.com)
A large amount of cattle manure is generated in the US every year, creating challenges for ecosystem sustainability while offering opportunities for value-added products through biorefinery.

Biotechnology, Sustainability, Agriculture, Waste Management

3 points by PaulHoule 85 days ago | 0 comments

Malaria vaccine delivered by a mosquito bite (nature.com)
Scientists have developed a new vaccination strategy for malaria — boosting immunity through bites from mosquitoes carrying a genetically engineered version of the parasite that causes malaria.

Malaria, Vaccines, Biotechnology, Medical Research

145 points by gmays 89 days ago | 226 comments

Designer cells 'reboot' immune system in 3 different autoimmune diseases (livescience.com)

Biotechnology, Medicine, Immunology, Autoimmune Diseases

5 points by geox 94 days ago | 0 comments

Two Nobel Prize winners want to cancel their own CRISPR patents in Europe (technologyreview.com)
In the decade-long fight to control CRISPR, the super-tool for modifying DNA, it’s been common for lawyers to try to overturn patents held by competitors by pointing out errors or inconsistencies.

CRISPR, Patents, Science, Biotechnology, Law

167 points by thisismytest 97 days ago | 120 comments

Learning to use a handy Third Thumb may be easier than you think (newatlas.com)
Having an extra thumb on one hand may massively boost your manual dexterity, but wouldn't it be hard to learn to use? Not according to a new study, which found that the majority of a wide variety of people got the hang of the thing in just one minute.

Biotechnology, Human Enhancement, Science, Technology, User Experience

17 points by bryanrasmussen 97 days ago | 2 comments