Neutrophils migrating through extravascular spaces must negotiate narrow matrix pores without losing directional movement. We investigated how chemotaxing neutrophils probe matrices and adjust their migration to collagen concentration ([col]) changes by tracking 20,000 cell trajectories and quantifying cell-generated 3D matrix deformations. In low-[col] matrices, neutrophils exerted large deformations and followed straight trajectories. As [col] increased, matrix deformations decreased, and neutrophils…
Receptor Life Sciences (RLS), a pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies to address central nervous system disorders, announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for RLS102. This first-in-class, pure synthetic CBD capsule is being investigated for the treatment of irritability in patients with autism spectrum disorder. RLS102 is a novel formulation that…
The UW/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research is delighted to announce the 2021 New Investigator Award recipients. The purpose of this award program is to encourage junior investigators (at a senior stage of training or recently independent) to conduct independent research, acquire preliminary data to use for exogenous grant submissions, publish, receive mentorship, and write one or more grants to obtain…
Worried about health effects from the U.S.’s increasingly smoky summers? One day, not far in the future, you may be able to pop a few pills that will help your cells pinpoint and extract the worst of the airborne carcinogens before they can do any harm. Sound completely science-fictional? It gets better. Future space travelers bound for Mars may take…
Twenty scientists and engineers at the University of Washington are among the 38 new members elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2021, according to a July 15 announcement. New members were chosen for “their outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the Academy to bring the best available science to…
DeepMind presented remarkably accurate predictions at the recent CASP14 protein structure prediction assessment conference. We explored network architectures incorporating related ideas and obtained the best performance with a three-track network in which information at the 1D sequence level, the 2D distance map level, and the 3D coordinate level is successively transformed and integrated. The three-track network produces structure predictions with…
Modulus Therapeutics, a Seattle-based cellular therapy company spun out of the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence (AI2), announced $3.5 million in seed funding. The company combines laboratory research with machine learning to engineer immune cells with enhanced anti-tumor powers. Modulus focuses on generating performance-enhancing genetic changes in natural killer (NK) cells, an up-and-coming immune cell type in the cell therapy…
Seattle-based biotech company Lumen Bioscience, which manufactures proteins in algae, will expand its manufacturing operations to a former bakery in the city’s Wallingford neighborhood, the company announced today. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, the handsome brick building housed a café for the Essential Baking Company, across the street from Lumen’s current operations. “We used to go there for sandwiches,” said Brian Finrow, Lumen’s CEO.…
Shape Therapeutics, a Seattle preclinical stage biotech company developing RNA editing and gene therapy technologies, has raised $112 million. The company’s RNA editing technologies are spun out of the lab of co-founder Prashant Mali, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego who is on Shape’s scientific advisory board. Shape is also improving methods to deliver genetic material into cells.…
A new method developed by Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) and University of California, Riverside provides new insights into cancer biology by allowing researchers to show how fatty acids are absorbed by single cells. Fatty acids, along with glucose and amino acids, are a major energy source for cellular growth and proliferation, and abnormal fatty acid metabolism is often seen…
