Amy Pooler

Nice in depth (and nostalgic) analysis of the new Illumina SmolSeq (🐱) by Keith Robison. Some really insightful points, most importantly IMO that SmolSeq is artfully positioned to create some competitive turbulence for Element Biosciences: "But now, $50K gets a very highly performing machine and $100K one which will fit many startup aspirations.  AVITI is still a sweet instrument, but Illumina just made that conversation more complicated." Also, why so shy about a DX version - "But even more surprising is that Illumina didn't outline a clear roadmap for clinical versions of the MiSeq i100 [🐱] - the DX model of the MiSeq received FDA clearance. The simpler workflows and smaller footprint would seem to make MiSeq i100 [🐱] a natural to try to put into pathology labs. So why the hesitancy to outline a path to get these into lucrative clinical markets?"

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What are Postbiotics and Why Are They Important? Postbiotics are bioactive compounds produced when probiotics consume prebiotics in the gut. Unlike probiotics, which are live bacteria, postbiotics are non-living byproducts such as enzymes, peptides, and short-chain fatty acids that offer health benefits. They play a crucial role in enhancing gut health, strengthening the immune system, and even reducing inflammation. Postbiotics are gaining attention for their stability compared to live probiotics and their ability to deliver health benefits without the challenges of keeping live bacteria viable. From supporting digestion to boosting immune responses, postbiotics are becoming a key player in the field of gut microbiota research. Learn more by watching the video and see how postbiotics can impact your health! #Postbiotics #GutHealth #Microbiome #HealthAndWellness #ImmuneSupport #DigestiveHealth #Biotechnology #NutritionalScience #Wellbeing #MicrobiotaResearch

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CicrRNA 2.0. This paper from the Wang lab @ MIT finds that a branched mRNA cap effectively initiates translation on linear or circular #mRNAs without IRES. Two types of chemical modification, locked nucleic acid (LNA) N7-methylguanosine modifications on the cap and LNA + 5 × 2′ O-methyl on the 5′ untranslated region, enhance RNA–eukaryotic translation initiation factor (eIF4E–eIF4G) binding and RNA stability against decapping in vitro. Through multidimensional chemotopological engineering of dual-capped mRNA and capped circular RNA, we enhanced mRNA protein production by up to tenfold in vivo, resulting in 17-fold and 3.7-fold higher antibody production after prime and boost doses in a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 vaccine setting, respectively.  https://lnkd.in/eX2a9Tn3

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Ever wondered how to transform your biomanufacturing process into a sleek, high-performing powerhouse? Let's dive deep into the world of Design of Experiments (DoE) – the secret ingredient that turns biotech wizards like us into maestros of optimization! 1. Set Your Sights High, Unveil Clear Goals: Start by envisioning your objectives with crystal clarity and pinpoint those critical quality attributes (CQAs) that can make or break your process optimization journey – they're your guiding star! 2. Choose Your Weapons Wisely: Be strategic! Delve into the realm of critical process parameters (CPPs) like a detective on a mission – media components, pH, temperature – every detail matters! 3. The Art of Experimental Design: No room for guesswork! Carefully choose your experimental design – whether it's full factorial, fractional factorial, or central composite – the magic lies in the plan! 4. Unleash the Power of Statistics – Your Secret Language: Embrace the world of statistics! ANOVA, regression analysis – they're not mere acronyms, they're your trusty companions in deciphering the language of results. 5. Metrics that Define Triumph: Chart your path to success! Your response variables – be it cell viability, titer, or glycosylation – pave the way to biomanufacturing glory! How do you leverage DoE? Share your wins in the comments below. #cellculture #processdevelopment #bioprocessing #celltherapymanufacturing #cellandgenetherapy #leadbiotech

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Grant revenue is not revenue. I'm all for non-dilutive funding, if and only if the SBIR/STTR-funded project accelerates your strategy with development of a product that will be sold (so science fair projects). However... *grant revenue is not validation dollars on the top line.* What you have shown is an ability to write grants, the basis for the research that led to the startup (in the case of academic spin-outs) in the first place. What you have not shown is 💸 the desire for customers to purchase your product(s) ➡ an ability to articulate a go-to-market plan, or 🔐 a down in the trenches understanding of product-market fit. Startups are a game of the quick and dead -- take the time and money you would spend writing these grants early in the life of your company and hit the road, listen to your customers, learn where and how your products fit, and start selling. Your P&L shows me your real progress there -- As an investor and advisor, I would rather see $10,000 in revenue from sales from a handful of customers in 2 quarters than a X% chance you get a $1M grant in 9 months.

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A nice overview of Alzheimer's One question-- should trials be large just because diseases are large? I think Peter Kolchinsky's philosophy (? hopefully I am not stating it wrong) which seemed quite intriguing is that there are subsets of rare disease within the common disease. Maybe in an AI/ML sense defining some of the most severe populations and then rolling it back to less severe populations if it seems to work there. (Not sure if there is a path forward for that). (Note that I say this--but it doesn't necessarily seem easy). Since Alzheimer's, for instance, seems to have such diverse behavior across different genetic populations, then populations selected may influence the trial outcomes and make signals hard to decipher. Anyway Alzheimer's is so challenging because trials are likely to take a long time. And many other factors.

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One of my favorite parts in my conversation with bit.bio CEO, Mark Kotter, is how we keep coming back to First Principles, and this idea of letting things be simple. From finding a high-level sense of purpose at a time when he felt quite lost… To showing up at a Professor’s lab and saying “I’d like to work with you and do some research”... Mark finds a way to simplify the things so many of us over-think. And while it’s worth noting that “simple” doesn’t necessarily mean “easy” – taking Mark’s lead and letting First Principles guide your approach is surely easier than trying to plot the details before you know the goal. It was such a profound conversation, wrapped in the stories of his early schooling and career… I hope it gives you as many “aha” moments as it did for me. Additional topics discussed: – Finding a “hack” for his dyslexia in the simple act of asking “how” or “why” something worked – Landing a research position at University of Cambridge through a mix of luck, networking, and simply asking for the opportunity – Joining Professor Blakemore's lab at vet school, the value of immediate feedback loops and rigorous training, and the unique research opportunities in the early days of stem cell work – First principles, letting purpose guide the big decisions, and letting the details fill themselves in along the way Apple Podcasts & Spotify links in the comments below! 👇🏽 #biotechnology #lifesciences #podcast

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iscover the Power of AB BIO: Real Science, Real Results Are you ready to redefine your skin's health with real science? AB BIO is your ally in the fight against aging, utilizing groundbreaking nanotechnology to boost your skin's natural detox process. Our scientifically formulated solution targets the root causes of skin aging, such as puffiness, uneven skin tone, and inflammation, giving you visible results. With AB BIO, you're not just applying a cream; you're initiating a cellular revolution. Our approach is rooted in the body's own regenerative cycle, promoting the emergence of new, healthy cells every 28 days. It's a natural process, enhanced by our expert formula to give you that youthful glow. Under the guidance of Dr. Alena Butkevica, we've designed a skincare treatment that is safe, effective, and suitable for every skin type. Dive into the science of beauty with AB BIO and join the ranks of those who choose not just any skincare, but the pinnacle of natural, scientifically-validated rejuvenation for 2024. #AntiAgingRevolution #SkincareScience #Detoxify #LymphaticHealth #SkinCellRenewal #NaturalSkincare #YouthfulRadiance #NanotechBeauty #DrAlenaButkevica #SkinRevival #CleanBeautyMovement #EcoSkincare #BeautyTech #DailySkincare #GlowUp #TimelessSkin #SkincareInnovation #LoveYourSkin #SkincareGoals #ViralBeauty #ABBIOTrendsetters

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The Silent Tutors: How LLMs Are Bridging Knowledge Gaps in Cell Therapy Manufacturing

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Wrapping up #bio2024. 57 meetings in 2 and a half days. Meeting many friends and making new connections. My impressions are the following: 1) A lot of early stage companies looking for partners or to raise cash. Most seems to be preclinical getting ready to file an IND 2) A lot of protein degraders and molecular glue companies seemingly all doing the same things 3) A lot of AI/ML platform players. 4) Still many I/O focused companies for which there does not seem to be any funding available 5) South Korea had a strong presence, perhaps second to the US. 6) Good time for cash rich companies to pick up assets on the cheap Overall I think we are still facing some headwinds. Now the real work starts…

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We invented a groundbreaking regenerative medicine product that can heal people in remarkable ways. We all will be patients one day, and we feel an intense urgency to get our products to those who need them. This urgency keeps us up at night and also grounds and motivates us to keep going. There are so many people in need of medical help. My hope is that anyone who can benefit from regenerative medicine will receive the treatment necessary to restore and repair their body. #regenerativemedicine #modernmedicine #patientsfirst #healingjourney #entrepreneurquotes #entrepreneurshipmindset #Fettech #mtp

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If you want to reduce inflammation and improve your skin in a way not possible lê through the mere use of aesthetics equipment - add Resilielle.com Age Zero tm Exosomes to your treatment. Using Exosomes with skin rejuvenation treatments will definitely vastly improve your results. Our Exosome derived from harvesting and concentrating Conditioned Media obtained during the low passage expansion process are the safest, most effective and potent Exosomes available. At Resilielle tm, we use the most effective process avaialable anywhere when growing our Wharton’s jelly Mesenchymal Stromal (Stem) Cells (WJ-MSCs). You can only get the most potent Exosomes from the most potent MSCs which are obtained from WJ-MSCs using low passage expansion. Low passage expansion (4 incubation periods in growth media is essential to maintain the integrity of the WJ-MSCs. More passages causes cell differentiation that ruin the potency of the resulting stem cells and subsequently ruins the Exosomes too. Manufacturing excellence yields excellent regenerative Biotherapeutics in stem cells and Exosomes. Make sure your product is fully medical grade and certified by 3rd party CLIA labs. Don’t buy uncertified products, or products expanded many times beyond manufacturer standards, or products from substandard sources like platelets, or plants, or fat tissue or bone marrow or worse yet - Lyophilized products that destroy the Exosomes lipid barrier protecting its valuable cargo. You have a right to see the product Nanosight300 report that will show whether you actually have any true Exosomes in your “Exosomes” Why buy cellular junk! Know what you are buying and demand information. It is your hard earned money - spend it wisely on behalf of your patients and clients. RESILIÉLLE COSMETICS LLC Buy the best - pass on the rest! Erin C.

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I'm delighted to share news of this new AI-focused drug discovery company, Xaira, built on foundational technology from David Baker and led by Marc Tessier-Lavigne. The company applies AI tools to unlock opportunities in drug discovery for aspects of biology that we believe are not readily obtainable with conventional methods. I co-led NEA's investment in Xaira, along with my NEA partner and the firm’s co-CEO Mohamad Makhzoumi, and I will be joining Xaira’s board. Our enthusiasm for Xaira based on our belief that applying AI and large language models to biology holds immense promise and is still in its early stages. Currently, the application of AI to biology relies on model architectures borrowed from the tech world. A lack of well-curated clinical training sets hinders building and training these models effectively. This limits the advancement of AI in solving biological problems compared to other fields. Xaira aims to bridge this gap. We now have a clear understanding of the data needed to answer fundamental biological questions. By iterating on leading life science models and using focused perturbation data generated through our large-scale experiments, Xaira will generate data specifically suited to building advanced model architectures that are optimized for biology -- and hopefully, unlock therapeutic opportunities for patients who are not being optimally served by existing therapeutics.

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Dual Targeting Recently, a famous geroscientist approached me and asked: “Why are you talking about inflammatory bowel disease at an aging conference? That is not an age-related disease.” At first glance, it makes sense. On the second and every look after that, it doesn’t. In our field, dual targeting—addressing both immediate disease indications and broader aging mechanisms—is standard practice. While we use the FDA-recognized nomenclature for diseases like IBD, we are simultaneously building the foundation for the future of aging medicine. The key is recognizing the shared biological mechanisms between specific diseases and the aging process, with the ultimate goal of developing therapies that target both. IBD shares several mechanisms with aging, including dysbiosis, chronic inflammation, immune dysregulation, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Beyond that, IBD is closely correlated with mental health, accelerating psychogenic aging. Diagnosed early in life, IBD forces many young people to experience the physiological and psychological tolls of aging long before they should. We need to shift our focus away from traditional “age-related diseases” and instead shine a spotlight on conditions that make us old today. By doing that, we can bring the science of aging into the present and create an impact both now and in the future. This is what I call Dual Targeting 2.0. #agingscience #longevity #biotech #ibd #health #deeplearning #medicine #innovation #guthealth

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Interesting technical overview from Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. that might be the first signs of a strategic pivot: they trained an LLM on 2 billion proteomics sequences. "Here we introduce AA-0, a 650M parameter model following the ESM-2 architecture, trained on public data combined with proprietary sequences from the UMDB. We compare the performance of AA-0 to ESM-2 on popular benchmarks as well as a collection of internal benchmarks relevant to our commercial work in the Ginkgo Bioworks foundry." "AI can make biology easier to engineer. This is the first of many intended releases from the Ginkgo AI team. We are excited to begin peeling back the curtain and enabling bioengineers across the world to access our technologies. As we scale up our training efforts (we are currently training models 10x larger than these and more!), we will be eager to share our findings and plan to make the resultant models available to the community."

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The FDA’s approval of Humacyte’s Symvess, a lab-grown blood vessel, marks a major milestone in regenerative medicine. Founded by Laura Niklason two decades ago, Humacyte has transformed an ambitious vision into reality. Symvess is designed for urgent revascularization following traumatic limb injuries, providing a life-saving alternative when a patient’s own veins cannot be used. The vessel is grown in a bioreactor using vascular cells and stripped of all cellular components to minimize immune rejection. Clinical trials showed promising outcomes: 67% of patients maintained blood flow without additional interventions after 30 days. This development highlights the growing potential of regenerative medicine to address unmet medical needs. By providing a biodegradable, acellular vessel that integrates with the patient’s body, Symvess offers a safer and potentially more effective solution compared to synthetic plastic-based vessels. The approval of Symvess is not just a win for Humacyte but a step forward for the entire field of regenerative medicine, bringing us closer to a future where lab-grown tissues and organs are an integral part of medical care. Link to the article in Endpoints News is here: https://lnkd.in/e_ziSBXM #RegenerativeMedicine #Innovation #FDAApproval #Biotechnology

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Looking to make a move into biotech VC? Here's the story of how a PhD w/2 postdocs pursued their dream job 👇🏻 "My path started with a PhD and two postdocs before breaking in, however all the time I was thinking about and working towards a position in VC. During that time, I was networking, internshipping /consulting part-time for VC firms and building a strategy to increase my odds, however I never knew if or when it would happen. Essentially, I had to have a day job I enjoyed and a career path for my life that didn’t involve being a VC. My advice for someone early in their professional career: Make the career choices that make you most fulfilled and VC will happen when it happens. Pick the day job you enjoy the most as you move forward to VC and keep in mind what can feel like the most direct path may not be (don’t pick a job you know you won’t like, just because you think it is direct). As for med school or consulting? Pick the path that will bring the most fulfillment for this portion of your life. A majority of Boston Biotech VC s (even the most junior roles) has a PhD and/or MD and some have an additional MBA. I would build a solid scientific foundation and there is no way to short cut that experience. It could start with a PhD, MD or 5-10 years in the industry (biotech, pharma, life science consulting), but almost every one of my colleagues has this solid foundation. Essentially, everyone had a successful science day job for about a decade before they became a VC and most had even more. In the meantime, talk to 20 other biotech VC, network, be tenacious and start to fill your VC tool kits with orthogonal experiences."

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Each month, America's Seed Fund powered by the U.S. National Science Foundation shares exciting news stories from NSF-funded startups. Below find August 2024 news highlights from a few companies formerly and currently funded by the NSF Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program: Nth Cycle Recycling company Nth Cycle (NSF-2112301) develops a low-cost process to recycle and refine lithium-ion batteries from out of service electric vehicles and consumer electronics. The company recently opened a new cobalt and nickel recycling refinery in Fairfield, Ohio. Article via WCBD News 2 JuneBrain To improve remote monitoring of neurological and retinal diseases, JuneBrain (NSF-2053315) develops medical imaging devices and artificial intelligence-powered software. Its automated, high-speed retinal imaging system helps monitor patients at home or in clinical settings. Article via BioBuzz HeroWear HeroWear (NSF-2139480) designs lift-assist exosuits to reduce back strain by helping workers lift heavy objects. Recent data collected over 280,000 hours of work found that individuals wearing the exosuits reported zero bank injuries, a 25% percent decrease in work-related bodily discomfort, and a 20% reduction in work-related fatigue, according to HeroWear. Article via Modern Materials Handling Grain Weevil On a mission to reduce grain bin accidents and entrapments, Nebraska-based and family-owned company Grain Weevil (NSF-2321441) uses robots with augers that can level grain, break up crusts, perform inspections, and conduct other tasks to keep farmers safe. Article via Rural Radio Network Electroninks Texas-based Electroninks (NSF-1534755) manufactures cost-effective, highly conductive, and sustainable metal complex inks for printed electronics, including medical devices and semiconductors. The company recently launched new copper ink for advanced packaging for semiconductor manufacturing and other use cases. Article via AZoMaterials Bloomlife To ease anxiety during pregnancy, Bloomlife (NSF-1843361) develops a wearable that remotely monitors both maternal and fetal heart rates in home and clinical settings. The wearable device can also track contractions in real time to improve maternal health outcomes. Bloomlife recently raised $12.2M. Article via Femtech Insider Aventusoft Aventusoft (NSF-1456401) develops medical devices to improve early detection and monitoring of heart disease. The company’s product “Hemotag” is designed to help doctors avoid invasive procedures when evaluating a patient. The device provides non-invasive, 30-second measurements to assess structural heart health. Article via Refresh Miami Atom Computing Atom Computing (NSF-1951188) is partnering with Microsoft to build a new generation of quantum hardware. Atom Computing’s neutral atom technology will integrate with Microsoft’s Azure Quantum platform to develop fault-tolerant quantum supercomputers. Article via The Quantum Insider

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