“There are a bunch of newsletters out there I have read. News Items is the one I want to read.” — Jane Metcalfe, Chair of the Board of Directors, Human Immunome Project, co-founder Wired magazine and Wired Ventures.
1. Broad Clinical Labs, in collaboration with Roche Sequencing Solutions and Boston Children’s Hospital, today announced official recognition by Guinness World Records for achieving the fastest DNA sequencing technique to date. Leveraging Roche’s new SBX sequencing technology1 and a streamlined, integrated workflow, the teams completed sequencing and analysis of the whole human genome in less than 4 hours, surpassing the previous benchmark of 5 hours and 2 minutes. The team subsequently applied this process to samples obtained from the Boston Children’s Hospital neonatal intensive care unit to demonstrate a same day workflow from blood to report. The work was described today in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Source: broadinstitute.org, nejm.org)
2. Vaccines that resemble viruses generally produce a stronger immune response, while mRNA versions are much quicker and cheaper to make. Now we are getting the best of both worlds, in the form of mRNA vaccines that code for virus-like nanoparticles, rather than just individual proteins, as is the case with existing covid-19 mRNA vaccines. Grace Hendricks at the University of Washington in Seattle and her colleagues have shown that an mRNA version of a covid-19 nanoparticle vaccine produces an immune response in mice that is up to 28 times higher than that of a standard mRNA vaccine. (Sources: newscientist.com, linkedin.com)
3. Eurointelligence:
Samsung claims to have come out with a large language model that uses 10,000 fewer calculations than previous models. Alexia Jolicoeur-Martineau, head of research at AI at Samsung’s technology institute in Montreal, claimed that her company’s model would outperform other models in some key areas. We are not in a position to judge this claim. From what we can see, they appeared to have used a different algorithm for the AI model to find its optimal value. While this is not directly comparable to what happened in the 1960s, it would fall into the same broad category – an improvement in algorithmic efficiency. The Discrete Fourier Transform reduced the number of calculations by a factor of around 200. It’s not linear, so the precise number depends on the scale. But 200 is a reasonable benchmark for comparison. The claim of a factor of 10,000 is absolutely mind-boggling. (Sources: eurointelligence.com, venturebeat.com)
4. China’s semiconductor equipment industry marked a new milestone Wednesday with the debut of an ultra-high-speed oscilloscope that its developer says breaks foreign technological barriers and delivers five times the performance of existing domestic models. The oscilloscope delivers a bandwidth of 90 gigahertz, five times the performance of existing Chinese models, according to company CEO Liu Sang. Oscilloscopes are essential electronic testing instruments that measure and display signal waveforms, playing a critical role in developing AI chips, 6G communications, and optical networking. Liu likened them to “the eyes of a dragon,” saying they help China’s semiconductor supply chain innovate despite U.S.-led export restrictions. (Source: caixinglobal.com)
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