An AI Collaborative that Welcomes All into the Fold
OpenFold, an open-source, collaborative initiative founded in 2022 to address the challenges of protein structure prediction and design using artificial intelligence, emerged as a response to the restricted commercial access to DeepMind’s AlphaFold platform. Leveraging public datasets and using a pre-competitive consortium model, OpenFold seeks to democratize cutting-edge protein engineering tools for both industry and academia. We spoke to Brian Weitzner, director of computational and structural biology at Outpace Bio and co-founder of OpenFold, about the creation of the collaborative effort, how its open licensing model ensures broad accessibility, and how it stacks up against AlphaFold.
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Hitting the Reset Button on Cellular Aging
Transcription factors control the genetic programs that maintain cellular balance, but while they have been seen as compelling targets for aging-related disease, they have long been considered “undruggable.” Junevity’s RESET platform leverages large-scale human omics data and AI models to pinpoint key transcriptional drivers of disease and to design siRNA therapies that restore healthy gene expression. We spoke to John Hoekman, co-founder and CEO of Junevity, about the role of transcription factors in healthy biology and aging-related disease, the company’s AI-driven platform for identifying dysregulated transcription factors, and its lead programs targeting type 2 diabetes and obesity.
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Changing the Ovarian Cancer Treatment Landscape with a DNA-Mediated Immunotherapy
Ovarian cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers affecting women, and it is expected to claim nearly 13,000 lives in the United States in 2025. Despite progress in survival rates, nearly 80 percent of patients are still diagnosed at advanced stages, when the disease has already spread and is difficult to treat. Imunon’s experimental DNA-mediated immunotherapy is designed to deliver interleukin-12 directly into the tumor. A phase 2 study demonstrated that the experimental therapy, when combined with the standard of care, provided a 13-month survival benefit compared to women receiving only the standard of care. We spoke to Stacy Lindborg, CEO of Imunon, about the company’s DNA-mediated immunotherapy, how it avoids the systemic toxicities that undermined earlier IL-12 approaches, and how it could change the treatment landscape for the disease.
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Why the United States Must Fall in Love with Biotechnology, or Take a Back Seat to China
China’s emergence as a biotech superpower may have appeared to happen suddenly, but it reflected a long-term vision and policies over many years that enabled its success. As biotechnology transforms not only medicine but also industries such as food, fuel, and materials, the competition between China and the United States to shape the future bioeconomy is intensifying. We spoke to Drew Endy, associate professor of bioengineering and senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, about China’s all-of-nation strategy, how the United States has misallocated research dollars, and why a cultural embrace of biotechnology will be critical for the success of either country.
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Transforming Drug Discovery and Disease Research—One Cell at a Time
The ARC Virtual Cell Atlas uses high-throughput single-cell genomics, artificial intelligence, and open science to understand the complexities of cellular behavior. Developed through a partnership between the ARC Institute, 10x Genomics, and Ultima Genomics, the public domain resource integrates data from hundreds of millions of cells. By curating and harmonizing vast amounts of single-cell measurements, the Atlas paves the way for virtual cell simulations that can predict how cells respond to genetic or chemical changes. These models hold the promise for transforming drug discovery by accelerating target identification, optimizing candidate compounds, and reducing the cost of drug development. We spoke to Arc Institute’s Core Investigator Hani Goodarzi, Ultima Genomics CEO Gilad Almogy, and 10X Genomics CEO Serge Saxonov, about how the Atlas will serve academic and industry researchers developing therapies, how it will help unravel disease mechanisms at a cellular level, and provide broad access to advanced cellular analytics.
The Bio Report podcast, hosted by award-winning journalist Daniel Levine, focuses on the intersection of biotechnology with business, science, and policy.
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