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De novo and somatic structural variant discovery with SVision-pro Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-22 Songbo Wang, Jiadong Lin, Peng Jia, Tun Xu, Xiujuan Li, Yuezhuangnan Liu, Dan Xu, Stephen J. Bush, Deyu Meng, Kai Ye
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Branched chemically modified poly(A) tails enhance the translation capacity of mRNA Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-22 Hongyu Chen, Dangliang Liu, Jianting Guo, Abhishek Aditham, Yiming Zhou, Jiakun Tian, Shuchen Luo, Jingyi Ren, Alvin Hsu, Jiahao Huang, Franklin Kostas, Mingrui Wu, David R. Liu, Xiao Wang
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Starfysh integrates spatial transcriptomic and histologic data to reveal heterogeneous tumor–immune hubs Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Siyu He, Yinuo Jin, Achille Nazaret, Lingting Shi, Xueer Chen, Sham Rampersaud, Bahawar S. Dhillon, Izabella Valdez, Lauren E. Friend, Joy Linyue Fan, Cameron Y. Park, Rachel L. Mintz, Yeh-Hsing Lao, David Carrera, Kaylee W. Fang, Kaleem Mehdi, Madeline Rohde, José L. McFaline-Figueroa, David Blei, Kam W. Leong, Alexander Y. Rudensky, George Plitas, Elham Azizi
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Making genome editing a success story in Africa Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-19 Hussein M. Abkallo, Patrick Arbuthnot, Thomas O. Auer, Dave K. Berger, Johan Burger, Ereck Chakauya, Jean-Paul Concordet, Abdoulaye Diabate, Vincenzo Di Donato, Jan-Hendrik Groenewald, Amadou Guindo, Lizette L. Koekemoer, Florence Nazare, Tony Nolan, Fredros Okumu, Emma Orefuwa, Lily Paemka, Lucia Prieto-Godino, Steven Runo, Marie Sadler, Kassahun Tesfaye, Leena Tripathi, Charles Wondji
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A retrotransposon for site-specific gene transfer Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Fred Dyda, Alison B. Hickman
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World’s first TIL therapy approved Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15
Iovance Biotherapeutics has received a long-awaited go-ahead from the US Food and Drug Administration for its tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) cancer therapy. The approval for Amtagvi (lifileucel) for treating patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma is a milestone: it marks the first immune cell therapy approved for solid tumors, and it is also the first made from TILs. Amtagvi is a living
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Supercharging T cell therapy with cancer mutations Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Iris Marchal
T cell therapies are still hindered by poor T cell persistence and function, making them largely ineffective against solid tumors. Human cancerous T cells acquire mutations that increase their fitness and evade immune challenges in similar situations to those faced by therapeutic T cells. Writing in Nature, Garcia and colleagues exploit the fitness-enhancing abilities of these cancer mutations by incorporating
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US bill targets Chinese biotechs Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15
The United States is seeking to prevent four Chinese biotech companies from doing business in the country, citing them as “companies of concern” that threaten national security. The Biosecure Act, introduced in both the Senate (S.3558) in December and House of Representatives (H.R.7085) in January, would prohibit the federal government from contracting with certain biotech providers connected to foreign
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Wearable technology and devices Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15
Recent patents relating to wearable technology and devices for patient monitoring and treatment of health conditions.
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A synthetic antibiotic overcomes antimicrobial resistance Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Iris Marchal
Many small-molecule antibiotics function by disrupting bacterial ribosomes, but bacteria develop resistance by modifying ribosomes to reduce the binding affinity of these molecules. Writing in Science, Wu et al. present a solution to this challenge by engineering a synthetic antibiotic that remains locked in an optimal conformation that boosts ribosomal binding. The authors designed the molecule cresomycin
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In vivo CRISPR agent cuts HAE attacks 95% Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15
A CRISPR–Cas9-based gene editing therapy from Intellia Therapeutics reduced monthly swelling attacks by 95% in people with hereditary angioedema (HAE). The results from a small phase 1 trial were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February. HAE is a rare genetic disorder characterized by recurrent bouts of subcutaneous and submucosal swelling that can be life threatening. Kallikrein
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Predicting the structure of large protein complexes Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Iris Marchal
Deep learning models like RoseTTAFold and AlphaFold2 allow highly accurate protein structure prediction, but large protein assemblies remain hard to predict because of their size and complex subunit interactions. In a study published in Nature Methods, Shor and Scheidman-Duhovny introduce CombFold, a combinatorial and hierarchical assembly algorithm that predicts structures of large protein complexes
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Cell-based coffee future-proofs world’s favorite brew Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15
Lior Raviv, Pluri’s chief technical officer, says: “We hypothesized we could take the cells from the plant and put them in a bioreactor [to grow coffee].” Through their work in cell therapy and cultivated meat, the Pluri team knew that not all cells like the same growing conditions. Taking plant cell samples, they made cell lines and, instead of growing them swirling around in suspension culture, they
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Biotech news from around the world Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15
Saudi Arabia announces a plan to become a biotech leader in the Middle East and North Africa region by 2030 and an international biotech hub by 2040. Its National Biotechnology Strategy aims to grow the country’s capabilities in vaccines, biomanufacturing, genomics and plant optimization to increase job creation and drive economic growth and diversification. The Ministry of Health and Welfare invests
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People Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15
Recent moves of note in and around the biotech and pharma industries.
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2H23 biotech job picture Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Michael Francisco
A semiannual snapshot of job expansions, reductions and availability in the biotech and pharma sectors.
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Lighting the match: how a student-led career mentorship program can blaze the way for non-academic careers Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Anna Bagnell, Alana MacDonald, Peter Espenshade, Mark Schenerman
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Biologic patent challenges under the America Invents Act Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Victor L. Van de Wiele, Aaron S. Kesselheim, S. Sean Tu
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Innovators want pills to treat sickle cell disease. Can they match gene therapy? Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-15
Although CRISPR-based gene therapy for sickle cell disease offers transformative outcomes, drugmakers are striving to develop treatments that are easy to manufacture and can reach much larger numbers of patients.
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Glia-enriched cortical organoids implanted in mice capture astrocyte diversity Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-14
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High-throughput evaluation of genetic variants with prime editing sensor libraries Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Samuel I. Gould, Alexandra N. Wuest, Kexin Dong, Grace A. Johnson, Alvin Hsu, Varun K. Narendra, Ondine Atwa, Stuart S. Levine, David R. Liu, Francisco J. Sánchez Rivera
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A small-molecule TNIK inhibitor targets fibrosis in preclinical and clinical models Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Feng Ren, Alex Aliper, Jian Chen, Heng Zhao, Sujata Rao, Christoph Kuppe, Ivan V. Ozerov, Man Zhang, Klaus Witte, Chris Kruse, Vladimir Aladinskiy, Yan Ivanenkov, Daniil Polykovskiy, Yanyun Fu, Eugene Babin, Junwen Qiao, Xing Liang, Zhenzhen Mou, Hui Wang, Frank W. Pun, Pedro Torres Ayuso, Alexander Veviorskiy, Dandan Song, Sang Liu, Bei Zhang, Vladimir Naumov, Xiaoqiang Ding, Andrey Kukharenko, Evgeny
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Growing community across the C-suite Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-07
Women in biotech CEO positions now have resources and networks.
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Prediction of tumor-reactive T cell receptors from scRNA-seq data for personalized T cell therapy Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 C. L. Tan, K. Lindner, T. Boschert, Z. Meng, A. Rodriguez Ehrenfried, A. De Roia, G. Haltenhof, A. Faenza, F. Imperatore, L. Bunse, J. M. Lindner, R. P. Harbottle, M. Ratliff, R. Offringa, I. Poschke, M. Platten, E. W. Green
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Near-cognate tRNAs increase the efficiency and precision of pseudouridine-mediated readthrough of premature termination codons Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Nan Luo, Qiang Huang, Liting Dong, Wenqing Liu, Jinghui Song, Hanxiao Sun, Hao Wu, Yuan Gao, Chengqi Yi
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After obesity drugs’ success, companies rush to preserve skeletal muscle Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-05
A growing number of companies are testing muscle-building agents to counter the side effects of dramatic weight loss and potentially to preserve lean muscle into old age.
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Imbalanced single-cell data integration leads to loss of biological information Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-01
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Characterizing the impacts of dataset imbalance on single-cell data integration Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Hassaan Maan, Lin Zhang, Chengxin Yu, Michael J. Geuenich, Kieran R. Campbell, Bo Wang
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Morphological diversification and functional maturation of human astrocytes in glia-enriched cortical organoid transplanted in mouse brain Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Meiyan Wang, Lei Zhang, Sammy Weiser Novak, Jingting Yu, Iryna S. Gallina, Lynne L. Xu, Christina K. Lim, Sarah Fernandes, Maxim N. Shokhirev, April E. Williams, Monisha D. Saxena, Shashank Coorapati, Sarah L. Parylak, Cristian Quintero, Elsa Molina, Leonardo R. Andrade, Uri Manor, Fred H. Gage
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RNA interference in the era of nucleic acid therapeutics Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-26 Vasant Jadhav, Akshay Vaishnaw, Kevin Fitzgerald, Martin A. Maier
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Cancer-targeting antibody–drug conjugates drive dealmaking frenzy Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-26
Improved linker technologies and broadening payload options mark a coming of age for these precision cancer therapies.
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Fresh from the biotech pipeline: record-breaking FDA approvals Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-26
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A deep learning-based method for modeling of RNA structures from cryo-EM maps Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-23
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All-atom RNA structure determination from cryo-EM maps Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Tao Li, Jiahua He, Hong Cao, Yi Zhang, Ji Chen, Yi Xiao, Sheng-You Huang
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OMArk, a tool for gene annotation quality control, reveals erroneous gene inference Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-21
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Quality assessment of gene repertoire annotations with OMArk Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Yannis Nevers, Alex Warwick Vesztrocy, Victor Rossier, Clément-Marie Train, Adrian Altenhoff, Christophe Dessimoz, Natasha M. Glover
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Harnessing eukaryotic retroelement proteins for transgene insertion into human safe-harbor loci Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-20 Xiaozhu Zhang, Briana Van Treeck, Connor A. Horton, Jeremy J. R. McIntyre, Sarah M. Palm, Justin L. Shumate, Kathleen Collins
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Generative models for protein structures and sequences Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Chloe Hsu, Clara Fannjiang, Jennifer Listgarten
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Drug pipeline 4Q23 — gene editing delivers Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
People with thalassemia and sickle cell anemia got a boost with FDA approval in the final quarter of 2023 of two ex vivo gene editing therapies with mechanistically distinct approaches: in Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics’ Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel), gene editing reactivates fetal hemoglobin production, whereas bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia (lovotibeglogene autotemcel) produces a modified anti-sickling
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Microbe-made jet fuel Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
The aviation industry readies to embrace aviation fuel produced by fermentation.
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Can single-cell biology realize the promise of precision medicine? Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
Biology’s quiet revolution is underway, as single-cell tools fuel the next-wave of drug discoveries and promise to match therapies to the individual.
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Machine learning for functional protein design Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Pascal Notin, Nathan Rollins, Yarin Gal, Chris Sander, Debora Marks
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First desmoid tumor drug Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has greenlighted Ogsiveo (nirogacestat) as a treatment for desmoid tumors. The oral γ-secretase inhibitor developed by SpringWorks Therapeutics is the first agent approved for these rare, non-cancerous but locally invasive soft-tissue tumors, which cause pain, movement difficulties and decreased quality of life. Previous treatments relied on off-label use of
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Boosting circulating tumor DNA to improve liquid biopsies Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Iris Marchal
Liquid biopsies allow non-invasive tumor detection by analyzing circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in a blood sample. However, ctDNA in blood is usually sparse, limiting the sensitivity of liquid biopsies. Writing in Science, Martin-Alonso and colleagues overcome this challenge by developing two injectable priming agents that temporarily boost the concentration of ctDNA in vivo. To increase the levels of
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Protein engineering and design Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
Recent patents relating to systems and methods for designing engineered polypeptides.
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2023 – biotech back in the mainstream Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
Investing in biotechnology stocks used to be seen as risky enterprise offset by the prospect of spectacular rapid growth. But two years after a COVID-provoked biotech investment peak, biotech has become even more part of the mainstream, it seems. The NASDAQ Biotech Index (NBI) no longer tracks with the tech and e-commerce stocks such as Apple, Cisco or Airbnb that contribute to the general NASDAQ index;
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Spotlight on protein structure design Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
New methods for protein design speed up workflows, but issues of training data availability and method optimization remain.
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Designing proteins with language models Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Jeffrey A. Ruffolo, Ali Madani
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Contracts and intellectual property rights in translational R&D: furthering safeguards in the public interest Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Mark Anderson, Naomi Hawkins, Alison Slade
Intellectual property safeguards should be more widely incorporated into the bilateral contracts that underpin the translational R&D process to preserve the public interest, especially where public funds and resources have spearheaded the innovation process.
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Sparks of function by de novo protein design Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Alexander E. Chu, Tianyu Lu, Po-Ssu Huang
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Computational drug development for membrane protein targets Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Haijian Li, Xiaolin Sun, Wenqiang Cui, Marc Xu, Junlin Dong, Babatunde Edukpe Ekundayo, Dongchun Ni, Zhili Rao, Liwei Guo, Henning Stahlberg, Shuguang Yuan, Horst Vogel
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Forum: Deane and Grigoryan Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/protein-design-roundtable-deane-and-grigoryan
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A new class of antibiotics acts as molecular glue Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Iris Marchal
Gram-negative bacteria such as Acinetobacter baumannii contain lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on their outer membrane that blocks the entry of most small-molecule drugs, which makes the bacteria hard to kill. These antibiotics are often derivatives of existing classes, and no new classes of antibiotics have been developed against these Gram-negative bacteria for over 50 years. Two papers in Nature identify
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Tome launches CRISPR tool for oversized DNA Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
Tome Biosciences has debuted with $213 million to bring their genome-editing platform to the clinic. The technology can insert large DNA sequences into the genome in any position to correct genes in vivo. The tool, dubbed PASTE — programmable addition via site-specific targeting elements — was developed by Tome co-founders Omar Abudayyeh and Jonathan Gootenberg from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Biotech news from around the world Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
Japanese banks increase funding for late-stage startups to address a lack of capital that has inhibited growth and contributed to Japan’s lack of unicorns. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank will invest $350 million between 2023 and 2025 in pre-IPO startups, and Mizuho Financial Group launches a $69 million fund to assess the earning power of startups using AI to cut the time needed for investment decisions
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An improved organoid model of the human cerebellum Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Iris Marchal
Research on the cerebellum is restricted by the lack of a physiologically relevant model system, as organisms such as mice lack human-specific progenitor cells. Writing in Cell Stem Cell, Atamian et al. develop an all-human cerebellar organoid model that reflects the cellular diversity of the fetal cerebellum. The authors modulate signaling molecules that are required for midbrain–hindbrain development
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Merck enlists trispecific killers Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15
Merck will pay $680 million to acquire Harpoon Therapeutics, a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company developing a new class of off-the-shelf T cell engager therapies for solid tumors. The acquisition gives the big pharma access to Harpoon’s portfolio of T cell engager agents, and to the biotech’s platforms to manufacture trispecific T cell engager therapies. T cell engagers are engineered proteins
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What does it take for an ‘AlphaFold Moment’ in functional protein engineering and design? Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Roberto A. Chica, Noelia Ferruz
It has been three years since the groundbreaking announcement of AlphaFold2 during the CASP14 results session — a moment that sparked a profound transformation in protein research. AlphaFold2 was the first computational method to accurately predict protein structure from sequence, prompting extensive coverage by news media, which described it as a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology1
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Five questions with Erika DeBenedictis Nat. Biotechnol. (IF 46.9) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Michael Francisco
This computational physicist and molecular biologist wants to solve big problems using evolution.