Medical imaging is a broad term that encompasses several distinct technologies. After working on AI-powered tools to enhance X-rays and mammographies, French startup Gleamer now aims to tackle magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). <i> Image:Monty Rakusen / Getty Images</i> Instead of starting from scratch, Gleamer has acquired a startup that has already been working on AI-powered MRI analysis, Caerus Medical, and is merging with Pixyl. Gleamer is part of the second wave of startups trying to improve medical imaging using artificial intelligence. Several tech founders created startups around this topic in 2014 or 2015. While most of them went nowhere, there have been some consolidation in the space. For instance, Zebra Medical Vision and Arterys were both acquired by Nanox and Tempus, respectively. Founded in 2017, Gleamer has been building an AI assistant for radiologists, a sort of copilot for medical imaging. With Gleamer, radiologists can theoretically improve the diagnostic accuracy when interpr…
The CEO of Colossal, a startup that aims to use genetic editing techniques to bring back extinct species, including the wooly mammoth, assured audiences at SXSW that the company has no plans to create a real-life Jurassic Park — lest there was any doubt.             Image:SXSW “Modern conservation isn’t working […] and we’re gonna need a ‘de-extinction’ toolkit,” Colossal CEO Ben Lamm said during an onstage interview Sunday in Austin, responding to questions from actor and board member Joe Manganiello. “I think that we have a moral obligation and an ethical obligation to pursue technologies [that] undo some of the things that we [as a species] have done.” Colossal is working to bring back the dodo bird and thylacine, commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, well as the wooly mammoth, Lamm added. But the de-extinction of dinosaurs wouldn’t be possible due to the lack of usable sources of dinosaur DNA. Dallas-based Colossal, founded in 2023 by Lamm and George Church, has stated that it wants …
A U.K. startup, originating from founder Jacob Nathan’s high school science project on using enzymes to break down plastic waste, has secured an oversubscribed $18.3 million in Series A funding. <i> Image Credits:Epoch Biodesign      </i> Founded in 2019 in London, Epoch Biodesign now a 30+ strong multidisciplinary team of chemists, biologists and software engineers. It will be using the new funding to scale up production of their plastic-eating enzymes. This means transferring the biorecycling process from the labs where they’ve been developing it to their first production facility this year, which he says will be able to gobble through 150 tonnes per year of waste once it’s up and running. Thereafter, the first production runs of commercial-scale capacity are expected by 2028 if not sooner, as Nathan says the startup is looking for ways to accelerate the scaling. They’ll be roughly doubling the size of the team over the next 12 months as they work on switching to a higher gear. <b> Plastic not-so…
Colossal Biosciences, known for its outlandish goal to resurrect the woolly mammoth by 2028, is claiming steady progress. Its evidence: genetically engineering mice to have mammoth-like fur. <i>  Image Credits:Colossal Biosciences           </i> To engineer the woolly mouse, the company’s scientists found mouse versions of mammoth genes and then used CRISPR to edit mice embryos, Dr. Beth Shapiro, chief science officer at Colossal, told TechCrunch. Then, those embryos were implanted into surrogate mouse moms. The company says that the woolly mice’s fur is of a color, texture, and thickness that resembles a mammoth’s traits. Colossal Biosciences believes the woolly coat will enable its genetically engineered mice to survive in cold climates. Still, the company must first obtain approval from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), which ensures ethical and humane animal research, before conducting such experiments. Shapiro said the company needs to test the engineered mice’s cold to…
Microsoft has announced Microsoft Dragon Copilot, an AI system for healthcare that can, among other things, listen to and create notes based on clinical visits. The system combines voice-dictating and ambient listening tech created by AI voice company Nuance, which Microsoft bought in 2021. <i> Image: Microsoft</i> According to Microsoft’s announcement, the new system can help its users streamline their documentation through features like “multilanguage ambient note creation” and natural language dictation. Its AI assistant offers “general-purpose medical information searches from trusted content sources,” as well as the ability to automate tasks like “conversational orders, note and clinical evidence summaries, referral letters, and after visit summaries.” The goal of all of this is to “free clinicians from much of the administrative burden of healthcare” so they can focus on patient care, according to Joe Petro, Microsoft VP of Microsoft Health and Life Sciences Solutions and Platforms. Micros…
Longevity is a hot trend in Silicon Valley these days, driven by rising interest — especially among the wealthy — in preventing disease through regular testing.                                                               Image Credits:Biograph A new player, Biograph, has just emerged from stealth, and it’s co-founded by one of the biggest names in longevity science: Dr. Peter Attia. Attia is a Canadian-American physician best known as the author of the bestseller “Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity” and for his podcast. Biograph’s CEO and other co-founder is John Hering, a prominent Silicon Valley figure. A cybersecurity founder who infamously scanned celebrities’ cellphones at the 2005 Academy Awards, Hering has become best known as one Elon Musk’s biggest backers through his role as a partner at Vy Capital. There, Hering has poured billions into Musk’s startups and donated $500,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC before the election, per a WSJ profile. Biograph calls itself the world’…
The Google app’s Song Search capability is excellent and finally has a history shortcut to see past lookups. It’s available today in Google for iOS, but Song Search history can be accessed by anyone on the web. Launching Song Search on iOS reveals a new history button in the top-right corner. This takes you to a “Recent Song Searches” page that shows your last 10 results. This includes Song Search in Circle to Search and every other instance of the feature. Each card features album artwork (if available), song name, artist, and when the search was performed. A tap opens Google Search and the song’s Knowledge Panel. At the bottom of this page is a “Show Full History” button that opens myactivity.google.com to a “Song Search” filter. This history goes back years (2017 in my case) and might have been available this entire time. Newer entries include the original audio input used. This prominent shortcut to history is a nice addition, though having to first start a Song Search to access resul…
Digital payments platform Stripe has yet to lay out plans to go public, but in the meantime the company has thrown past and present employees a line for some liquidity. The company on Thursday confirmed a tender offer where investors will buy up shares from those employees at a valuation of $91.5 billion. Stripe said it will also repurchase shares as part of the transaction.                                 Image Credits:SOPA Images / Contributor / Getty Images A spokesperson declined to say who is in the secondary round except to confirm that it is “largely” existing investors. Past backers of the company number at over 150 investors per PitchBook data. They include General Catalyst, GV, Silver Lake, Atomico, Elon Musk, Salesforce and many more. The tender offer is a decent jump on the company’s valuation from its last secondary sale a year ago, which was valued at $70 billion. However, Stripe still fell short of its high-watermark $95 billion valuation back in 2021. That round came at a…
Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani’s appeal to overturn their fraud convictions and reduce their prison sentences was denied Monday by the Northern District Court of California, which also refused to soften their $452 million joint restitution order.                                                   Image Credits:Philip Pacheco / Getty Images Holmes, the founder of Theranos, and Balwani, its former COO, were convicted in separate trials in 2022 for defrauding investors about the capabilities of Theranos’ blood-testing technology. Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison, and Balwani received nearly 13 years. Both began serving their sentences in 2023. In their appeal, the two argued that the district court allowed improper testimony from former Theranos employees who served as lay witnesses but wound up offering improper expert testimony without the necessary legal designation. The appeals panel agreed that some testimony crossed into expert territory but concluded t…
In the heart of Michigan's burgeoning tech scene, a quiet revolution is taking place, led by a woman whose journey defies conventional expectations. Crystal Brown, a former automotive executive, has traded the assembly line for the intricate world of biotechnology, founding CircNova, a startup poised to redefine drug discovery with its AI-powered approach to circular RNA. This groundbreaking venture has secured a $3.3 million seed funding round, a testament to Brown's vision and the transformative potential of CircNova's technology. <b> A Serendipitous Leap into Biotech</b> Crystal Brown's path to biotech leadership was anything but linear. For years, she honed her skills in the demanding automotive manufacturing industry, climbing the corporate ladder with aspirations of reaching the C-suite. However, a chance encounter with a life science startup CEO sparked a profound curiosity. Initially offering her expertise on a part-time basis, Brown quickly found herself immersed in the…
Imagine a world where a single contamination incident can bring a food and beverage giant to its knees. This isn't a dystopian fantasy; it's the reality for many companies relying on outdated microbiology testing methods. Traditional testing is a slow and laborious process. Samples are collected and sent to off-site labs, where technicians meticulously cultivate bacteria in petri dishes. This process can take days, even weeks, to yield results, creating a bottleneck in production and leaving companies vulnerable to potential contamination outbreaks. "Picture this," explains Amine Raji, co-founder and CEO of Spore.Bio, "we're in 2022, everything is hyper-optimized... And bam, you've got a 5-day imponderable test in the agri-food sector... to get a result because you have to wait for the bacteria to grow." This delay not only impacts efficiency but also carries significant financial risks. Recalls, lawsuits, and damage to brand reputation can have dev…
Imagine a world where managing your hormone health is as simple as wearing a patch. No more invasive blood draws, no more inconvenient clinic visits. This is the future Level Zero Health, a female-founded medical device startup, is striving to create. Their recent successful pre-seed funding round, raking in an impressive $6.9 million, underscores the immense potential of their vision: a continuous hormone monitoring device. This substantial investment, despite the company being just over a year old, speaks volumes about the confidence investors have in Level Zero Health's innovative approach. The oversubscribed round, led by European VC redalpine, with participation from HAX (SOSV), Entrepreneur First (EF), and industry experts, signals a strong belief in the company's ability to disrupt the current paradigm of hormone testing. Currently, hormone testing often involves invasive and time-consuming blood draws, providing only a snapshot of hormone levels at a specific moment. …
Elizabeth Holmes, the once-celebrated founder of Theranos, has given her first interview since reporting to prison in 2023. Speaking to People magazine, Holmes, convicted on charges of fraud, maintains her innocence and insists she remains dedicated to revolutionizing healthcare. This revelation raises numerous questions: Is this genuine commitment or a carefully crafted narrative? How is she adapting to prison life? And what future, if any, does she have in the healthcare industry? Let's delve into this complex story. <b> The Interview: A Glimpse into Prison Life and Unwavering Belief</b> The People magazine interview offers a rare window into Holmes's life behind bars at the federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas. While details are limited, the interview paints a picture of Holmes adjusting to her new reality. The article mentions her sentence reduction to nine years for good behavior, a small detail that speaks volumes about her adaptation to the structured environment. More striking…
The world of biology is on the cusp of a revolution. Imagine a future where designing new drugs and therapies is as simple as writing code. This isn't science fiction; it's the vision driving Latent Labs, a groundbreaking startup emerging from stealth mode with a hefty $50 million in funding. Founded by Simon Kohl, a former Google DeepMind scientist, Latent Labs is developing cutting-edge AI foundation models poised to "make biology programmable," fundamentally changing how we approach drug discovery and protein design. To understand the magnitude of Latent Labs' ambition, we need to delve into the crucial role proteins play in human biology. Proteins are the workhorses of our cells, responsible for everything from enzymatic reactions and hormonal signaling to immune responses via antibodies. These complex molecules are constructed from chains of around 20 different amino acids, which fold into intricate 3D structures. The specific shape of a protein dictates it…
The healthcare industry is undergoing a much-needed transformation, driven by the urgent need to modernize outdated systems. For decades, hospitals and healthcare providers have relied on legacy software, often cobbled together with disparate systems that struggle to communicate effectively. This fragmented approach leads to inefficiencies, errors, and ultimately, impacts patient care. Enter Avelios, a Munich-based startup aiming to revolutionize healthcare IT with its end-to-end operating system, powered by AI and cloud technology. Their recent €30 million ($31 million) Series A funding round, led by Sequoia, signals a significant step forward in their mission to overhaul the ailing world of healthcare IT. <b> The Problem: Legacy Systems Crippling Modern Healthcare</b> Imagine a hospital where patient records are scattered across different systems, billing is a complex and manual process, and crucial data is trapped in silos, hindering collaboration and research. This is the reality for man…
The fight against addiction and chronic pain has long been hampered by the limitations of traditional drug delivery methods. Slow-acting medications often lead to relapse and prolonged suffering. Enter Miist Therapeutics, a groundbreaking startup founded by a 25-year-old visionary, Dalton Signor. Miist is poised to revolutionize the treatment of smoking addiction and migraines with its innovative inhaler technology, promising rapid relief and improved patient outcomes. The company's recent $7 million seed funding round, led by prominent investors, signals a strong belief in Miist's potential to disrupt the healthcare landscape. <b> The Genesis of Miist: A Personal Mission to Combat Addiction:</b> Dalton Signor's journey began with a personal concern for the well-being of his family and peers. Witnessing the struggles of his grandmother, sister, and fellow students with smoking and vaping, he recognized the critical need for more effective smoking cessation solutions. Existing me…
In a groundbreaking discovery that could rewrite our understanding of the origins of life, scientists analyzing the asteroid Bennu sample returned to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission have found molecules crucial to life as we know it, including amino acids. These findings, published in the prestigious journals Nature and Nature Astronomy, not only confirm the presence of these essential building blocks but also reveal evidence of an ancient, water-rich environment on Bennu's parent asteroid, bolstering the theory that the seeds of life may have been sown across the early solar system. <b> Unveiling the Secrets of Bennu: A Treasure Trove of Prebiotic Molecules</b> The OSIRIS-REx mission, a remarkable feat of space engineering, successfully collected a sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and returned it to Earth in September 2023. Since then, scientists from NASA and institutions worldwide have been meticulously analyzing the sample, unlocking a treasure trove of information abou…