More than two decades ago, physicists-by-training Colin Hill and Iya Khalil, PhD, co-founded Gene Network Sciences (GNS), a biosimulation company based in Somerville, MA, on the back of the Human Genome Project and the growing excitement around genomics and multiomics. The start-up was an early entrant in the bold new era of systems biology that was being championed by the likes of George Church, PhD, and Lee Hood, MD, PhD. (Khalil moved to big pharma in 2020 and is currently vice president and head of data, AI, and genome sciences at Rahway, NJ-headquartered pharma giant Merck & Co.) Few people were talking about artificial intelligence (AI) back then, but the roots were already being laid, as Hill noted at a virtual summit hosted by on October 30 that drew more than 5,000 registrants. “From the beginning, we were an AI company, but one really focused on human biology, the biological mechanisms of human disease,” he recalled. “The terms that were floating around kept on evolving from bioinformatics to big data to precision medicine to AI.” Two years ago, GNS was rebranded as Aitia. The new name, which is derived from the ancient Greek word for “cause,” refers to the company’s use of causal inference models to uncover the causal mechanisms of diseases. Hill, who today is Aitia’s CEO, noted that the new name was adopted “to indicate our move to being platform therapeutics.” At the virtual summit, Hill participated in a session on The Business of AI in Drug Discovery along with Simon Barnett (a research director at Dimension, a New York, NY-based venture capital firm) and Sabrina Yang, PhD (co-founder and chief innovation officer at Watertown, MA-based Empress Therapeutics). During the session, Hill observed that although most of the buzz around AI in biotechnology is around the need to transform the discovery and design of small molecules and antibodies, bigger problems loom both upstream and downstream. He asked, “What are the right drug targets to go after? Can we start to unravel the actual underlying circuitry of human disease?” Such questions vex us despite all we’ve learned in the two decades that have passed since the Human Genome Project’s completion. “We’re lucky if we know 5% of the genetic and molecular circuitry of disease,” Hill said. “That’s clearly at the heart of why drug discovery and clinical development has been such a trial-and-error process with persistent 80–90% failure rates in clinical development.” From the outset, Hill’s focus has been to apply causal AI (based on the Turing Award–winning work of Judea Pearl, PhD) to reverse engineer the hidden circuitry of disease from human multiomics data and animal models. “We call the resulting models Gemini digital twins, because they are becoming more accurate replicas of human disease, more so than an animal model or cells on plastic will ever be,” Hill continued. These replicas are used to conduct computational experiments, simulating the equivalent of small interfering RNA knockdowns in silico to discover hidden drivers of disease progression, which can become drug targets once validated. Another goal downstream of designing drugs is to improve the design of clinical trials. “It takes a village,” Hill said. “I think together we will be transforming biomedicine in a major way soon.” Simon Barnett joined Dimension as research director from St. Petersburg, FL-based ARK Invest in 2023, believing the $350-million “venture vehicle” was the right fit for his growing interest in the critical importance of computation on life sciences. At the virtual summit, Barnett predicted that over the next 5–10 years, a small tranche of companies wearing the “tech bio” moniker will emerge, and that “every new company in the space, and increasingly in large pharma as well, [will] make computation a central part of what they’re doing rather than something that’s a bolt-on or secondary to the central mission of making medicine.” Barnett also shared his thoughts about the digitalization of the life sciences. For example, he said that it is about “combining high-throughput experimentation and next-generation computational techniques to tackle some of the biggest problems in drug development, diagnostics, and clinical trial design.” Most AI-focused biotech companies are focused on making drugs, but these companies also need to consider factors such as disease indications, modalities, and strategies for reaching the clinic. “These companies are product businesses at the end of the day,” Barnett said. “They need to be aware of the types of risk that investors have a palate for. It’s a very different economic regime now than it was a couple years ago.” Another priority is having either proprietary data or a valuable data-generating platform. These are “essential ingredients for developing a compelling story that would attract investment in this era,” compared to 5–10 years ago, says Barnett. A key for attracting capital is having some level of validation of the technology, especially in the context of pharma collaborations. Hill’s company Aitia recently announced oncology drug discovery partnerships with Espoo, Finland-headquartered Orion Pharmaceuticals and Suresnes, France-headquartered Servier. Such collaborations are important, Hill said, as they provide evidence that respected biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies have vetted the technology and placed their bets with the company. He added that such deals also drive revenue and allows his company “to get to some very interesting places without having to raise hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.” Having an interdisciplinary team—one that includes not just experts in computational AI, but also experts in other aspects of drug discovery—will also remain a priority for investment considerations. Hill suggested that growth will come as the industry starts to see Phase IIa readouts that are positive, especially if they reflect discoveries that would not have been made but for the data and the AI technology. “When we see the first drug candidate start to have some success against a biological target that truly no-one knew before AI found it—that’s when we’re going to say, ‘Aha, we’ve entered this new era,’” Hill declared. This new AI era is not just about understanding protein folding or molecular design of therapeutics, but about grasping the complexity of human biology. Hill indicated that he anticipates more investment will enter the space even before drugs reach the market. “It will be fantastic when that happens and we get a drug to market,” he said. “But the game is going to be played out and won or lost even before that that endpoint.” Barnett estimates that there are several dozen companies that would self-identify as having machine learning or another data-driven technique as core to their R&D operations. One such company is Salt Lake City, UT-based Recursion Pharmaceuticals, which began with a high-throughput imaging platform to deconvolute novel biology. Last summer, the company announced plans to merge with Oxford, UK-based Exscientia, which is, like Recursion, a high-profile, publicly traded AI company. While companies such as New York, NY-headquartered Schrödinger are using AI to design and optimize better molecules, others are solving for biology first. According to Barnett, companies focused on biology should ask, “How can I use AI to find causally relevant mechanisms and targets from, say, very complex human data, using that to deconvolute the most exciting biological mechanisms to pursue?” Sabrina Yang is a senior principal at Cambridge, MA-based Flagship Pioneering, a venture creation firm. Best known as the firm behind Moderna (also based in Cambridge), Flagship has also founded more than 100 bioplatform companies, including the aforementioned Empress Therapeutics. According to Yang, Empress Therapeutics uses “the power of AI and genetics to find better small-molecule drug starting points that are already invented by nature inside the human body.” The company uses AI to study genetic clues to the biosynthetic pathways of small molecules and elucidate what these molecules may look like, venturing into previously unknown chemical space. “We hope that this approach will lead to a higher chance of success in the clinic,” Yang said. “We’re starting with molecules that are already pharmacologically active. Without AI, we would not be able to efficiently find the genes that encode for the compounds that are disease- and health-relevant.” She emphasized that AI is critical to understanding how these molecules have co-evolved with us and how they can be “co-opted as drugs that may have better safety advantages.” Yang said that Empress Therapeutics generated 15 small-molecule drug candidates in less than two years with a team of just 30 people, delivering time and cost savings of 50% in comparison with traditional approaches. Ultimately, of course, the company’s approach has to be proven in the clinic, beginning with improved chances of success in Phase I safety trials. If you were to ask each of 10 companies for its favorite list of targets, Yang said, you would likely find a big overlap between the different companies’ lists. There is still a big need to identify novel mechanisms that will ultimately translate into increased success in the clinic. A major bottleneck is that AI is not yet positioned to immediately improve the speed and cost of clinical development, but Hill sees that changing in the future. True judgment will be seen when filing Investigational New Drug appilications: Are companies progressing drug candidates in which there is greater confidence and mechanistic understanding in the patient population? Will extensive multiomic validation of a target and the corresponding drug enhance the probability of success? Hill predicted there will be a tipping point when AI impacts clinical development. “Yes, speed and cost [improvements] will happen too, but the real cost is in the cost of clinical development failures—that’s the bottleneck. Until we can change that, we’ll be nibbling at the margins.” When AI companies reach the pivotal Phase IIa stage, there are bound to be failures and, Barnett warns, a backlash. “It’s going to be unfortunate,” Hill remarked. Critics will likely find fault with AI technology and complain that it has been overhyped, which could in turn hurt funding cycles. “We’re going to have to push through because, of course, technology is inexorably improving over time.” Another challenge is in data. “The protein databank that powered AlphaFold took decades of curation and tens of billions of dollars,” Barnett said. “We’re just not going to be able to generate datasets of that scale on the fly.” He asserted that data availability, cleanliness, access, and metadata will be critical for companies, regardless of whether they work with clinical data or preclinical/biochemical data.

One of the key factors contributing to the success of "Wilderness Origins" is Tencent's strategic collaboration with Sony, a leading player in the global gaming industry. The partnership between Tencent and Sony has opened up exciting possibilities for the game, allowing for enhanced gameplay experiences and broader reach across various platforms. With Sony's extensive expertise and resources in the gaming industry, the collaboration is expected to elevate "Wilderness Origins" to new heights and establish it as a top-tier mobile game.As the festival unfolds, the competitive spirit among players reaches new heights, with fierce rivalries and epic showdowns keeping spectators on the edge of their seats. Whether it's mastering the perfect racing line or fine-tuning their setups for optimal performance, participants are fully immersed in the thrill of the virtual racing experience.Flight attendant reveals the real rules on empty middle seats including who gets to use the tray table

Stanley Tucci is known for his iconic roles in films like The Devil Wears Prada , The Hunger Games , and The Lovely Bones, but the Italian-American actor has also made a name for himself as a major foodie. Jump to the recipes As is evident from his travel and food show Searching For Italy, his multiple food-focused books (including the latest What I Ate in One Year) , and his foodie videos on social media, Tucci loves to cook. His specialty, of course, is Italian dishes, many of which are pretty vegan-friendly (with a few tweaks). Find some of our favorite Tucci meals below, from hearty pasta e fagioli to sweet pitti fritti. Is Stanley Tucci a vegetarian? If you’ve seen S earching For Italy, read his books, or follow him on Instagram, you’ll know that Tucci is not a vegetarian. Italian cuisine traditionally relies heavily on ingredients like meat, cheese, and cream, and the Italian-American actor indulges in all of it. However, he does make good use of plant-based ingredients, too. Many of Tucci’s recipes are plant-forward, made with traditional Italian plant-based ingredients like tomatoes, zucchini, broccoli, and chickpeas. Last year, he told Eating Well that many of his go-to pantry staples are plant-based ingredients. RELATED: Stanley Tucci Loves Pasta e Fagioli, Here’s How to Make the Classic Italian Dish Dairy-Free “ Olive oil , tomatoes, garlic, onion, basil, carrots, celery, you can do a lot with that right there,” he said. “Risotto rice, polenta, pasta, and any kind of vegetable. You can do a million things with all of that.” Below, we’ve compiled some of our favorite Tucci recipes—some are already plant-based as is, and others are easy to make plant-based with a few simple swaps. All are hearty, delicious, and inspired by the rich flavors of Italy. 5 of Stanley Tucci’s best vegan-friendly recipes Cook like Tucci with these five vegan-friendly recipes from the actor himself. BECOME A VEGNEWS VIP : Get exclusive product deals, freebies, and perks galore! Stanley Tucci 1 String Bean Minestra One of Tucci’s go-to family recipes is string bean minestra, which is a plant-based Italian soup laden with vegetables. “It’s this incredibly easy thing that my grandmother and my mother always made and now I make,” he says in a cooking video posted to Instagram. “You take a little bit of garlic, you take a little piece of onion, you take potatoes, zucchini, and some fresh tomatoes, and maybe a little splotch of marinara, and string beans and you throw them all into a pot.” He goes on to explain that you simply cook it down with olive oil and salt, to create a “very light soup that is absolutely delicious.” Get the recipe 2 Pasta e Fagioli In a Today segment earlier this year, Tucci demonstrated how to make pasta e fagioli, which is another simple Italian soup, this time made with beans and vegetables. “It’s a classic, classic dish, it’s been around forever,” he said, before whipping up his own version with cannellini beans, onions, and marinara. The recipe for the dish is also available in Tucci’s cookbook, Taste: My Life Through Food. The actor also adds chicken stock and dairy cheese to the recipe, but these can be swapped for vegetable stock and dairy-free cheese to make the dish 100 percent plant-based. “[Pasta e fagioli] has been abused sometimes, and made, sometimes, really badly, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s incredibly simple,” he explained. Find out more Stanley Tucci 3 Broccoli Rabe Tropiano Style One of Tucci’s favorite side vegetable options is broccoli rabe , which, despite the name, is actually a bitter green more related to turnip than broccoli. It’s a popular Southern Italian ingredient, which is usually cooked with garlic and olive oil, just like Tucci does in his Instagram cooking video dedicated to the green. In the video, he demonstrates how he blanches the broccoli rabe first, before frying it in a pan with chopped garlic and olive oil. He adds that you can also throw in some salt, pepperoncini, and lemon for extra flavor. “It’s really a great side dish,” he says. “Lovely.” Get the recipe 4 Pitti Fritti In Italy, pizza dough isn’t just for, well, pizza. It can be many things, including a sweet celebratory treat. In one video on Instagram, Tucci explains how he’s celebrating his birthday with pitti fritti, which is simply pizza dough deep-fried in oil and then served with sugar. “It’s my birthday tomorrow so to celebrate I’ve made some pitti fritti,” Tucci captioned the post. “[It’s] essentially fried pizza dough for breakfast. Nutritious and delicious.” Get the recipe Stanley Tucci 5 Pasta e Ceci Another of Tucci’s favorites is a plant-based pasta dish called pasta e ceci, which translates to simply “pasta with chickpeas.” In another video posted to Instagram, Tucci demonstrates how to make the dish by following a recipe from British farmer, author, and chef Julius Roberts. “I think he’s amazing,” Tucci says in the video. The dish is made with leek, onions, carrots, tomato purée, plum tomatoes, canned chickpeas, and pureed chickpeas. “It’s a great recipe,” says Tucci. “So simple.” Get the recipe DON'T MISS OUT : Get breaking news, recipes, and our weekly vegan deal by signing up for our FREE VegNewsletter Experts Share Their Tips for Perfect Homemade Pasta, No Eggs Required Italian Noodles You Need to Know (Plus, 10 Vegan Recipes Your Nonna Will Love) 10 Delicious, Protein-Packed Pasta Recipes to Cook Tonight JUMP TO ... Latest News | Recipes | Guides | Health | Shop Charlotte is a VegNews editor and writer based in sunny Southsea on England's southern coast.

Despite a resounding defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Democrat forged a new path promoting causes such as electoral probity abroad, social justice and drives to rid the world of medical conditions. His first foreign visit as president was to the UK where then prime minister James Callaghan, as well as the usual visits in London, took his guest to the North East with a visit to Newcastle, Sunderland and Washington – the village bearing the name of the first ever president. Mr Carter delighted crowds in the North East by saying “Howay the lads” during a speech to the assembled throng. He also received a miner’s lamp from 12-year-old Ian McEree in Washington. The 39th US president also carried out more traditional presidential duties, including meetings with western European leaders during his time in London while the Cold War was still ongoing. The practising Baptist continued his globetrotting ways after leaving power, even without Air Force One as his vehicle. He was also part of the Elders, a group of experienced statesmen and women drawn from all corners of the world.