Auxilium Biotechnologies says it bioprinted kidney and liver tissues aboard the International Space Station in the “first demonstration of a scalable, multi-product biomanufacturing platform in space.” The San Diego-based biotech and device developer used its Auxilium Microfabrication Platform (AMP-1) 3D bioprinter for the first-of-its-kind mission, which also included orbital bioprinting of cartilage tissue and nerve…
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Hi there from Day 2 of AAIC. There may be 10,200 people here at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference — up 1,700 from last year — from 115 countries, as the association’s Maria Carrillo announced at Monday’s plenary session. But by far my favorite person is the woman I saw taking a nap on a bench in a corridor, her sunhat pulled over her eyes. You are an inspiration.
One housekeeping note: Due to the vagaries of newsletter scheduling, we won’t have an edition tomorrow, but will be back in your inbox with a wrap-up edition on Wednesday. Keep your eyes on statnews.com tomorrow though and expect some conference news around 9:15 a.m. Eastern.
Latin American study praised as ‘landmark’ effort
For a disease that’s proven as intractable to treat as Alzheimer’s, it’s been known for quite some time what factors can heighten one’s risk for dementia. Poor nutrition, sleep, and cardiovascular health; a lack of physical activity and social engagement; and lower education levels all increase the likelihood that a person will develop Alzheimer’s.
A study reported at last year’s AAIC put interventions designed to reduce risk to the test. The U.S. Pointer study found that an intensive, structured program that encouraged improved diet and exercise, cardiovascular health monitoring, and other steps helped protect cognitive function among older adults at risk of dementia to a greater extent than a lower-intensity program that participants navigated on their own, even as both groups saw benefits. The study underscored that healthy habits contribute to a healthy brain.
The rapid evolution of large language models has accelerated the development of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) systems capable of pursuing autonomous goals, creating an urgent need for structural frameworks in psychiatry and psychotherapy. While existing classifications often draw parallels to autonomous driving, this paper argues that the mental health domain requires a distinct, domain-specific theoretical foundation, as the 2 domains differ fundamentally in their semantic, ideographic, and epistemological demands. Furthermore, they differ in their end goals, for which we introduce terms such as agentic guidance capability. To guide clinicians and researchers through these developments, we propose a 5-stage taxonomy for language-based AI systems that differentiates technical functionality from clinical effectiveness. The taxonomy progresses from level 1 (knowledge level), in which systems perform static benchmark tasks, to level 2 (elementary level), characterized by dynamic engagement in specific therapeutic microskills. At level 3 (integration level), systems achieve consistency across and within modules, as well as basic case-level conceptualization suitable for blended therapy under human oversight. Level 4 (saturation level) describes therapist-in-the-loop systems capable of autonomous functioning with minimal supervision, whereas level 5 (mastery level) represents AI systems that are technically capable of performing autonomous therapy. By distinguishing technical functionality from clinical effectiveness, we conclude that level 4 or level 5 performance does not automatically translate into full treatment effectiveness, even if high treatment fidelity can be achieved. We conclude by emphasizing the need to shift benchmarking from static knowledge tests to dynamic evaluations of therapeutic capabilities in order to safely navigate the transition toward autonomous care.
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I first visited a Buc-ee’s a few years ago in Kentucky on a road trip. It’s a melting pot of American culture and consumerism (with a really good cherry limeade pop). It’s also apparently an aggressive trademark litigator over its beaver mascot. Take a pit stop and share your news and tips here: bob.herman@statnews.com.
[Tim Robinson voice] You sure about that?
UnitedHealth Group was happy to promote a new audit that said nearly all of the diagnoses recorded for its Medicare Advantage members during home visits (97%) were justified by medical records. But the results are not nearly as clean, or useful, as the company suggests.
Martha Lillard had just turned 5 when she was diagnosed with polio and depended on an iron lung to live. She died June 26 in Oklahoma, the last U.S. polio patient who used the machine, her sister said. She was 78.
“They told her she wasn’t supposed to live past 20 years old,” Lillard’s younger sister, Cindy McVey, told The Associated Press on Friday. “She had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of her life.”
The study applies ORFeome, a tool that broadens the scale by which researchers study viral proteins. The advance proposes to speed basic discoveries in virology, inform the development of new vaccines and treatments to protect against emerging pathogens.
“This library reveals how viruses manipulate human cells on a scale that simply wasn’t possible before,” said Stephen Elledge, PhD, professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study. “We believe it changes virology from studying one virus at a time to discovering the common strategies and surprising innovations that viruses have evolved, providing a powerful new foundation for understanding emerging viral threats.”
ORFeome and other ORF libraries are named after open reading frames, DNA sequences that encode proteins. Previous viral ORF libraries from other groups focused on individual viruses or virus families that contained 100 or 200 sequences each. The new ORFeome contains about 13,000 physical DNA sequences, or constructs, that code for about 9,000 proteins from 513 different viruses, including Andes hantavirus, Ebola virus, and Zika virus.
“Most viruses have never been studied in detail, yet evolution has already performed countless experiments for us. This library gives us a way to read the results of those experiments across the viral world,” said Elledge, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator.
The team attached a genetic barcode to each ORF, allowing researchers to conduct studies of all 13,000 ORFs at once.
“We can insert the sequences into a population of cells, ask questions like which ones cause the cells to grow better or less, and then identify those by their barcodes when the experiment is finished,” said Colin O’Leary, PhD, HMS research fellow and co-author on the study. “It hasn’t been possible before to do genetic screens like this with viral proteins.”
The team will make the ORFeome freely available for the research community. Elledge and colleagues implemented a flexible design to enable application to other model systems and experiments.
The team conducted genetic screens in three cell types, searching for viral proteins that affect cell proliferation, stop cells from presenting antigens to trigger the immune system to attack, or block the effects of interferon. Results uncovered more than 700 viral proteins that contribute to at least one of those actions.
The study opens opportunities to design drugs that hinder viral activity while sparing normal function.
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Lots happening in London these days, my colleague Andrew Joseph reports: At a pancreatic cancer meeting, researchers were buzzing about the implications of daraxonrasib, and at a major Alzheimer’s meeting, tau therapies are taking center stage.
Back here in the U.S., HHS has begun to craft national guidance on safely tapering SSRIs, and the FDA just cleared Sanofi’s wearable injector for a myeloma drug.
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
Sperm donors need limits, says a European fertility group
Ties van der Meer doesn’t know how many siblings he has. The 47-year-old was conceived at a private fertility clinic using sperm from an anonymous donor. He eventually tracked down one sibling, but he may have others he’ll never find.
Other donor-conceived people have found they have tens or even hundreds of them. “It does make you feel a bit mass-produced,” said one who discovered they had 25 half-siblings.
In response, a European fertility organization says we need international limits on the number of children a single donor can contribute to.
This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.
How will AI understand the real world?
LLMs have transformed what AI can do with language, but helping machines understand and operate within physical spaces presents a different challenge. In response, researchers are developing a new form of artificial intelligence: world models.
At a LinkedIn Live event tomorrow, MIT Technology Review will explore how this technology could shape the future of robotics and open one of AI’s next major frontiers. Join Will Douglas Heaven, our senior editor for AI, and Sam Sinha, founding AI researcher and head of world models at 1X Technologies, for the conversation on Tuesday, July 14.
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Apple has sued OpenAI for allegedly stealing trade secrets OpenAI purportedly stole IP to develop its own consumer hardware. (CNBC) + The suit claims OpenAI poached Apple staff to access the information. (BBC) + And requested trade secrets in job interviews with Apple workers. (Guardian) + Apple also sued two former employees, Chang Liu and Tang Tan. (Reuters $)
2 A Nobel-winning chemist is leaving the US to lead an AI lab in China Omar Yaghi will head an institute using AI to discover new materials. (LA Times $) + He won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating “molecular sponges.” (NYT $) + His departure comes as China tries to woo US scientists. (Nature) + The White House has slashed science spending. (MIT Technology Review)
3 The EU is moving closer to banning children from social media It’s proposed barring under-13s unless supervised by an adult. (NYT $) + And limiting access for older children. (Bloomberg $) + The EU has also told Meta to disable autoplay and infinite scroll. (Politico $)
4 Meta scrapped an AI image feature on Instagram after a backlash It allowed users to generate images based on public accounts. (TechCrunch) + And automatically opted in any Instagram user with a public account. (NYT $) + AI memories are privacy’s next frontier. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Phoebe Gates’ shopping app claimed credit for sales it didn’t drive Phia claimed unearned affiliate sales through fake clicks. (Bloomberg $) + Cofounder Gates is the daughter of Microsoft cofounder Bill. (Engadget)
6 Leaked police drone footage exposes the new reality of surveillance Hours of San Francisco Police video were accidentally released. (Wired $) + Surveillance from drones is on the rise in the US. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Over two-thirds of Americans back a Sanders-style AI ownership plan A poll found strong support for public ownership of AI stock. (Gizmodo) + Tech firms have their own takes on the idea. (MIT Technology Review)
8 AI may soon make campaign text messages more potent—and irritating AI platforms are training bots to sound like political candidates. (NPR)
9 An orbiting disco ball gave Einstein’s theory its most precise test yet It measured Earth’s twisting of space-time more precisely. (Rest of World)
10 Australia’s biggest radio hit may be the product of GenAI Musicians are questioning how the song was made. (Guardian)
Quote of the day
“LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny.”
—A text message sent by former Apple engineer Chang Liu to a colleague, which a new lawsuit alleges was part of a scheme to steal hardware IP for OpenAI.
One More Thing
Colombian military officials intercepted this 40-foot-long uncrewed fiberglass “narco sub” in the ocean just off Tayrona National Park.
CARLOS PARRA RIOS
How uncrewed narco subs could transform the Colombian drug trade
On a bright April morning in 2025, a surveillance plane operated by the Colombian military spotted a 40-foot-long “narco sub” idling in the Caribbean Sea. The stealthy vessel, used by drug cartels to move cocaine north, could sail with its hull almost entirely underwater.
After seizing the boat, the coast guard noticed something unusual: there was no one on board. This was Colombia’s first confirmed uncrewed narco sub, operable by remote control, but also capable of a degree of autonomous travel.
