Biology

At a recent conference, Prof. Sergey Ovchinnikov and his colleagues presented a paper demonstrating how they have used advanced versions of ChatGPT to “generate amino acid sequences that code for biologically active proteins with a structural feature called a four-helix bundle,” reports Jeffrey Brainard for Science. “To Ovchinnikov’s surprise, ChatGPT produced gene sequences without further refinement of his team’s query,” writes Brainard. “Still, the application of ChatGPT to this task needs refinement, Ovchinnikov found. Most of the sequences his team produced did not garner 'high confidence' on a score predicting whether they would form the desired protein structure.” 

Using molecular evidence buried in rocks, researchers at MIT suggest that some of the Earth’s first living creatures are ancestors of the modern sea sponge, reports Ashley Fike for Vice. “The discovery suggests the earliest animals were simple, filter-feeding organisms that slowly cleaned the seas while the rest of the evolution was still figuring itself out,” says Fike. “These early sponges likely had no skeletons, nerves, or eyes – just porous bodies that absorbed water and nutrients. Yet they paved the way for everything that came next, from insects to mammals to us.” 

A new study by MIT researchers suggests sea sponges may have been the “first animals to inhabit the Earth,” reports Maria Azzura Volpe for Newsweek. “In their work, the researchers linked so-called ‘chemical fossils’ found in ancient rocks to the ancestors of a class of modern-day sea sponges known as demosponges,” explains Volpe. “These chemical fossils—the molecular remnants of once-living organisms that have been buried, transformed, and preserved in sediment over time—were discovered in rocks that date back to more than 541 million years ago, during the Ediacaran Period.” 

MIT researchers have uncovered new evidence that suggests some of Earth’s first living creatures are ancestors of the modern sea sponge, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. The researchers identified 541 million-year-old chemical fossils embedded in sediment that they believe may indicate that some of Earth’s earliest creatures were the ancient relatives of today’s sea sponges. 

Prof. Pierre Azoulay speaks with WBUR’s Martha Bebinger about a new study examining the potential impact of NIH budget cuts on the development of new medicines. Azoulay and his colleagues found that “more than half of drugs approved by the FDA since 2000 used NIH-funded research that would likely not have happened if the NIH had operated with a 40% smaller budget,” Bebinger explains. 

Fierce Biotech reporter Darren Incorvaia writes that a new study by MIT researchers demonstrates how potential NIH budget cuts could endanger the development of new medications. The researchers found that if the NIH budget had been 40% smaller from 1980 to 2007, the level of NIH cuts currently being proposed, “the science underlying numerous drugs approved in the 21st century would not have been funded,” Incorvaia explains. The findings suggest that “massive cuts of the kind that are being contemplated right now could endanger the intellectual foundations of the drugs of tomorrow,” explains Professor Pierre Azoulay. 

A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that more than half of the drugs approved by the FDA since 2000 are connected to NIH research that would be impacted by proposed 40 percent budget cuts, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. 

David Baltimore, a former Institute Professor at MIT and a Nobel laureate, has passed at the age of 87, reports Gina Kolata for The New York Times. Baltimore’s work rocked “the foundation of the fledging field of molecular biology,” writes Kolata. His “Nobel-winning discovery [upended] what was called the central dogma, which stated that information in cells flowed in only one direction — from DNA to RNA to the synthesis of proteins. Dr. Baltimore showed that information can also flow in the reverse direction, from RNA to DNA.” 

WBUR reporter Carol Iaciofano Aucoin spotlights “You Belong Here,” a new book by Megan Miranda ‘02. “Miranda’s taut storytelling underscores how the tiniest turn of fate can transform a youthful misstep into a life-warping calamity or a danger-averted close call — a comment in a bar answered or ignored, a decision to stay at an event or leave early,” writes Aucoin. 

Researchers at MIT are working to advance our understanding of acute Lyme disease and long Covid, reports Brianna Abbott for The Wall Street Journal. “What we’re trying to do is measure everything,” said Principal Scientist Michal Caspi Tal. “I want to find a way to give people hope.”

A study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere has proposed an alternative scenario to how life survived “Snowball Earth,” a “super ice age that froze the entire planet from poles to the equator” during the Cryogenian period, reports David Bressan for Forbes. “The scientists found that lifeforms could have survived the global freeze by thriving in watery oases on the surface,” explains Bressan.

Woods Hole Film Festival will showcase “Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution,” a film highlighting Prof. Emeritus Phil Sharp’s academic journey and discovery of RNA splicing, reports Erin Trahan for WBUR. The festival runs from July 26 – August 2 in Falmouth, MA. 

Prof. Sebastian Lourido speaks with Salon reporter Elizabeth Hlavinka about the risks associated with parasite cleanses. “When you cause significant changes in the intestine, you are at times obliterating many of the beneficial organisms that are helping us digest food, but in some cases, producing vitamins that are actually occupying that niche and preventing bad organisms from taking over,” says Lourido. 

Biology graduate Katharine Dexter McCormick, SB 1904, a philanthropist, a pivotal force in the fight for women's suffrage and chief funder of the science that led to the birth control pill, is included in the New York Times’ Overlooked series, which features obituaries of “remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.”  Rejecting societal conventions, McCormick “successfully challenged a rule that female students had to wear hats at all times, arguing that they posed a fire hazard in the science labs,” writes Katharine Q. Seelye. 

Scientific American reporter Nic Flemming spotlights research by Prof. Ömer Yilmaz and his team, which explores the impact of fasting on intestinal stem cells. “Both caloric restriction and fasting improved intestinal stem-cell activity and health, but the mechanisms involved are very different,” says Yilmaz.