Biological Age Test


Ирина Конбой and Мэтт Кэберлайн discussed what a biological age test should show on July 29. Конбой suggests measuring disruptions in gene regulation, while Кэберлайн wants to check if the test result is repeatable and predicts health. Epigenetic clocks use DNA methylation and calculate age based on the pattern of these chemical marks.


Конбой proposes using the same data to measure the spread of methylation in DNA regions where the average level of methylation remains constant with age. For the same blood samples, eight epigenetic clocks differed by an average of 17 years. Конбой wants to identify specific disruptions in gene regulation in the same data, which she links to the loss of regulation.


Her approach involves measuring the spread of methylation values between people, which increases with age. This spread is what Конбой calls epigenetic noise. Her group described this approach in a 2023 article, where they selected CpG sites with consistent methylation levels and summarized the spread of values. Кэберлайн wants this signal to become a testable metric, which would require checking if the result is repeatable in parallel samples and if it predicts future organ function, disease risk, or treatment response.

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ICON Partners with Anthropic


ICON, a contract research organization, announced a multi-year partnership with Anthropic on July 28. The company plans to utilize Claude in its Orbis platform for tasks such as clinic selection, risk assessment of enrollment disruption, protocol modeling, and client access to ICON's data and expertise.


The clinical trial process often loses time before the first patient receives treatment. Sponsors select hospitals and clinics with patients who have the desired diagnosis and characteristics, then the team agrees on a protocol, including participant inclusion criteria, laboratory tests, and observation frequency. Each protocol amendment sends the document back for approval, delaying the start.


The announcement described four tasks for Claude: OneSearch and OnePlan will aid in center selection and evaluation, a predictive analytics system will identify risk signals in ongoing trials, such as enrollment deviations from the plan, and another tool will model protocol variants before document submission to identify potential future amendments. According to Pip White, Anthropic's leader in Ireland, the UK, and Northern Europe, delays are primarily due to participant enrollment: "participant enrollment is one of the biggest bottlenecks in clinical development, causing up to 80% of trials to be delayed".


The medication reaches the first patient after a series of organizational decisions, including finding a suitable center, agreeing on a protocol, and recruiting participants who meet the protocol's conditions. ICON conducts trials for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and plans to integrate AI into these repetitive decisions, using Claude to aid teams in making decisions before clinical data appears, specifically in center selection, enrollment planning, and protocol preparation, as reported in undisclosed clinical development publications.

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NSF PhD Pilot


The National Science Foundation of the USA has announced a pilot program, UIDP I-PhD, with a budget of $47 million over five years to support the four-year education of more than 250 STEM PhD students. The industrial partner will fund at least one year of practical work on the dissertation, and each student will have academic and industrial mentors from both the university and the company.

The NSF cites the context that among engineering, physical, computer, and information science graduates with a defined workplace, over 65% choose industry. The UIDP I-PhD program brings the university and company together at the stage when the PhD student is forming their dissertation topic and research skills. The pilot is led by the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership, an association of universities and companies.

The university funds the first year of training, while the NSF funds the subsequent years. The industrial partner takes on at least one year of practical work, where the PhD student conducts research for their dissertation on the company's premises. The company pays for the work on the dissertation and participates in scientific supervision, rather than taking the graduate student on a regular internship. Each participant will have academic and industrial mentors, and the university and company together determine how this work will be incorporated into the degree preparation.

The pilot program starts with the first cohort in fall 2026, and the NSF has allocated funds for a five-year pilot, with more than 250 PhD students participating in the first wave across the country, as reported in University-Industry Demonstration Partnership.

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Blockade Reduces Inflammation


The blockade of the citrate carrier weakened the inflammatory secretions of aging cells in old mice. On July 29, Nature published a study of the metabolic step that helps an aging cell activate inflammatory genes. After three months of CTPI2 treatment, old mice showed reduced signs of inflammation and improved healthspan - health and physical function metrics.


Aging cells stop dividing after damage or strong stress, but remain in the tissue. Many such cells secrete SASP, an inflammatory mixture of cytokines, growth factors, and enzymes. This changes the environment around the cell and the functioning of neighboring cells; over time, this background supports inflammation in tissues. Mitochondrial DNA and RNA can enter the cytosol, the cell's inner fluid. The cell perceives them as a sign of infection and activates proteins that trigger inflammatory genes.


For SASP to work, another step is needed: genes must become accessible for reading. In the article by the group of Élène Martinie, this step was traced from mitochondria to chromatin. The mitochondria produce citrate, and the SLC25A1 protein exports it to the cytosol. There, citrate is converted into acetyl-CoA. This molecule attaches to histones - proteins around which DNA is packed - and opens up DNA sections near SASP genes. The inflammatory signal gains access to these genes and triggers the release of molecules.

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Fruit Fly Lifespan Extended


Researchers found that enhancing the dADAR enzyme in intestinal stem cells of fruit flies prolonged their lifespan. On July 28, Science Signaling published an article about how the fruit fly intestine switches between recovering from injury and quiet tissue renewal. The authors enhanced dADAR in the intestinal stem cells of old flies, resulting in improved intestinal function and longer lifespan.

The intestine constantly updates its inner layer, with stem cells rarely dividing in undamaged tissue, but rapidly replenishing lost cells after injury. In old flies, this rhythm is disrupted, causing cells to divide too frequently, leading to improper intestinal growth and reduced self-maintenance. The authors traced this breakdown to dADAR, an enzyme that edits RNA, a molecule for assembling proteins.

In the intestinal stem cells of old flies, dADAR was found to be less active, leading to unedited RNA of the Pumilio protein, which in turn fails to restrain the production of MAPK signaling pathway components. The researchers discovered that enhancing dADAR in the stem cells of old flies alleviated age-related intestinal dysfunction and extended their lifespan, as reported in Science Signaling.

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Cancer Spreads After Chemo


Researchers found that cisplatin-treated ovarian cancer cells released fructose, which helped the cancer spread in mouse models. On July 30, authors of a study in Nature Aging traced this process in high-grade serous ovarian cancer cells and mice. The fructose from the medium where the cells lived after chemotherapy altered the metabolism of neighboring cancer cells and facilitated their separation.


The cisplatin damages the DNA of cancer cells, and some of the cells stop dividing but remain alive and release molecules into the surrounding environment. This state is called senescence, and the set of released substances is called SASP, the senescent-associated secretory phenotype. In the Nature Aging article, researchers worked with high-grade serous ovarian cancer, a common aggressive subtype of this tumor.


They collected the medium where senescent cells lived after cisplatin and added it to dividing cells of the same tumor. In cell clusters, cancer cells separated from each other more often. When this medium was introduced to mice three times a week, more tumor nodes appeared in the abdominal cavity. The authors searched for the active component among small molecules and found that added fructose itself caused cell separation.

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GSK Expands Partnership


GSK and Relation announced an expansion of their research collaboration on July 30. Relation may receive up to $110 million in upfront and success-dependent payments for a series of experiments on human cell models. These experiments involve detailed descriptions of cells, including active genes, proteins, and other molecules. However, to understand the effects of modifying a specific gene or adding a compound, researchers must intervene in the cell's function and observe the changes.


The experiments will measure cellular responses over time, using multi-omic measurements to gather various types of molecular data. This data will be used to create records of the effects of specific interventions on cells. Relation's cell biology models, called MORGAN, will be trained on these data to predict human cell reactions to genetic and pharmaceutical interventions. The goal is to identify potential therapeutic targets for further experimentation.


GSK has previously collaborated with Relation, including a December 2024 agreement to identify targets for therapies for fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis. The new deal focuses on funding a series of experiments to create temporal records of the consequences of interventions. The data will help MORGAN narrow down the list of hypotheses for further laboratory testing, as described in the company's announcement.

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Fast Track for ISM6331


The FDA granted Fast Track status to Insilico Medicine's ISM6331 on July 29 for the treatment of unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma after prior therapy. This status allows for more frequent discussions with the regulator on trial design, while the phase 1 study continues to enroll participants.

ISM6331 is intended for adults whose disease has progressed after anti-PD-1 therapy, with or without anti-CTLA-4, and platinum-based chemotherapy. According to Insilico, this is the first Fast Track status for a program from the company's AI-developed pipeline. The Fast Track designation changes the interaction with the FDA, enabling more frequent discussions on trial design, biomarkers, and development plans, as well as written feedback.

As listed on ClinicalTrials.gov, an international phase 1 study is underway with a planned enrollment of 100 participants. Doctors are investigating which doses cause unacceptable toxicity, what adverse events occur, and what dose to take into phase 2. The treatment is administered in a capsule once daily. Insilico describes ISM6331 as a TEAD protein inhibitor associated with the Hippo signaling pathway, which is involved in cell division and survival.

In its Chemistry42 platform, Insilico built molecular variants based on the target structure and ranked them according to its own estimates, selecting ISM6331 for human testing. The phase 1 study is already ongoing, and Fast Track adds regular contact with the FDA to it. Insilico received this status for a specific molecule that its system helped select for clinical validation, as reported in Nature Aging, July 2026.

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Quantum Chemistry Advance


Pure State Labs' Tayler Vitale has proposed measuring spin in quantum chemical calculations. On July 20, Vitale released an open audit of quantum chemical calculations of iron-sulfur clusters, checking the spin states obtained by the SQD method. Quantum chemistry seeks the electronic state of a molecule and compares the found options by energy.


The iron-sulfur clusters have close-in-energy states with different total spin, a characteristic of the aggregate of electrons. A singlet has a total spin of zero, while a triplet and quintet describe other electronic configurations that affect the course of the reaction differently. The work of IBM and RIKEN applied SQD to [2Fe-2S] and [4Fe-4S] clusters, gathering a set of electronic configurations from quantum processor measurements.


Vitale added a check of ⟨S²⟩, a quantity that shows the spin composition of the found state. According to his calculations, published SQD launches for these clusters gave high-spin mixtures, although the goal was a singlet. In the largest restored example of [2Fe-2S], he obtained ⟨S²⟩ = 1.3711 when expected for a singlet was zero. Vitale published the code, data, and reproduction commands, proposing to show the measured spin alongside energy and check the composition of close states, as cited in Nature Aging.

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AI Crypto Breakthrough


Anthropic published the results of Claude Mythos Preview's work on two cryptographic tasks on July 28. The model helped recover the HAWK-256 key and accelerate an attack on a seven-round version of AES-128. Digital signatures confirm who signed a message or owns a digital certificate. HAWK was a NIST candidate for post-quantum signatures, with its security based on a lattice problem.


The model found symmetry in HAWK that reduces the key recovery problem. Previous work had linked this symmetry to a possible attack, but it had not been found in the scheme itself. The team reduced the key search to finding a short vector in a space of roughly half the dimension and demonstrated complete recovery of the HAWK-256 key.


In the second work, the model accelerated the cryptanalysis of seven-round AES-128 by 200-800 times. The previous method for each case iterated over 256 values of one byte of the key. Mythos proposed a Möbius Bridge fingerprint, which is the same for all these values, so one step of iteration disappeared. According to Anthropic, the search, development, and verification took around 60 hours and required approximately $100,000 in API expenses. The key idea emerged in three days, and Anthropic researchers spent hundreds of hours verifying and preparing the article, citing Nature Aging, July 2026.

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p53 Mutant Unfolds Faster


Алика Паркс proposed an experiment to check if the mutant p53 unfolds faster than the normal one under weak stretching. On July 29, independent researcher Алика Паркс published a calculation and code for such an experiment. She suggests applying a constant weak force to a single molecule of mutant p53 and measuring how quickly the protein loses its folded form.


p53 responds to DNA damage by stopping cell division to repair the genome or initiating cell death. p53 mutations are found in approximately half of tumors, with some making the DNA-binding domain of the protein less stable. In a 1997 study, several tumor variants of this domain were found to be less stable in solution than normal p53. The Y220C variant has a single amino acid substitution that creates a cavity on the surface of the protein, reducing its stability.


In a 2008 study, small molecules were designed to bind to this cavity, increasing the temperature of melting and slowing down denaturation. Паркс proposes using this vulnerability differently: holding the protein under stretching until the less stable variant unfolds. According to Паркс' calculation, Y220C unfolds approximately 100 times faster than the normal domain under a constant force of 3-5 piconewtons. The difference in unfolding speeds translates into a difference in the fraction of unfolded molecules.

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PROTEXI Vaccine


The PROTEXI vaccine directed memory of COVID-19 against tumors in humanized mouse experiments. On July 27, a study on the dendritic cell vaccine PROTEXI was published in Nature Communications. In experiments on melanoma and breast cancer in mice, researchers pre-established CD4 memory to a model protein fragment and used it against the tumor. In a separate experiment on humanized mice with Spike peptides, the tumor load was reduced.


The anti-tumor vaccine must solve two tasks: CD8 T cells must recognize the tumor target, and CD4 T helpers must assist in launching this response. Dendritic cells capture protein fragments and present them to both types of T cells. Usually, CD4 assistance is attempted to be induced by tumor fragments. However, finding a fragment that suits different people is difficult.


The authors of the PROTEXI study tested a different approach: placing a tumor peptide for CD8 cells and a familiar peptide for CD4 cells in one dendritic cell. In experiments on ordinary mice, this memory was pre-established with a model protein fragment. In the experiment on humanized mice, Spike peptides and immune cells from COVID-19 vaccinated donors were used. The sense of the design became apparent in comparison: one dendritic cell with both peptides restrained melanoma better than a mixture of cells where the helper and tumor signals were carried by different cells.

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Biomni and TusoAI Breakthrough

Biomni and TusoAI have developed an open predictor of cell response to gene knockout. On July 30, Phylo presented the Biomni × TusoAI collaboration for automatic development of biological models. According to the company, the system tested around 500 variants and developed TusoPerturb, an open method for predicting changes in gene activity after CRISPR knockout of another gene.

The CRISPR method allows for the knockout of a selected gene, which in turn changes the activity of many other genes. Researchers receive a long list of possible knockouts and must decide which experiment to conduct next. The genetic perturbation predictor learns from previous experiments and provides a table of expected changes in gene activity in advance.

The Biomni × TusoAI system assembled the predictor from several components, testing which gene information to input, how to prepare the data, and which algorithm to use to obtain the prediction. TusoPerturb uses biological databases, including gene participation in cellular processes, connections to other genes, and cell line information. For some tasks, the method applies regression, while for others, it adds a search for similar genes and transfers their measured response.

As reported in Phylo, the results of TusoPerturb are higher than previous methods, including large deep learning models, on three independent test sets. The TusoPerturb repository publishes the code, settings, and description of the path from input data to prediction. Other groups can take the same configuration, run it on supported datasets, and compare the results with their own methods.

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Aging and AI


Aleksey Turchin proposed limiting AI to help fight aging. He suggests setting a boundary for AI capabilities so that technologies can assist in combating aging while keeping humans in control. Turchin's personal benchmark is an intelligence quotient of around IQ 200; a level of 300, in his opinion, would accelerate the development of nanotechnology.



In discussions about AI safety, the usual debate is about the upper limit: what capabilities are too dangerous to give to a machine. In response to Emile P. Torres, Turchin proposes adding a lower limit: what possibilities should be preserved to seek ways to stop aging. For him, the main enemy is death; AI and nanotechnology are needed to work with matter at the molecular level and seek a way to prevent it.



Turchin does not propose removing limitations, but rather setting them so that AI remains strong enough for aging research and limited enough for human control. A similar dilemma was faced by Eliezer Yudkowsky: he allowed for huge expenditures on risky life extension science, but not risky AGI as its tool. Turchin chooses a different threshold of acceptable risk, as seen in his earlier article on "biozагрузка" cited in Nature Aging, July 2026.

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Brain Protein Assembly Changes


The study, published on July 30, tracked how age alters chemical marks on cysteine, an amino acid found in many proteins. In mice, this shift affected the function of synapsin-1 and G3BP2, and the H₂S donor accelerated the clearance of stress granules in cells. Proteins within cells constantly assemble into small, temporary clusters and then disassemble.

This reversible assembly of proteins into droplets is called phase separation. The authors compared the frontotemporal region of the brain in mice at 10 weeks, 10 months, and 18 months. They measured two chemical states of cysteine: sulfenylation, where oxygen is added, and persulfidation, where a sulfur atom is added. With age, sulfenylation increased, while persulfidation decreased.

Analysis of the total protein amount showed that this shift was not due to a change in the amount of the proteins themselves. The enzyme CSE produces H₂S and maintains persulfidation. In 10-week-old mice with the Cse gene knocked out, the cysteine oxidation profile already resembled that of 18-month-old animals. The team tracked the consequences on two proteins: synapsin-1, which organizes the reserve of neurotransmitter vesicles, and G3BP2, which assembles stress granules.

In cells with CSE deficiency, such granules persisted longer after stress. In a purified system, H₂S dissolved pre-assembled G3BP2 condensates. In striatal cells, the slow-releasing H₂S donor GYY4137 accelerated granule clearance after oxidative stress, an effect also seen in fibroblasts from a 79-year-old donor, as reported in Nature Aging, July 2026.

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Muscle Power Measured


A new method measures human muscle strength without implants, using ultra-wideband radar attached to the skin. This is crucial for exoskeletons, robotic prosthetics, and rehabilitation, as these systems must accurately know the force a person is trying to apply. Previously, precise measurements required implanting sensors directly into muscle tissue, making widespread use impossible.


The small radar antenna sends short electromagnetic pulses into the muscle and analyzes the reflected signal. As the muscle contracts, its electromagnetic properties change, and the radar detects these changes, allowing strength assessment without surgery. However, there is a technical drawback - measurements occur with a slight delay, and scientists are working to accelerate processing to real-time for instant exoskeleton response.


In rehabilitation, electrical muscle stimulation is often used, but without precise sensors, it's easy to cause overexertion or tissue damage, as the doctor can't see how hard the muscle is working. Radar sensors can solve this problem, making therapy safer. In sports, such sensors will help determine the exact moment when it's safe to return to training after an injury, as reported in Science Robotics, 2023.

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Brain Robot Interface

The development by KAIST creates a fully two-way interface between the brain and a robotized exoskeleton. Unlike ordinary BCIs that can only read brain signals and convert them into commands, this development does two things - it receives signals from the brain and sends back sensory information from the robot. This transforms the exoskeleton into not just "external legs", but an extension of the body that a person can feel. The brain chip reads hundreds of channels of cortical activity, AI algorithms interpret movement intention and transmit the command to the exoskeleton.

The robot is equipped with force, moment, and tactile pressure sensors, and this real-time data is encoded into a form that the brain can perceive as sensation. The main complexity is to ensure a stable closed loop, where hundreds of neural channels are processed quickly enough for a person to walk, lift objects, and feel them without delay. The project combines several areas: control of robotized legs, interpretation of movement intentions, creation of "robotic skin" that replaces lost sensitivity, and development of ultra-low-power wireless interfaces for stimulation and recording of neural activity.

The KAIST project involves teams working on miniature neuroelectrodes, neuroengineering, AI chips, and rehabilitation robots to assemble everything into a single architecture, as described in the Journal of Neuroscience Research.

🔗 Source: @solid_state_humanity

KinoPlex Map Released


The authors of KinoPlex published a map of sites in human proteins where kinases can attach a phosphate on July 29. The researchers connected predicted AlphaFold structures of nearly 20,000 proteins with motifs - short sequence segments that kinases recognize. This map selects positions where a suitable motif matches the available arrangement in the protein's three-dimensional form.


A kinase attaches a phosphate to a protein and changes its function, and through such switches, the cell responds to nutrition, stress, and growth signals. When a researcher looks for a kinase target, they usually look at several amino acids near the supposed site, which together form a motif that fits this enzyme. The KinoPlex authors applied the map to 1.8 million serine, threonine, and tyrosine residues - amino acids to which phosphate is usually attached.


The map marked about 567 thousand positions as accessible for phosphorylation, and matching with individual kinase motifs left about 250 thousand "kinase - position" pairs where both conditions match. The authors verified the predictions with deep phosphoproteomics of K562 cells, a method that massively measures protein segments with attached phosphate. In these measurements, KinoPlex candidates matched the actually observed phosphorylated positions, as reported in Nature Aging, July 2026.

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Bone Marrow Cells


Researchers tracked the origin of immune cells in the brains of 20 elderly donors in a Nature article on July 30. They found descendants of bone marrow cells, similar to microglia, in all samples. Microglia clears cellular debris and responds to damage. In mouse experiments, it colonizes the brain before birth and then multiplies locally.


The team of Julia Belk checked if this is also the case in the aging human brain. Over time, dividing cells acquire random DNA mutations that are inherited by their descendants. The researchers used these somatic mutations as markers of kinship, comparing them in blood, bone marrow, and brain cells. Matches showed that several myeloid lines came from the bone marrow to the brain. Single-cell analysis and mitochondrial DNA variants revealed similarities between these cells and microglia.


In some samples, they made up a large proportion of the microglia pool. In the oldest donors, the larger the clone in the blood, the more of its descendants were found in the brain. The authors propose a model where, with age, blood cells replace some of the embryonically derived microglia. In this model, the state of the bone marrow changes the brain's immune environment through the composition of cells that enter it. The connection to Alzheimer's disease looks different in different studies. The Nature authors found an association between most types of clonal hematopoiesis and a lower frequency of the disease in human cohorts.

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Cell Cryopreservation


The installation converts a cell suspension into droplets and vitrifies it with a flow rate of 100 ml per hour. On July 27, a group from the University of Minnesota released a preprint on cryo-aerosolization: a vibrating nozzle breaks the cell suspension into microdroplets, and a jet of liquid nitrogen freezes them. After thawing, about 90% of human fibroblasts and induced pluripotent stem cells remained viable.


The cells for therapy are first grown, then stored and transported. When frozen, water forms ice crystals that damage cell membranes and internal structures. Vitrification protects cells from ice if the solution is rapidly cooled and rapidly thawed. With small volumes, this is easier to achieve. A microdroplet quickly releases heat: its surface is large relative to its volume. A cell dose takes tens or hundreds of milliliters, and a large portion cools more slowly.


In the installation, the nozzle creates droplets with a diameter of about 200 micrometers. The jet of liquid nitrogen collides with them in flight, and the droplets fall into a collector for storage. According to the authors' thermal model, the collision with nitrogen accelerates heat removal and does not allow the droplet to be suspended over nitrogen on a vapor layer. In the experiment, 100 ml of cell suspension passed through the installation per hour; the proportion of penetrating cryoprotector was 19-25%. Instead of one large portion, the installation freezes multiple microdroplets. The authors measured an average cooling rate of up to 210,000 degrees per minute, and their thawing model gave about 1 million degrees per minute. After one cycle, fibroblasts and induced pluripotent cells retained viability of about 90%, pig erythrocytes recovered at 94%. For induced pluripotent cells, the team also checked colony formation after re-seeding, as described in the review of cryopreservation of cell therapies in Nature Aging, July 2026.

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