Important Innovations

Leads Investment in New Biotech focused on Therapies for Coronary Heart Disease Source:  Stock Image of Gene Editing Goal: Therapies to Safely Edit Human Genome to Permanently Reduce Heart Disease Risk Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.  Alphabet's venture capital arm GV is leading a $58.5 million investment to launch Verve Therapeutics.  Verve, based in Cambridge, MA, has been founded by a renowned team of researchers in cardiovascular genetics and gene editing.  They are developing therapies that involve editing the human genome to permanently reduce the risk of heart disease.  The company will use the funding to go into early stage testing of its therapies on animals. Verve's Focus The company says it will develop treatments only by editing adult cells so that the effects of genetic manipulation can't be passed on to future generations.  Also, it plans to focus on adults at risk of coronary artery disease. The...

Yale University Breakthrough Research Source:  Yale School of Medicine - Pig Brain Cells Before (Left) and After (Right) May Lead to New Therapies for Brain Injuries and Stroke Experts in neuroscience are calling this research at Yale School of Medicine "mind blowing".  Results that put into question the fundamentals of neuroscience.  Yale neuroscientists have restored basic cellular activity in the brains of pigs 4 hours after they died.  Furthermore, the cells were able to maintain function for six hours.  Their hope is this research will lead to new therapies in treating human brain injuries and stroke that cause cells in the brain to die. BrainEX It took the scientists six years to create a system to do what was considered the impossible - bringing dead brain cells back to life.  They call it BrainEx.  They successfully used it on 300 dead pigs they acquired from a nearby pork processing plant.  The scientists say no animals were sa...