Techno Optimist Prime

e/acc / 3D Printing / Automation / Robotics / Lasers / Photonics / Field Service / LFG

[Saloni @salonium]

All of these were reported over the past month:

• A new pancreatic cancer drug, daraxonrasib, that roughly doubles survival in late-stage disease
• A precision lung cancer drug, lorlatinib, that kept 55 percent of patients progression-free after 7 years, versus 3 percent on the old drug
• A prostate cancer drug, talazoparib, that halves the risk of progression
• An endometrial cancer drug, dostarlimab, where 58 percent of patients hadn't progressed after 4 years, versus 16 percent on chemo alone
• An early-detection blood test, the NHS Galleri test, that quadrupled cancer detection but missed its main goal
• An mRNA cancer vaccine that halved the risk of melanoma recurrence when added to Keytruda
• The most effective weight loss drug so far, retatrutide, which cut body weight by about 28 percent
• The first in vivo gene editing therapy, which cut hereditary angioedema attacks by 87 percent from a single injection
• A one-time gene edit, VERVE-102, that lowered LDL cholesterol by 62 percent
• A feat of pharmaceutical synthesis that raised enlicitide's manufacturing yield 14-fold using engineered enzymes
• A functional cure for hepatitis B, bepirovirsen, that cleared the virus in about 20 percent of patients
• The discovery that human cells can swap chromosome-sized DNA through nanotubes
• An ancestor of CRISPR, VIPR, found in bacteriophages, that silences genes without cutting DNA
• A preventive Covid-19 pill, ensitrelvir, that cut symptom risk by 67 percent after exposure
• The first PROTAC drug, vepdegestrant, which destroys a disease-causing protein rather than blocking it

Every month, Niko and I write a round up digging into the latest news in biotech and medicine, and this month's was astonishing.

We share some thoughts on what's responsible for this progress and what it means for science in the future.

[Dirty Texas Hedge @HedgeDirty]

Over 4000 workers just became millionaires by owning the means of production and the socialists are pissed

[Aaron Slodov @aphysicist]

the american dream is alive and well

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@CynicalPublius it's endearing to see someone excited about things that most people living in the area take for granted. he has a childlike sense of awe and wonder.

[Mike Solana @micsolana]

17 years ago, spacex was the company that introduced me to the ambition, and potential, of the technology industry. elon has inspired a generation. so happy for him and his entire team. congratulations 🇺🇸🚀

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@cremieuxrecueil the fda still haven't made statins otc? getting really frustrated that it's such a headache to get access to these life saving meds. they should be on almost everybody's longevity protocol until something better is created.

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@micsolana a shame he did not visit savannah, easily the most beautiful city in the southeast.

[Joe Lonsdale @JTLonsdale]

1/ There's nothing more un-American than our slow, often corrupt build-by-permission permitting regimes.

With AI creating an even wider gap between how the world works, and how it could work — it's time for radical change.

@judgeglock & I make the case for private permitting 🧵

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@foundersfund kudos to the production team. the cinematography and audio quality is fantastic. 10/10 aesthetics!

[Jordan Schachtel @JordanSchachtel]

AI isn't a job-killer that the Doomers say it is. The opposite is true. It's the ultimate democratizer. It's a tool that distributes knowledge, capability, and opportunity to anyone with an internet connection. A kid in rural America can now access the world's best tutor, coder, and strategist in their pocket. That's simply unprecedented. This tool is creating the fairest and freest playing field in U.S. history

But if select powerful ideologues in the industry get their way with heavy regulation, "safety" bureaucracies, and deployment gatekeeping, this technology will become a CCP-adjacent tool for centralized power and elite control.

Distribute the knowledge. There is no need and no legitimate ethical or security reason to gatekeep it indefinitely. Free flowing AI for all Americans beats controlled AI for a new group of oligarchs.

America wins by unleashing AI, not by managing it into an elite hierarchy of privilege.

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@beffjezos in the near future (hopefully) looking forward to permanently swapping to grok's ecosystem once it has a useful suite of tools and is of a comparable quality to other frontier models. i'd much rather give my money to elon and support his vision than any of the other ai labs.

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@cremieuxrecueil the cowboy hat looks great btw. suits you well. yeehaw! 🤠

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@foundersfund how am i only finding out about this today? i'm not terminally online enough apparently. awesome format and lineup!

[Dina Powell McCormick @DinaPowellMcC]

Today @Meta is proud to launch America’s Workforce Academy with our partners.

This program will provide paid training, certification and a job for Americans of all backgrounds to be part of building American leadership in the world.

Because we believe the Future is for Everyone.

https://t.co/3H6ccGL605

[Josh Rosenthal, PhD 〰️ @JoshuaRosenthal]

An axiom of history - and one reason generative & decentralized technology proves so dangerous to hegemony.

It surfaces the expression of ‘divergent’, new, valuable thought & creates markets for it with increasingly participatory capital formation.

This is always THE fight.

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@cremieuxrecueil some other things of note: i think nyc is massively overrated as a tourist destination. the statue of liberty ferry was neat, but everything else felt kind of meh compared to london. nyc's subway was far superior to london's tube though. nyc's food was overrated and expensive.

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@cremieuxrecueil visited nyc recently, and i felt like nyc had some of the kindest "big city" people that i've ever met. even the dogs in central park were so well behaved that most weren't leashed. didn't see a single dog fight or a pitbull despite there being hundreds of dogs playing unleashed.

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

This has quietly been a miracle month in medicine.

In the last 5 weeks we’ve got news on:

- retatrutide, the triple agonist GLP-1 from Lilly, basically melting fat and body-wide inflammation at record levels
- RevMed’s new pancreatic cancer drug showing unprecedented abilities to extend life
- small trial of a one-and-done PCSK9 gene editing therapy for slashing LDL cholesterol
- Mayo’s AI-assisted radiology showing vastly improved cancer detection
- this new therapy for metastatic solid tumors

This stuff is at varying levels of evidence. Retatrutide is ~100% on its way, other stuff needs more clinical trial data. But put it together and we’re maybe on the verge of majorly reducing the mortality of heart disease and cancer, the two leading causes of death in America.

[Techno Optimist Prime @TechnoOptoPrime]

@Raidfather i'm curious, did official blizzard servers see an uptick from returning players now that twow finally shutdown?

[kache @yacineMTB]

Please do this literally everywhere. Please release several billion of these actually just everywhere. We covered the night sky with satellites, we taught sand to speak. Why are we still dealing with this scourge??