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Category: evolution

Kanvas makes the microbiome druggable—and the implications are massive

Kanvas looks amazing! They’re systematically deciphering microbiomes and developing clinical-stage interventions to improve patient outcomes in oncology and beyond. Very impressive! I’m also especially interested in their approach to maternal envi­ron­mental enteric dysfunction (EED), which apparently affects 150M people!

Ever since the genomics revolution revealed how reliant the human organism is on its microscopic microbial cohabitants, the microbiome has been medicine’s most elusive frontier, promising better health if only we could untangle the trillions of interactions that influence nearly every facet of our physiology. But until now, effective medicines that harness the microbiome have been rare. Because of the diversity of microbial species and the complexity of host-to-microbe interactions, as well as the lack of a reliable, easily manufactured drug modality (the package that delivers a medicine’s therapeutic effect), the microbiome has been hard to treat, despite its importance to functions like immune response. Microbiome science has disappointed patients, doctors, founders, and investors.

That’s why DCVC is so excited about the cascade of recent developments at Kanvas Biosciences, which is moving the field beyond descriptive profiling of the microbiome to translating comprehensive biochemical insights into clinically useful products. In the past few weeks, the Princeton-based spatial biology company has kicked off a Phase 1 clinical trial for its first drug candidate, secured significant new backing from the Gates Foundation (closing a $48 million Series A financing, bringing Kanvas’s total funding to $78 million), and bolstered its scientific leadership by adding one of the most respected names in bioengineering to its board.

Clinical milestone

The most significant milestone in Kanvas’s evolution is the dosing of the first patients in a Phase I clinical trial for KAN-4. This live biotherapeutic product (LBP), resembling an ordinary pill, treats the colitis that many cancer patients develop after receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), allowing them to remain on the life-saving therapy longer.

The next phase of human evolution is already underway

That is one of the stranger truths about human evolution. Some of the traits helping people survive now are not purely modern at all. They are remnants of older branches of humanity, carried forward because they still work.

Evolution needs variation, inheritance, and reproduction. Those conditions have not disappeared.

Long-term health studies that follow multiple generations indicate that natural selection is still acting in modern populations. Certain traits are associated with having more children, and over time those traits become more common. Patterns in the data point toward earlier childbirth and later menopause, which together extend the reproductive window. Other trends suggest shifts in metabolism, including lower cholesterol and blood pressure.

The Age of Biohacking: Redefining Human Potential in the 21st Century

In a world where technology and biology converge at an accelerating pace, a new era of self-improvement is emerging — biohacking. This once-niche movement has transformed into a global phenomenon, attracting everyone from Silicon Valley executives to amateur enthusiasts. The promise? To optimize the human mind and body beyond natural limits using a blend of science, lifestyle adjustments, and cutting-edge technology.

But what exactly is biohacking? Is it the future of personal health and evolution, or a slippery slope into risky experimentation? In this article, we’ll delve deep into the world of biohacking — its origins, principles, popular techniques, controversies, and future potential. Whether you’re a skeptic, a curious observer, or a self-improvement junkie, the world of biohacking has something provocative for everyone.

Sean Carroll, CalTech, John’s Hopkins, Santa Fe Institute

One of the great intellectual achievements of the twentieth century was the theory of quantum mechanics, according to which observational results can only be predicted probabilistically rather than with certainty. Yet, after decades in which the theory has been successfully used on an everyday basis, most physicists would agree that we still don’t truly understand what it means. Sean Carroll will discuss the source of this puzzlement, and explain why an increasing number of physicists are led to an apparently astonishing conclusion: that the world we experience is constantly branching into different versions, representing the different possible outcomes of quantum measurements. This could have important consequences for quantum gravity and the emergence of spacetime.

Sean Carroll is a research professor at CalTech, Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at John’s Hopkins University, and Fractal Faculty at SFI. His research focuses on fundamental physics and cosmology, quantum gravity and spacetime, philosophy of science, and the evolution of entropy and complexity. He’s authored “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime;” “The Big Picture;” “The Particle at the End of the Universe;” “From Eternity to Here;” and the textbook “Spacetime and Geometry.”

Evolution isn’t random. Scientists find the same genes used for 120 million years

Evolution seems to follow a script more often than expected. Researchers found that distantly related butterflies and moths have reused the same pair of genes for over 120 million years to produce strikingly similar warning colors. Rather than altering the genes themselves, evolution modifies how they’re switched on and off. This discovery hints that life may evolve in more predictable ways than previously believed.

Synchrotron X-rays uncover hidden protein binding sites, enabling two new functions

Using bright X-rays from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), researchers pioneered an innovative approach to designing proteins with targeted functions. Their method generated new insights that allowed the team to turn a single designed protein into two new proteins with completely different functions—one of which is the most active designed enzyme to date.

In the study, published in Nature Chemistry, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), team for the first time combined X-ray studies of how small molecule fragments bind to designed proteins, known as crystallographic fragment screening, with a method used to design proteins, called directed evolution. This breakthrough approach could lead to simpler ways to improve enzymes and medications, among other uses.

“Our novel protein design strategy simultaneously explores the landscapes of chemical space and sequence space, which helps design functional proteins rapidly,” said Sagar Bhattacharya, postdoctoral researcher at UCSF and an author on the paper. “Instead of the typical 5–10 rounds or more of directed evolution, we achieved the 10-fold higher enzyme activity with just two rounds of directed evolution.”

Genetic parallelism underpins convergent mimicry coloration in Lepidoptera across 120 million years of evolution

The repeated evolution of similar phenotypes, or convergent evolution, is widespread in nature, but there are few studies investigating the genetic mechanisms across wide evolutionary timescales. This study examines convergent wing pattern evolution across highly divergent Lepidopteran lineages and reports parallel genetic reuse, indicating strong constraints and high predictability in evolutionary outcomes.

Is the Large Magellanic Cloud a First-Time Visitor?

Our most massive satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), has been the center of a heated debate in the astrophysics community over the last few years. That debate centers on whether this is the LMC’s first or second “pass” by the Milky Way itself — and it has huge implications for the evolution of our galaxy given the disruption such a large grouping of stars has. A new paper from Scott Lucchini, Jiwon Jesse Han, Sapna Mishra, and Andrew J. Fox and his co-authors, currently available in pre-print on arXiv, provides what they claim to be definitive evidence that this is, in fact, the first time LMC has encountered the Milky Way.

To understand the debate, it’s best to look at its history. For decades, there was an ongoing debate about the orbital path of the LMC. The discussion centered around a collisionless N-body dynamics model that tracked stars and their gravity. But back in 2024, physicist Eugene Vasiliev released a stunning paper that presented an argument that the LMC might have first passed the Milky Way 6–8 billion years ago at a distance of roughly 100 kiloparsecs.

Upon release of that paper, the debate was reignited. Vasiliev posited that, if the Milky Way’s dark energy halo was anisotropic (meaning the velocities of dark matter particles are skewed in certain directions), the current speed and position of the LMC would align perfectly with a “second pass” orbit. Dr. Lucchini and his co-authors are firmly on the other side of that argument.

30,000 Facebook Accounts Hacked via Google AppSheet Phishing Campaign

A newly discovered Vietnamese-linked operation has been observed using a Google AppSheet as a “phishing relay” to distribute phishing emails with an aim to compromise Facebook accounts.

The activity has been codenamed AccountDumpling by Guardio, with the scheme selling the stolen accounts back through an illicit storefront run by the threat actors. In all, roughly 30,000 Facebook accounts are estimated to have been hacked as part of the campaign.

“What we found wasn’t a single phishing kit,” security researcher Shaked Chen wrote in a report shared with The Hacker News. “It was a living operation with real-time operator panels, advanced evasion, continuous evolution and a criminal-commercial loop that quietly feeds on the same accounts it helps steal back.”

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