By Jimi Olagher -- MIT Review -- On a picturesque fall day a few years ago, I opened the mailbox and took out an envelope as thick as a Bible that would change my life. The package was from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and it contained a consent form to participate in a clinical trial for a new gene-editing drug to treat sickle cell disease. A week prior, my wife and I had talked on the phone with Haydar Frangoul, an oncologist and hematologist in Nashville, Tennessee, and the lead researcher of the trial.

He gave us an overview of what the trial entailed and how the early participants were faring. Before we knew it, my wife and I were flying to the study site in Nashville to enroll me and begin treatment. At the time, she was pregnant with our first child. I’d lived with sickle cell my whole life—experiencing chronic pain, organ damage, and hopelessness. To me, this opportunity meant finally taking control of my life and having the opportunity to be a present father. The drug I received, called exa-cel, could soon become the first CRISPR-based treatment to win approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, following the UK’s approval in mid-November. I’m one of only a few dozen patients who have ever taken it. In late October, I testified in favor of approval to the FDA’s advisory group as it met to evaluate the evidence. The agency will make its decision about exa-cel no later than December 8.

 by Katyanna Quach -- theregister.com -- Startup Absci will turn to its generative AI algorithms to design synthetic protein

Pharma giant AstraZeneca has signed a $247 million deal with Ai drug creation company Absci to develop an antibody designed to fight cancer. The collaboration was announced on Monday and will see Absci deliver an antibody for a "specified oncology target". AstraZeneca will cover its R&D efforts, while Absci will make a cut from royalty fees from any future sales if the drug makes it to market. "Absci's newest partnership with AstraZeneca is further validation of our first-of-its-kind zero-shot generative AI model designed to create new and improved antibody therapeutics, including for previously untreatable diseases," Absci CEO Sean McClain told The Register in a statement. "We're proud to work closely with AstraZeneca to leverage our AI to bring novel treatments to oncology patients," he added.

Can AI transformer models help design drugs and treat incurable diseases?

Chan Zuckerberg org to spin up 1,000+ H100 GPU cluster for AI medical research Former infosec COO pleads guilty to attacking hospitals to drum up business An Absci representative declined to detail which cancer the antibody will targeting, and when it expected to deliver a candidate to AstraZeneca. Absci's drug design platform uses computational techniques, including generative AI models, to create millions of potential synthetic antibodies. The most promising designs are grown from genetically engineered E coli bacteria cells. The synthetic antibodies designed by AI can be made by altering the DNA of the E coli cells, forcing them to create the desired protein structure. The resulting creations’ abilities to effectively bind to targets can then be tested in lab experiments, and the data used to further improve the model's future outputs. Joshua Meier, Absci's chief AI officer, previously told The Register that there are more possible antibody variants that can be simulated than there are atoms in the universe. To find the most promising candidates, the company trains AI algorithms to predict various traits that suggest they might be more effective at things like marking cancerous cells for the immune system to attack, or preventing tumors from growing.

Robert Frank -- cnbc.com -- In recent months, the world’s new billionaires made more of their fortunes from inheritance than from entrepreneurship, according to the UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report. It marked the first time in the nine-year history of the report that newly minted billionaires accumulated more wealth from inheritance than starting a business. Fifty-three heirs inherited a total of $150.8 billion in the 12 months ending in April, exceeding the total of $140.7 billion accumulated by 84 new self-made billionaires, according to the Swiss bank’s report. The shift is likely to continue: The report said more than 1,000 billionaires are expected to pass $5.2 trillion to their children over the next 20 or 30 years. “The great wealth transfer, which we’ve all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway,” said John Mathews, head of UBS’ Private Wealth Management division. “The average age of the world’s billionaires is almost 69 right now. So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate.”

Many billionaires will leave the bulk of their wealth to charity. And some, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, continue spending their fortunes on real estate, yachts and flights to space. Yet today’s billionaires will still have plenty to leave to their families. According to the report, the number of billionaires rose by 7% globally over the 12 months ending in April. The population of billionaires in the world increased to 2,544 from 2,376. Their total wealth great by 9% -- from $11 trillion to $12 trillion. The great wealth transfer from billionaires and multi-millionaires will likely change the landscape in investing and wealth management, as well as spending and philanthropy. More than two thirds of the billionaires with inherited wealth in the UBS survey said that they plan to continue and grow what their parents or grandparents achieved – whether it’s in a business, a brand or assets. Yet their values and priorities may be different. The next generation of billionaire investors tend to be highly focused on climate change, technology and impact investing than older generations, according to studies.

 by Katyanna Quach – the register — The council of Porto Alegre, a city in southern Brazil, has approved legislation drafted by …