No, this isn’t spam — promise. We (Prateek & Jere) are sending this because we know you and how hectic things get when you’re building something great. That’s why we decided to do the heavy lifting: curating the most interesting stories, ideas, and tools in life sciences, AI, and funding — all in one place, from all corners of the web. More on what to expect at the bottom.
Not interested? Just scroll to the bottom and unsubscribe, no hard feelings. Otherwise check out our first selection of stories and if you feel like it, give us some feedback!
Today's stories
Sakana AI's AI Scientist-v2 achieved a potential breakthrough by generating a fully AI research paper that was accepted in a double-blind peer review during an ICLR workshop. The paper was redacted before publication but highlights the need to be aware of these developments both in terms of ethical considerations as well as their potential impacts in aiding and advancing research.
The facts:
The AI autonomously managed the research from hypothesis to manuscript. In the end the accepted paper performed above average even when compared to human-written papers.
The accepted paper performed better than the average paper written by a human although just passing the criteria
The experiment was conducted at a workshop during ICLR, one of the top 3 conferences in the field of machine learning, under the agreement of the organizers.
Read their full post HERE
$200M seed to build scientific superintelligence
Flagship Pioneering launched Lila Sciences, a company dedicated to building a scientific superintelligence platform. Lila Sciences secured $200 million in seed funding to develop AI-powered autonomous labs for life, chemical, and materials sciences.
The platform aims to leverage AI in conjunction with human guidance to accelerate and scale experimentation.
The facts:
Founded in 2023
Secured $200 in seed funding
Combining multilayered scientific AI with autonomous labs to accelerate experimentation, especially within life, chemical and materials sciences
Read the details HERE
Ozempic without side-effects? Yes please
Stanford Medicine scientists have identified a new naturally occurring molecule whose effects seem to rival that of Ozempic - the current gold standard weight loss medication - in animal studies. This molecule, BRP, activates similar pathways but avoids those of Ozempic that cause a variety of side effects. To find BRP a type of artificial intelligence algorithm was developed and utilized that allowed the scientists to narrow their search to 373 prohormones. This research has now resulted in the founding of a new company to aim for the clinical trials of this molecule.
The facts:
Using AI, Stanford researchers have discovered BRP, a naturally occurring peptide that significantly suppresses appetite in animal studies.
Derived from the BRINP2 prohormone, it targets the hypothalamus, reducing food intake without noticeable side effects like nausea
Showing greater neuronal activation than GLP-1, human trials are planned to explore BRP's potential as a new weight-loss treatment
Find the story published by Stanford Medicine HERE
What’s going on in funding? Quickfire 🔥
Sofinnova Partners, a life-sciences VC, closes a €165M fund. Read more here
Cephagenix secures a €9M seed to develop a new migraine treatment
Phenaros Pharmaceuticals secures a pre-seed for a AI-based drug-discovery platform
Innocentia secures €500K from angel investors to accelerate and commercialize smart food label technology
So what makes us different from the next newsletter? We are builders, founders, investors, and curious individuals who love anything and everything tech and life sciences. However, after subscribing to many newsletters ourselves, we never found one that truly served us with the kind of ideas and news that we wanted. Sure a little here and a little there but hardly ever in one place. So we decided to take matters into our own hands and bring all the interesting ones together. If you found this valuable click below to share this with someone who you think would enjoy it.
We are still building this out and by no means is this the final form of this letter so we would love to hear more from you. What would you like to hear about? You have an opportunity to influence what we will be sharing going forward so just answer this email and let’s chat!
And if you’re still not convinced, no worries! Just unsubscribe here, you can always check back on us later