They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, but physiologically speaking, they’re windows to the brain. RightEye is a startup that looks through that window to detect common but often subtle vision issues resulting from concussions and other brain troubles. Its quick, portable eye-tracking station can tell in minutes whether you should see a doctor — or look into becoming a pro… Read More
Category: Biotech
With $250 million, Peter Diamandis’ new startup is all about taking stem cells from placentas
Stem cells derived from a human placenta hold the key to unlocking a myriad of potentials in regenerative medicine and are the focus of X-Prize and Singularity University founder Peter Diamandis’ new endeavor. Called Celularity, the startup is a spinout from Celgene, a global biopharmaceutical company creating gene therapies. Diamandis teamed up with Dr. Robert Hariri, the founder of… Read More
Human sequencing pioneer George Church wants to give you the power to sell your DNA on the blockchain
The blockchain is the buzziest thing on the internet these days and now MIT professor and godfather of the Human Genome Project George Church wants to put your genes on it.
His new startup Nebula Genomics plans to sequence your genome for under $1,000 (the current going rate of whole genome sequencing) and then add your data to the blockchain through the purchase of a “Nebula… Read More
Watch what it actually looks like when CRISPR snips a strand of DNA
The CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique is an important concept to know about in these days of biotech advances, but it can be pretty difficult to visualize properly. Is it really like molecular scissors? Where does the DNA go? Is it a big molecul…
View More Watch what it actually looks like when CRISPR snips a strand of DNAUS-China biotech startup XtalPi lands $15M from Google, Tencent and Sequoia
Google continues to increase its presence in China after it joined Sequoia China and Tencent in a $15 million investment for XtalPi, a U.S.-China biotech firm that uses artificial intelligence and computing to accelerate the development of new drugs. The search giant remains blocked in China, but that hasn’t stopped it from making a series of moves in recent months. It is opening an… Read More
How MyHeritage found a new business in DNA
At first glance, genealogy may seem like a quiet hobby you take up in your retirement, but it’s also a big industry, with the likes of Ancestry, MyHeritage, Helix and others all vying for new users. You’d think that there isn’t much these companies can do to really differentiate themselves from each other, but they all offer a slightly different spin on the core theme of… Read More
Startup fundraising and exits look bullish for bio and health
After nearly a year, venture capitalists nabbed their first U.S. acquisition for more than a billion dollars. And it wasn’t a tech startup. Nor was it a company on the list of known unicorns. And it had nothing to do with blockchain. Read More
These high-speed ‘nano-cranes’ could form molecular assembly lines
Things aren’t going well down at the ol’ nano-factory. They’re having trouble getting all those tiny workers to synchronize and move quickly together. But leave it to the Germans to get things running smoothly! All it took was a careful application of that newfangled technology “electricity.”
Tiny nano-scale machines formed from DNA could be the future of… Read More
Watch a thought race across the surface of the brain
Although neuroscientists have a general idea of what parts of the brain do what, catching them in the act is a difficult proposition. But UC Berkeley researchers have managed to do it, visualizing based on direct measurement the path of a single …
View More Watch a thought race across the surface of the brainGV co-leads $27.1M Series A in Oxford Uni life sciences spinout Vaccitech
Leaning on its in-house life sciences expertise GV has backed another biotech startup in the UK, co-leading a £20 million ($27.1M) Series A in Oxford University spinout Vaccitech, which is developing a universal flu vaccine. Read More
Y Combinator is launching a biotech track
Y Combinator is pulling the curtains off of a new experiment, YC Bio. The idea is to fund early-stage life-sciences companies that are still in the lab phase, YC President Sam Altman wrote on the YC blog today. YC Bio’s first area of focus will be on healthspan and age-related disease. Read More
Spider silk startup Bolt Threads closes on $123 million in Series D funding
Bolt Threads, the startup making spider silk from microbugs, has raised a giant $123 million Series D round of funding. As we reported in November, an SEC filing showed the company had raised $106 million from Foundation Capital and Formation 8. Bolt now tells TechCrunch it has added to that amount, bringing up its total to $147 million raised so far. Read More