Friday, October 10, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

The first patient in the world treated with a new gene editing technology

Published 26 May 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The only CRISPR-based treatment approved for clinical use so far costs around $2 million per treatment session.
3 minute read

A teenager with a rare immune disorder has become the first in the world to be treated with the new gene editing technique prime editing. The aim: to restore the function of the body’s white blood cells.

One month after the procedure, the first results show that the technique seems to work – apparently without any serious side effects.

The treatment was performed on a teenager with chronic granulomatous disease – a rare, inherited condition in which the immune cells lack an enzyme that normally helps kill bacteria. This makes it difficult for the body to fight infections. Through prime editing, the researchers were able to correct the mutation in the DNA that causes the disease.

According to the biotech company Prime Medicine, which developed the treatment, after one month, enzyme function was restored in two-thirds of the patient’s neutrophils – a type of white blood cell that plays an important role in the body’s defense against bacteria. This was announced by the company on May 19.

Prime editing is a new and more precise variant of the well-known CRISPR technique, often described as a “gene scissors”. While traditional CRISPR cuts out parts of DNA and replaces them, prime editing works more like a text editor that can correct errors in the genetic code without making major changes to the genome. The technique was developed in 2019 and is considered both safer and more versatile than previous methods.

Extremely expensive method

Despite the promising results, Prime Medicine says it does not plan to continue developing the treatment, known as PM359, on its own.

– The science has moved far enough that many patients would benefit from these gene-editing treatments. But it boils down to an issue not just of science and technology, but of economics, says David Liu, a chemical biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and co-founder of the company.

For very rare diseases, development costs are often high relative to the limited number of patients. The only CRISPR-based treatment approved for clinical use so far, for blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia, currently costs more than $2 million per treatment.

– It’s like upgrading your iPhone. NThere are new versions coming out all the time and the tools are constantly being refined, says Joseph Hacia, a medical geneticist at the University of Southern California.

Longer follow-up needed

Prime editing is one of several emerging techniques developed as alternatives to classical CRISPR. It has the potential to treat more diseases with greater precision, but time and follow-up are needed before firm conclusions can be drawn about its long-term effects.

It will take between six months and a year to be certain that the edited stem cells are thriving, says Annarita Miccio, a gene therapy expert at the Imagine Institute in Paris.

Critics have also raised several ethical concerns about prime editing and similar techniques, even though they are described as highly accurate. A recurring objection is the risk of genetic changes occurring in the wrong place in the genome and thus causing unwanted side effects and mutations.

Concerns have also been raised that the technology could be used in the future to modify traits rather than treat diseases – raising the debate about so-called ‘designer babies’ and how far we are prepared to go in altering the human genetic code.

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Professor: We’re trading source criticism for speedy AI responses

The future of AI

Published yesterday 10:13
– By Editorial Staff
AI has become a natural companion in our daily lives - but what happens if we stop thinking for ourselves and take the chatbot's answers as truth?
2 minute read

Professor Olof Sundin warns that generative AI undermines our fundamental ability to evaluate information.

When sources disappear and answers are based on probability calculations, we risk losing our source criticism.

— What we see is a paradigm shift in how we traditionally search, evaluate and understand information, states Sundin, professor of library and information science at Lund University in southern Sweden.

When we Google, we get links to sources that we can, if we want, examine and assess the credibility of. In language models like Chat GPT, users get a ready-made answer, but the sources often become invisible and frequently completely absent.

— The answer is based on probability calculations of the words you’re interested in, not on verifiable facts. These language models guess which words are likely to come next, explains Olof Sundin.

Without sources, transparency disappears and the responsibility for evaluating the information presented falls entirely on the user.

— It’s very difficult to evaluate knowledge without sources if you don’t know the subject, since it’s a source-critical task, he explains.

“More dependent on the systems”

Some AI systems have tried to meet the criticism through RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation), where the language model summarizes information from actual sources, but research shows a concerning pattern.

— Studies from, for example, the Pew Research Institute show that users are less inclined to follow links than before. Fewer clicks on original sources, like blogs, newspapers and Wikipedia, threaten the digital knowledge ecosystem, argues Sundin.

— It has probably always been the case that we often search for answers and not sources. But when we get only answers and no sources, we become worse at source criticism and more dependent on the systems.

Research also shows that people themselves underestimate how much trust they actually have in AI answers.

— People often say they only trust AI when it comes to simple questions. But research shows that in everyday life they actually trust AI more than they think, the professor notes.

Vulnerable to influence

How language models are trained and moderated can make them vulnerable to influence, and Sundin urges all users to consider who decides how language models are actually trained, on which texts and for what purpose.

Generative AI also has a tendency to often give incorrect answers that look “serious” and correct, which can damage trust in knowledge in society.

— When trust is eroded, there’s a risk that people start distrusting everything, and then they can reason that they might as well believe whatever they want, continues Olof Sundin.

The professor sees a great danger to two necessary prerequisites for being able to exercise democratic rights – critical thinking about sources and the ability to evaluate different voices.

— When the flow of knowledge and information becomes less transparent – that we don’t understand why we encounter what we encounter online – we risk losing that ability. This is an issue we must take seriously – before we let our ‘digital friends’ take over completely, he concludes.

Language models

AI services like ChatGPT are built on language models (such as GPT-4) that are trained on enormous amounts of text. The model predicts which word is likely to come next in a sentence, based on patterns in language usage.

It doesn't "know" what is actually true – it "guesses" what is correct based on probability calculations.

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

RAG combines AI-generated responses with information retrieved from real sources, such as the top three links in a Google search.

The method provides better transparency than AI services that respond entirely without source references, but studies show that users nevertheless click less and less on the links to original sources.

Study: Divorce harms young children’s development

Published 2 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to a Chinese study, children of divorced parents risk falling behind in a range of different developmental areas.
2 minute read

Children whose parents divorce risk falling behind in their development – particularly in social skills, reading ability and physical health. The results come from a major study that followed 62,000 preschool children and compared children from divorced and intact families.

The research, published in the journal BMJ Paediatrics Open, is one of the largest studies conducted on younger children and shows that divorce can slow young children’s development in several areas.

Divorces don’t just affect adults but also have a significant impact on children. However, previous research has often been based on small groups of voluntary participants and produced conflicting results. Additionally, studies have primarily focused on older children, which has left knowledge about how the youngest children are affected inadequate.

The new study fills this knowledge gap by examining children between 3 and 5 years old – a critical age period where development progresses particularly rapidly and where important foundations are laid for the child’s future social, emotional and cognitive abilities.

The researchers used the so-called Human Capability Index, which measures children’s development across nine areas: reading, speech, writing, learning, persistence, language comprehension, cultural knowledge, social and emotional abilities, and physical health.

Worse at almost everything

Of the more than 62,000 children in the study, 2,409 (just under 4 percent) had parents who had divorced. When researchers compared these children with children from intact families, the differences became clear: children whose parents had divorced scored lower on almost all developmental areas.

The largest differences were in social and emotional skills, physical health and reading ability, while medium-sized differences were seen for verbal communication, persistence, language comprehension and cultural knowledge. The least impact was noticed in the areas of writing and general learning ability.

Overall, the study showed that children from divorced families had a greater risk of falling behind in their development compared to peers whose parents still lived together.

The researchers emphasize that the results highlight the need for more research on how society can support this vulnerable group. Parents, relatives and friends, healthcare services and society as a whole need to find better ways to help children through divorce processes so that their development is not negatively affected.

AI-created viruses can kill bacteria

The future of AI

Published 28 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Bacteriophages attach to bacteria, inject their DNA and multiply until the bacteria burst. AI can now design new variants from scratch.
2 minute read

Researchers in California have used artificial intelligence to design viruses that can reproduce and kill bacteria.

The breakthrough opens up new medical treatments – but also risks becoming a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.

Researchers at Stanford University and the Arc Institute have for the first time succeeded in creating complete genomes using artificial intelligence. Their AI-designed viruses can actually reproduce and kill bacteria.

— That was pretty striking, just actually seeing, like, this AI-generated sphere, says Brian Hie, who leads the laboratory at the Arc Institute where the work was carried out.

The team used an AI called Evo, trained on genomes from around 2 million bacteriophages (viruses that attack bacteria). They chose to work with phiX174, a simple virus with just 11 genes and 5,000 DNA letters.

16 of 302 worked

The researchers let the AI design 302 different genome variants, which were then chemically manufactured as DNA strands. When they mixed these with E. coli bacteria, they achieved a breakthrough: 16 of the designs worked and created viruses that could reproduce.

— They saw viruses with new genes, with truncated genes, and even different gene orders and arrangements, says Jef Boeke, biologist at NYU Langone Health who was given advance access to the study.

Since viruses are not considered living organisms, this is not yet truly AI-designed life – but it is an important first step toward that technology.

Major medical potential

The technology has great potential in medicine. “Most gene therapy uses viruses to shuttle genes into patients’ bodies, and AI might develop more effective ones”, explains Samuel King, the student who led the project.

Doctors have previously tried so-called phage therapy to combat serious bacterial infections, something that AI-designed viruses could improve.

“Grave concerns”

But the technology’s development also raises strong concerns. The researchers have deliberately avoided training their AI on viruses that infect humans, but others could misuse the method.

— One area where I urge extreme caution is any viral enhancement research, especially when it’s random so you don’t know what you are getting. If someone did this with smallpox or anthrax, I would have grave concerns, warns J. Craig Venter, a pioneer in synthetic biology.

Venter believes that the technology is fundamentally based on the same trial-and-error principle that he himself used two decades ago, just much faster.

Future challenges

Creating larger organisms is significantly more difficult. E. coli has a thousand times more DNA than phiX174. “The complexity would rocket from staggering to way way more than the number of subatomic particles in the universe”. explains Boeke.

Jason Kelly, CEO of biotech company Ginkgo Bioworks, believes that automated laboratories where AI continuously improves its genome designs will be needed for future breakthroughs.

— This would be a nation-scale scientific milestone, as cells are the building blocks of all life. The US should make sure we get to it first, says Kelly.

Sweden first to use psychedelics to treat anorexia

Published 22 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Psilocybin has been used successfully on patients with depression and PTSD. The hope is that it will also help patients with anorexia.
2 minute read

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden are now starting the world’s first study testing psychedelic drugs on young patients with anorexia nervosa. The pilot study includes 40 patients between 16 and 35 years old and begins this autumn.

Anorexia nervosa is one of the psychiatric diagnoses with the highest mortality rate. Each year, approximately 8,300 young people are diagnosed with eating disorders in Sweden, where anorexia nervosa is most common among girls aged 11–17 years. The disease is characterized by restricted food intake, intense fear of weight gain, and distorted body perception.

— Anorexia has a hereditary component and also occurs more frequently in people who have autism or obsessive-compulsive disorder. There are two clear age peaks for onset. The first is at 14 years of age and the next comes around 18 years, says Pouya Movahed Rad, associate professor at Lund University and senior physician at Psychiatry Skåne.

The study is primarily a safety study where researchers will evaluate risks and side effects of psilocybin compared to conventional treatment. Participants, who are recruited from throughout Region Skåne (the southernmost region of Sweden), must have had at least one relapse in their illness and will receive psilocybin on two occasions during carefully monitored sessions.

— Anorexia is a serious disease and there is no existing pharmacological treatment for the condition. It is therefore important to try new methods that can target the disease’s core symptoms, without solely focusing on weight, says Olea Schau Rybäck, doctoral student at Lund University and resident physician in psychiatry at Skåne.

“The brain is fantastic”

Psilocybin is a psychedelic substance found in certain mushrooms. Previous research on depression and PTSD has shown that the substance can break rigid thought and behavioral patterns. The hypothesis is that psilocybin can affect brain synaptic plasticity also in anorexia patients.

— The brain is fantastic and unpredictable. Psilocybin can open up a therapeutic window to create new functional patterns. If the treatment is successful, I see no obstacle to psychedelic drugs becoming an established treatment for anorexia nervosa in the future, says Pouya Movahed Rad.

Results from the study, which is funded by Norrsken Mind (a Swedish venture capital firm), are expected to be ready by the end of 2027. If researchers find promising results, a larger study focusing on treatment effects is planned.

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