A Welcome to the New Year: Shipbuilding and CAR-T

The Deep Forest is Back Again

TL;DR

Deep into the Forest returns with more about shipbuilding and a first introduction to CAR-T therapeutics.

The Continuing Importance of Shipbuilding

Alex Luck @AlexLuck9

The first domestically built large cruise ship (to a foreign design by Fincantieri) was launched by Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding in Shanghai.

The PRC’s shipbuilding market is continuing to grow. The US needs to develop a competitive shipbuilding industry that serves both commercial and military interests to ensure we aren’t blindsided by a dramatically expanded PRC navy. I speculated on Twitter what it might take to bootstrap a Naval SpaceX effort. The discussion raised a number of interesting follow-ups and ideas.

Bharath Ramsundar @rbhar90

1/ As a thought experiment, what would it take to build a naval SpaceX? A company capable of rebuilding US ship manufacturing capabilities

Bharath Ramsundar @rbhar90

The US Navy faces some serious challenges https://t.co/EgwQGDz6Lt

CAR-T: Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cells

CAR-T is a new form of cancer immunotherapy that has achieved some shocking successes. As the diagram below illustrates, T cells are isolated from a patient’s blood, genetically modified to target a specific protein, and then re-infused into the patient’s blood. This procedure trains T cells to more effectively identify and destroy cancer cells.

The diagram above represents the process of chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy (CAR), this is a method of immunotherapy, which is a growing practice in the treatment of cancer. The final result should be a production of equipped T cells that can recognize and fight the infected cancer cells in the body. 1. T cells (represented by objects labeled as ’t’) are removed from the patient's blood. 2. Then in a lab setting the gene that encodes for the specific antigen receptors are incorporated into the T cells. 3. Thus producing the CAR receptors (labeled as c) on the surface of the cells. 4. The newly modified T cells are then further harvested and grown in the lab. 5. After a certain time period, the engineered T cells are infused back into the patient. Image and caption from source.

CAR-T cell therapies have been a long time coming. The first CAR-T therapeutic candidates were tested in the 90s for HIV treatment, but failed to show clinical efficacy. Techniques for T cell modification were further refined over the succeeding decades with clinical trials in the early 2010s showing meaningful efficacy for treating blood cancers. 

A more detailed diagram of the T-cell creation process. Unlike the previous figure, T-cells are transferred from a healthy donor to the patient. Source.

The field of CAR-T therapeutics has grown dramatically with hundreds of current clinical trials. Early CAR-T successes have been achieved for blood cancers, with ongoing research attempting to extend CAR-T therapies to solid tumors. There are still numerous challenges, notably cytokine release syndrome and toxicity issues more generally. Another challenge is that although a large number of patients show initial responses to CAR-T, long term survival rates remain lower due to the propensity for the cancer to mutate and evade the CAR-T’s detection capabilities.

Cost and Complexity

Although CAR-T cells show promise, they are at present exorbitantly expensive with treatments such as Kymriah costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Genetically modifying patient (or donor) T cells remains a complex task which requires advanced bio-manufacturing techniques. As CAR-T treatments mature, economies of scale will hopefully reduce prices to manageable levels.

Weekly News Roundup

• https://www.wsj.com/articles/deere-rolls-out-fully-autonomous-tractor-at-ces-11641346963: John Deere has developed a fully autonomous tractor it plans to sell. Farming could become a 24/7 endeavor with autonomous machines.

• https://spectrum.ieee.org/new-simulator-to-speed-up-solar-cell-development: Differentiable solar cell simulators allow for systematic optimization of system parameters. Source code for the simulator is available at https://github.com/romanodev/deltapv

Feedback and Comments

Please feel free to email me directly (bharath@deepforestsci.com) with your feedback and comments! 

About

Deep Into the Forest is a newsletter by Deep Forest Sciences, Inc. We’re a deep tech R&D company building an AI-powered scientific discovery engine. Partner with us to apply our foundational AI technologies to hard real-world problems. Get in touch with us at partnerships@deepforestsci.com! 

Credits

Author: Bharath Ramsundar, Ph.D.

Editor: Sandya Subramanian, Ph.D.