Category: Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs Harvest Useful Protein Collagens From “Precision Fermentation” Rather Than From Slaughter of Animals

(p. B4) The multibillion-dollar push to make animals obsolete in the food industry has already produced pea-protein “bratwurst,” fungus molded into “ham” and “leather,” and “meat” cultured from chicken cells. Geltor, a seven-year-old company based in the Bay Area, is taking a different tack: bioengineering bacteria cells to produce animal proteins you’ll likely never taste.

Geltor is producing forms of collagen they say are identical to the proteins extracted from skin and bones. For now, those vegan collagens can be found in high-end skin care creams. But as the company grows, it’s eyeing other ingredients few Americans associate with animal farming, such as the elastin in your shampoo, the collagen peptides in your smoothie, and even the gelatin (which is hydrolyzed, or slightly broken-down, collagen) in your marshmallows. Alex Lorestani, co-founder and chief executive of Geltor, likes to talk about how the company’s proteins impose a lighter burden on the environment than the meat industry. The challenge, however, is how the company gets to the scale necessary to exert that kind of impact.

In 2012, Dr. Lorestani and co-founder Nick Ouzounov, both 35, were both pursuing doctorates in molecular biology at Princeton University when the invention of Crispr turbocharged the field of bio-design. “We can bio-design medicine,” Dr. Lorestani recalled discussing with his labmates that summer. “Why can’t we bio-design everything?”

Dr. Ouzounov eventually came up with a method — which he and Dr. Lorestani, in typical Bay Area techspeak, call “a platform” — for genetically modifying bacteria cells to reproduce a wide variety of animal proteins, a process that biotech firms are calling “precision fermentation.” In 2015, the two scientists formed Geltor.

For the full story, see:

Jonathan Kauffman. “Going Beyond Vegan ‘Meat’ to Bio-Designed Collagen.” The New York Times (Wednesday, August 3, 2022): B4.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date August 2, 2022, and has the title “Is Bio-Designed Collagen the Next Step in Animal Protein Replacement?”)

Medical Entrepreneurs “Muster the Courage and Determination to Forge Brazenly Ahead”

(p. C7) The accidental birth and stuttering development of cell biology is the focus of Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “The Song of the Cell.” It is an audacious, often mesmerizing, frequently dizzying, occasionally exhausting and reliably engaging tour of cell biology and scientific inquiry. Dr. Mukherjee, an oncologist at Columbia University and the author of “Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer” (2010), enthusiastically instructs and, much of the time, delights—all the while hustling us across a preposterously vast and intricate landscape.

. . .

In the course of describing the evolution of cell biology, Dr. Mukherjee reminds us of the critical role of technological innovation, like the microscopes used by Leeuwenhoek and Hooke, which first revealed the existence of the cellular world. Similarly, it was the invention of the electron microscope, and its deliberate application to biology by pioneering Rockefeller University scientist George Palade, that afforded researchers the resolution needed to examine the components of an individual cell.

. . .

Dr. Mukherjee’s dual roles as clinical oncologist and cell biologist find a common voice as he grapples with the complexity of cancer, “cell biology visualized in a pathological mirror.” He notes the heterogeneity of tumors, observing that while “two ‘breast cancers’ may look identical under the pathologist’s microscope,” the cancers may differ genetically and require different treatments. Even a single breast tumor, he writes, “is actually a collage of mutant cells—an assembly of non-identical diseases.” Because of the maddening similarity between cancer cells and normal cells, targeting cancer can be challenging: A promising therapy may fail, as it did for one of his friends, because it also attacks healthy cells.

Ultimately, Dr. Mukherjee seems to decide, we must accept, rather than rationalize away, the baffling idiosyncrasies that we observe in cell biology and see reflected in the behavior of cancers. Why did his friend’s cancer spread to some organs but spare others? Why did the treatment his friend received eliminate tumors in the skin but not the lungs? “There are mysteries beyond mysteries,” he writes, and he cautions us against succumbing to reductionist explanations. Cells, by themselves, are “incomplete explanations for organismal complexities.” We must understand the context in which a cell exists, he emphasizes, its local environment. Even then, he admits, we often “don’t even know what we don’t know.”

Dr. Mukherjee’s hard-won lessons contain a message for us all: We should resist simple, universal explanations in life science—cell biology, in particular, is rarely that cooperative. The journey he relates also reminds us to appreciate the researchers who, despite the unforgiving and rarely predictable terrain before them, muster the courage and determination to forge brazenly ahead.

For the full review, see:

David A. Shaywitz. “Fantastic Voyage Within.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, October 29, 2022): C7.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date October 28, 2022, and has the title “‘The Song of the Cell’ Review: Fantastic Voyage Within.”)

The book under review is:

Mukherjee, Siddhartha. The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human. New York: Scribner, 2022.

Chargers for Electric Vehicles “Are Often Broken”

(p. B1) The electric vehicle revolution is nearly here, but its arrival is being slowed by a fundamental problem: The chargers where people refuel these cars are often broken. One recent study found that about a quarter of the public charging outlets in the San Francisco Bay Area, where electric cars are commonplace, were not working.

. . .

Many sit in parking lots or in (p. B3) front of retail stores where there is often no one to turn to for help when something goes wrong. Problems include broken screens and buggy software. Some stop working midcharge, while others never start in the first place.

Some frustrated drivers say the problems have them second-guessing whether they can fully abandon gas vehicles, especially for longer trips.

“Often, those fast chargers have real maintenance issues,” said Ethan Zuckerman, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has owned a Chevrolet Bolt for several years. “When they do, you very quickly find yourself in pretty dire straits.”

In the winter of 2020, Mr. Zuckerman was commuting about 150 miles each way to a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The cold winter weather can reduce the driving range of electric cars, and Mr. Zuckerman found himself needing a charge on the way home.

He checked online and found a station, but when he pulled up to it, the machine was broken. Another across the street was out, too, he said. In desperation, Mr. Zuckerman went to a nearby gas station and persuaded a worker there to run an extension cord to his car.

“I sat there for two and a half hours in the freezing cold, getting enough charge so that I could limp to the town of Lee, Mass., and then use another charger,” he said. “It was not a great night.”

The availability and reliability of public chargers remains a problem even now, he said.

. . .

There are few rigorous studies of charging stations, but one conducted this year by Cool the Earth, an environmental nonprofit in California, and David Rempel, a retired professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, found that 23 percent of 657 public charging stations in the Bay Area were broken. The most common problems were that testers could not get chargers to accept payment or initiate a charge. In other cases, screens went blank, were not responsive or displayed error messages.

“Here we have actual field data, and the results, frankly, were very concerning,” said Carleen Cullen, executive director of Cool the Earth.

. . .

At most gas stations, a clerk is usually on duty and can see when some problems arise. With chargers, vandalism or other damage can be more difficult to track.

“Where there’s a screen, there’s a baseball bat,” said Jonathan Levy, EVgo’s chief commercial officer.

For the full story, see:

Niraj Chokshi. “E.V. Hassle: Locating A Charger That Works.” The New York Times (Tuesday, August 16, 2022): B1 & B3.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the same date as the print version, and has the title “A Frustrating Hassle Holding Electric Cars Back: Broken Chargers.”)

Steve Jobs “Was Not Driven by the Financial Results”

(p. B2) Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook on Wednesday [Sept. 7, 2022] shot down any hope of ending the great blue-bubble, green-bubble divide between users of his iPhones and Google’s Android devices.

. . .

Mr. Cook shared the stage Wednesday with Jony Ive, the tech company’s former chief design officer, and Laurene Powell Jobs, Mr. Jobs’s widow, as they reminisced 15 years after the introduction of the iPhone.

. . .

“He was not driven by the financial results,” Mr. Cook said. Instead, he said, Mr. Jobs was focused on making products. “He was never confused about focusing on the indirect consequence—on the market and the financial results,” Mr. Cook said. “He focused on the inputs: getting the products right, making sure they were the best; making sure they were making a difference in people’s lives.”

. . .

“There was something beautiful about the way Steve thought,” Mr. Ive said.

For the full story, see:

Tim Higgins. “Apple CEO Reflects on Jobs Legacy.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, September 9, 2022): B2.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date September 8, 2022, and has the title “Tim Cook Advises Man Concerned About Green Text Bubbles: ‘Buy Your Mom an iPhone’.”)

“Self-Taught Rocket Engineer” and Entrepreneur Nimbly Launches “Light Rockets”

(p. B12) On Thursday [August 4, 2022] a spy satellite run by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office shot into space from New Zealand. The rocket carrying it, the Electron, was built by Rocket Lab increase; green up pointing triangle, a U.S.-Kiwi startup founded in 2006 by self-taught rocket engineer Peter Beck.

Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, satellite-intelligence firm BlackSky asked Rocket Lab for an orbit change just days before it was due to launch, in order to place its satellites more directly over the conflict zone. While changing such missions has traditionally taken months, Rocket Lab pulled it off in 45 days.

These are examples of the new opportunities opened up by governments’ desire for “responsive launch.” While Elon Musk’s SpaceX has spent years revolutionizing the space economy with its large reusable Falcon rockets, a raft of startups have recently stepped in to provide light rockets that are more expensive in terms of price per kilogram, but can send small satellites to specific orbits with extremely fast turnaround times.

. . .

After a year of unrestrained euphoria, when all sorts of “pre-revenue” startups merged with special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, rising interest rates have prompted traders to shun speculative ventures, including fintech innovations, air taxis and, yes, small-satellite launchers.

This has shrouded Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit and Astra Space, which all went public through SPACs last year, in a cloud of negative sentiment.

. . .

Beyond launching 149 satellites into space so far, Rocket Lab also sent NASA’s CAPSTONE spacecraft on its way to the moon’s orbit in June. A month earlier, it caught an Electron booster in midair with a helicopter—a key step toward making the rocket reusable.

For the full commentary, see:

Jon Sindreu. “Rocket Lab Is Science, Not Fiction.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022): B12.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date August 9, 2022, and has the title “Rocket Lab Is Already Science, Not Fiction.”)

With Both Covid and Monkeypox, C.D.C. Wrongly “Tried to Maintain Control Over Testing”

(p. A14) Too often in a crisis, government officials look for easy solutions, with dramatic and immediate impact. But there are none for managing pandemics.

“A pandemic is by definition a problem from hell. You’re vanishingly unlikely to be able to remove all of its negative consequences,” said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Instead, he added, officials should bet on combinations of imperfect strategies, with an emphasis on speed over accuracy.

In both the coronavirus pandemic and the monkeypox outbreak, for example, the C.D.C. at first tried to maintain control over testing, instead of disseminating the responsibility as widely as possible. The move led to limited testing, and left health officials blind to the spread of the viruses.

The Food and Drug Administration was slow to help academic labs develop alternatives for testing, and encouraged the highest quality of diagnosis. It may be reasonable for officials to ask which test is faster or which one produces the least errors, Dr. Hanage said, but “all of them are better than not doing anything.”

For the full commentary, see:

Apoorva Mandavilli. “Unprepared for Covid and Monkeypox. And the Next Outbreak, Too.” The New York Times (Saturday, October 1, 2022): A14.

(Note: the online version of the commentary was updated Sept. 30, 2022, and has the title “New Infectious Threats Are Coming. The U.S. Probably Won’t Contain Them.”)

M.R.I. Inventor and Entrepreneur Earned Patent, But Was Denied Nobel Prize

(p. B10) Dr. Raymond Damadian, who built the first magnetic resonance imaging scanner, which revolutionized doctors’ ability to diagnose cancer and other illnesses — but who, to his dismay, saw the Nobel Prize for the science behind it go to two others — died on Aug. 3 [2022] at his home in Woodbury, N.Y.

. . .

The vision of scanning the human body without radiation came to Dr. Damadian in the late 1960s, he said, when he was working on nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy — which, until then, had been used to identify the chemical makeup of the contents of a test tube — at Downstate Medical Center (now SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University) in Brooklyn.

Working with rats, he discovered that when tissues were placed in a magnetic field and hit with a pulse of radio waves, cancerous ones emitted distinctly different radio signals than healthy ones.

He published his findings in 1971 in the journal Science and was granted a patent three years later for an “apparatus and method for detecting cancer in tissue.” It took 18 months to build the first M.R.I., originally known as a nuclear magnetic resonance scanner, or N.M.R. Its first scan, on July 3, 1977, was of Lawrence Minkoff, one of Dr. Damadian’s assistants — a vivid and colorful image of his heart, lungs, aorta, cardiac chamber and chest wall.

“Having birthed the original idea of the N.M.R. body scanner, we were intent on being the first to accomplish it,” Dr. Damadian said in the book “Gifted Mind: The Dr. Raymond Damadian Story, Inventor of the M.R.I.,” published in 2015, which he wrote with Jeff Kinley. “Failing to do so meant we might be denied the recognition for the original idea.”

But the technology behind the M.R.I. had several fathers.

Acknowledging that he was inspired by Dr. Damadian’s work, Paul C. Lauterbur of the State University of New York at Stony Brook had figured out how to translate the radio signals bounced off tissue into images. And Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham in England had developed mathematical techniques for analyzing the data, making the process more practical.

Employing the techniques he pioneered, Dr. Damadian’s company, Fonar, based in Melville, N.Y., produced the first commercial scanner in 1980.

. . .

While working at Downstate and later at Fonar, Dr. Damadian was aware of Dr. Lauterbur, a chemist who was also working on M.R.I. imaging and with whom he shared the National Medal of Technology.

In “Gifted Mind,” Dr. Damadian acknowledged that Dr. Lauterbur “realized that the N.M.R. signal differences in diseased and normal tissues I discovered could be used to construct a picture (image).”

But in 2003, when Dr. Lauterbur and Dr. Mansfield won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their contributions to the science of magnetic resonance imaging, Dr. Damadian was enraged.

. . .

A year later, Dr. Damadian received one of the two annual Bower Awards given by the Franklin Institute, a science museum in Philadelphia. He was cited for his business leadership.

“There is no controversy in this,” said Dr. Bradford A. Jameson, a professor of biochemistry at Drexel University who was the chairman of the committee that chose the winners. “If you look at the patents in this field, they’re his.”

. . .

Dr. Damadian continued to innovate. He created open M.R.I. machines, which alleviate the claustrophobia patients can experience during scans when they are moved slowly through a tight tunnel, as well as mobile and stand-up scanners.

In recent years, he was focused on research that included imaging cerebral spinal fluid as it flowed to the brain.

For the full obituary, see:

Richard Sandomir. “Raymond Damadian, 86, Is Dead; Creator of the First M.R.I. Scanner.” The New York Times (Thursday, August 18, 2022): B10.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary was updated Aug. 19, 2022, and has the title “Raymond Damadian, Creator of the First M.R.I. Scanner, Dies at 86.” Where there is a minor difference between the online and print versions, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)

Damadian’s biography mentioned above is:

Kinley, Jeff, and Raymond Damadian. Gifted Mind: The Dr. Raymond Damadian Story, Inventor of the MRI. Green Forest, AZ: Master Books, 2015.

Deregulation of Hearing Aids Will Lower Costs and Increase Innovation

(p. A1) The Food and Drug Administration decided on Tuesday to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter without a prescription to adults, a long-sought wish of consumers frustrated by expensive exams and devices.

The high cost of hearing aids, which are not covered by basic Medicare, has discouraged millions of Americans from buying the devices. Health experts say that untreated hearing loss can contribute to cognitive decline and depression in older people.

Under the F.D.A.’s new rule, people with mild to moderate hearing loss should be able to buy hearing aids online and in retail stores as soon as October, without being required to see a doctor for an exam to get a prescription.

. . .

“This could fundamentally change technology,” said Nicholas Reed, an audiologist at the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We don’t know what these companies might come up with. We may literally see new ways hearing aids work, how they look.”

. . .

The change has been percolating for years. In 2016, a proposal for the F.D.A. to approve over-the-counter hearing aids for adults with mild to moderate hearing was released in a report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. The following year, Senators Chuck Grassley, a Republican of Iowa, and Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, introduced a bill enabling the agency to make the change. Congress approved the legislation and President Trump signed it into law.

Finalizing regulations has moved slowly since then, with some conflict over details, like how the federal rule would interact with state laws on hearing aid returns or warranty policies and how much the devices should amplify sound.

Mr. Biden issued an executive order last July calling for greater competition in the economy, which urged the F.D.A. to take action “to promote the wide availability of low-cost hearing aids.”

For the full story, see:

Christina Jewett. “F.D.A. Decides to Allow Over-the-Counter Sales of Hearing Aids.” The New York Times (Wednesday, August 17, 2022): A1 & A23.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Aug. 23, 2022, and has the title “F.D.A. Clears Path for Hearing Aids to Be Sold Over the Counter.”)

Israel’s “Bold’ Creativity Yields Wine from Negev Desert

(p. A4) As growers in more established wine-producing areas of Europe and elsewhere in the world battle unpredictable, extreme weather, including scorching heat waves, Israelis have found themselves at the vanguard of dry-weather wine production, testing approaches that might soon find more global application.

And the work is being done in the Negev, home to hundreds of technology start-ups and a futuristic solar tower — and long a laboratory for experimentation in Israel.

“It is in the Negev that the creativity and pioneering vigor of Israel shall be tested,” read an inscription on the cafe’s wall — an iconic quote from David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, who lived out his last years about 50 yards away, in an austere wooden cabin.

. . .

“To succeed in the Negev, you have to be bold and experiment,” said David Pinto, a vintner who planted his family plot with vines about three years ago.

. . .

With some 325 days of sunshine and little annual rainfall, the desert vines depend on drip irrigation, an innovation developed by another Negev collective in the 1960s that allows the farmer to tightly control the amount of water.

Desert vineyards also come with some natural advantages.

At night the temperatures drop steeply, even in midsummer, benefiting the vines. With low humidity, the Negev vines are exposed to few pests and fungi and require little pesticide spraying, making much of the wine production close to organic.

While artificial irrigation is frowned upon in traditional winegrowing regions in Europe, and is even banned in some locales, it may become more of a necessity.

And in a global wine industry that must adapt to climate change, Israel could be a role model, said Aaron Fait, an expert in desert research and agriculture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

For the full story, see:

Isabel Kershner. “An Unexpected Vintage Grows in Israel’s Negev Desert.” The New York Times (Wednesday, September 7, 2022): A4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the same date as the print version, and has the title “Desert Winemaking ‘Sounds Absurd,’ but Israeli Vineyards in Negev Show the Way.”)

Senate Cedes Sovereignty on Air Conditioning HFC Regulation

(p. A17) WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Wednesday to approve an international climate treaty for the first time in 30 years, agreeing in a rare bipartisan deal to phase out of the use of planet-warming industrial chemicals commonly found in refrigerators and air-conditioners.

. . .

Many American manufacturers had a business incentive to support the amendment. Under the pact, nations that do not ratify the amendment will have restricted access to expanding international markets starting in 2033.

Some Republicans from states with many chemical manufacturers supported the Kigali deal.

. . .

Americans for Prosperity, a political action committee founded by the billionaire Koch brothers, sent a letter to lawmakers last week saying that ratifying the Kigali Amendment would be an “abdication of U.S. sovereignty over environmental regulation” to the United Nations. The group also argued it would raise the price of air-conditioning, refrigeration and industrial cooling for American consumers.

For the full story, see:

Lisa Friedman and Coral Davenport. “Senate Ratifies Global Pact to Curb HFCs, Used in Cooling.” The New York Times (Thursday, September 22, 2022): A17.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 21, 2022, and has the title “Senate Ratifies Pact to Curb a Broad Category of Potent Greenhouse Gases.” Where there is a minor difference between the online and print versions, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)

Netherlands Dairy Farmers “No Longer Allowed To Exist” Due to “Climate Tyranny”

(p. 6) WOUDENBERG, Netherlands — The dairy farmers of the Netherlands have had enough.

They have set fire to hay and manure along highways, dumped trash on roads to create traffic jams, and blockaded food distribution centers with their tractors, leading to empty shelves in supermarkets. Across the country, upside down flags wave from farmhouses in protest.

The anger of the farmers is directed at the government, which has announced plans for a national 50 percent reduction of nitrogen emissions by 2030, in line with European Union requirements to preserve protected nature reserves, that they believe unfairly targets them. Factories and cars also emit large amounts of nitrogen and have not been targeted, they say, although the government said that cuts associated with both polluters would be addressed in the future.

Agriculture is responsible for the largest share of nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, much of it from the waste produced by the estimated 1.6 million cows that provide the milk used to make the country’s famed cheeses, like Gouda and Edam.

To realize those planned cuts, thousands of farmers will be required to significantly reduce livestock numbers and the size of their farming operations. If they cannot meet the cuts the government demands of them, they may be forced to close their operations altogether.

The Dutch government has set aside about 25 billion euros, about $26 billion, to carry out its plan, and some of that money will be used to help farmers build more sustainable operations — or buy them out, if possible.

“My livelihood and my network is being threatened,” said Ben Apeldoorn, whose farm in the province of Utrecht has about 120 cows producing milk for making cheese. “You’re just no longer allowed to exist,” said Mr. Apeldoorn, 52, who has been a farmer for 30 years.

. . .

Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who this month became the country’s longest-serving prime minister and has grappled with what is known in the Netherlands as “the nitrogen crisis,” has condemned the protests, calling them “unacceptable.”

. . .

Helma Breunissen, 47, a dairy farmer who with her husband also runs a veterinarian’s office, attended one of the meetings with Mr. Rutte to make her anger known.

“If half of the cattle needs to disappear, then my veterinary’s office will also end,” Ms. Breunissen said by telephone. “I don’t want a bag of money from the government, I just want to do my job.”

. . .

While many Dutch support the aims of a greener Netherlands, some right-wing groups have expressed support for the Dutch farmers as a way of opposing climate activism. The right-wing Forum for Democracy has declared that “there is no climate crisis” and opposes the government’s plans.

And the Dutch farmers have also received some support from abroad.

“Farmers in the Netherlands — of all places — are courageously opposing the climate tyranny of the Dutch government, can you believe it?” former President Donald J. Trump said at a rally last month.

For the full story, see:

Claire Moses. “Emission Cuts in the Netherlands Have Dairy Farmers Up in Arms.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, August 21, 2022): 6.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 20, 2022, and has the title “Dairy Farmers in the Netherlands Are Up in Arms Over Emission Cuts.” Where there is a minor difference between the online and print versions, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)