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Tech News
A profile highlights Kim Foster, who decided at 17 to pursue medicine, as an example of people who switch careers after achieving success in their original field. The piece frames career change as requiring willingness to experiment and tolerate uncertainty rather than follow a linear path.
Anthropic has acquired Mithril Medicine, a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech with a single full-time employee that used an AI assistant to help design two antibody candidates for a rare form of muscular dystrophy. The company relied on part-time consultants and at least five contract research organizations to carry out lab work, as part of Anthropic's expansion into biomedical science.
Google Cloud has announced Gemini for Healthcare, an agentic AI platform built on its Gemini model to automate administrative and operational tasks in medical settings. The system connects to electronic health records, billing platforms, Medicare/Medicaid data and clinical guidelines to generate multi-step workflows, with human oversight built in. Early customers include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Hartford HealthCare, HCA Healthcare, Highmark Health, Northwell Health, Optum and Stanford School of Medicine.
China's Academic Degrees Committee released draft rules on October 22 allowing professional master's and PhD students in clinical medicine to graduate by presenting a practical achievement, such as a clinical case analysis, instead of a traditional thesis. Engineering students gained a similar option in 2024, and officials say translation, agriculture, accounting and arts programs are expected to follow.
Joe Lonsdale, cofounder of Palantir, has backed a new company called Safer Human Medicine with $20 million through his venture firm 8VC. The startup, led by former Envigo COO Jim Harkness, intends to breed roughly 30,000 macaque monkeys in the US to supply biotech firms conducting medical research and drug testing.
Death Clock, an AI-powered longevity app launched in 2024, estimates users' life expectancy based on lifestyle data and now offers optional biomarker blood panels for an additional fee. A basic panel costs $69 and checks markers like cholesterol, blood sugar, inflammation and vitamin D, while a fuller set of nine additional tests covering hormones, micronutrients and thyroid function costs $780. The writer tried the app and received a predicted death date in 2060 at age 74.
In an episode of Adventures in AI, Acorn Biolabs founder Drew Taylor discussed how his company applies artificial intelligence to regenerative medicine, including using image analysis to predict stem cell performance and designing biologically tailored treatment plans. The conversation also touched on societal and financial implications of extended human lifespans.
A growing movement in psychiatry aims to replace broad, symptom-based diagnoses with data-driven subgroups that combine genetics, brain scans, speech and sleep patterns, and environmental factors like pollution or socio-economic status. Researchers are developing algorithms that compare a patient's data with thousands of others to recommend treatments more likely to work for them. Those shaping the DSM, psychiatry's main diagnostic manual, are reportedly exploring how to incorporate such environmental and social variables into future editions.
A 71-year-old crop farmer in South Korea sought treatment after two months of eye irritation, redness and blurred vision. Ophthalmologists found and removed 11 living Thelazia callipaeda roundworms, some pregnant with larvae, using forceps after numbing his eyes with a topical anesthetic. The case was documented in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Microsoft published a peer-reviewed study in Science showing its Microsoft AI Diagnostic Orchestrator (MAI-DxO) significantly outperformed generalist physicians on diagnostic accuracy using case reports from the New England Journal of Medicine and emergency department data from MIMIC-IV-ED. The AI scored 83.2% accuracy versus 36.1% for doctors on case-report scenarios, and 80.3% versus 46.8% on emergency cases, with the model required to gather information step-by-step rather than being given full case details upfront.
Microsoft published research in Science claiming its Diagnostic Orchestrator, which uses multiple AI agents powered by OpenAI's GPT-5 to mimic a panel of medical experts, diagnosed cases more accurately than human physicians. On NEJM case reports it scored about 83% accuracy versus 36% for doctors using references, and on emergency department data from Beth Israel Deaconess it scored 80% versus 47% for physicians, often at lower estimated cost.
Prime Medicine has treated the first patient in a clinical trial using prime editing, a precise gene-editing technique, to correct a mutation in liver cells directly inside the body. The target is Wilson disease, caused by mutations in the ATP7B gene that leave excess copper to build up and damage the liver and nervous system. The company says it expects to report initial trial results next year.