Cancer vaccine and ‘brain cell’ AI marks National Science Week

Skin cancer prevention and a new “human” AI – there certainly have been some exciting new developments to mark this National Science Week (August 15-23).

To celebrate the nation’s annual festival of science and technology, Kids News is taking a look at two mind-boggling scientific breakthroughs that are developing as we speak – a vaccine for melanoma* and AI powered by human brain cells.

CANCER BREAKTHROUGH
Positive results in a trial for an experimental melanoma drug has scientists excited about the future of treating tumour-based cancers.

US pharmaceutical companies Merck and Moderna said on Wednesday that the drug intismeran autogene, which delivers treatment tailored to a patient’s specific tumour, prevented the cancer from returning in a large clinical trial.

The drug is a vaccine based on the same messenger ribonucleic acid* (mRNA) technology behind Covid-19 vaccines.

Researchers have been working on developing mRNA treatments against cancer, but this is the first time one has shown positive results in a Phase 3* trial.

When delivered along with pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy* drug and the current standard of care, intismeran autogene prevented melanoma from coming back and prevented the cancer from spreading to other organs, the companies said in a statement.

The trial lasted approximately a year and involved 1137 patients who, following surgical removal of their cancers, were randomly divided into groups, with two-thirds receiving the new treatment plus pembrolizumab, while the rest received pembrolizumab alone.

The companies said they would present their data at an upcoming international conference and begin filings with regulators for approval.

“Today’s results represent a landmark moment for adjuvant* melanoma treatment,” said Professor Georgina Long, the study’s principal investigator and medical director of Melanoma Institute Australia, in the statement.

“Intismeran in combination with pembrolizumab has the potential to establish a new treatment paradigm* in the adjuvant melanoma setting, helping patients remain cancer-free for longer.”

Melanoma is one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer, with Australia having one of the highest melanoma rates in the world.

About 16,800 Australians are expected to be diagnosed each year and 1300 are estimated to die, with the disease most common in people aged 20 to 39.

The treatment works by taking a sample of the patient’s tumour and identifying its unique mutational signature*, or “fingerprint,” then using messenger RNA* technology to fight it.

Messenger RNA technology uses synthetic* molecular* instructions wrapped in tiny fat bubbles to teach the body how to make specific proteins.

The technology became prominent during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Moderna and Pfizer developed vaccines that were highly effective against serious forms of the illness.

The positive results could pave the way for the treatment of other types of cancer.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement that the two companies were now studying the use of intismeran “across multiple tumour types and stages of disease, including melanoma, lung, bladder and kidney cancers.”

Karen Knudsen, chief of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, told press outlet Reuters the trial results could signal a new era for treating solid-tumour cancers.

“The positive hit here leads us into truly this next phase in immunotherapy,” Ms Knudsen said. “This is an auspicious* start – this is where things begin.”

HUMAN BRAIN CELLS POWER AI
From lifesaving medical developments to power-saving tech moves, an Aussie tech start up is using human smarts to help solve the AI power supply problem – literally.

Australian company Cortical Labs has partnered with a Singaporean university and data centre company called DayOne to launch Asia’s first biological data centre*, a prototype* where human brain cells process information for AI systems, replacing chips to power AI from a petri dish.

The announcement came shortly after a US-based company, Parasma, announced it was developing algorithms* and infrastructure* to let human brain cells process data.

Parasma confirmed they had run tests where the human brain cells were able to solve defined tasks, and their next-token* prediction was 90 per cent accurate.

In a difficult nonlinear test, the brain cells were 78.1 per cent accurate, outperforming the 75 per cent limit of standard silicon computer chips.

While many on social media have been critical of the new development, labelling it “the start of The Matrix*”, experts involved in running a biological data centre prototype said the new biological technology could help researchers with drug discovery, cybersecurity and fraud detection.

The latest AI venture between Melbourne-based Cortical Labs, Singaporean data centre company DayOne and the National University of Singapore is also aimed at helping with energy efficiency.

Silicon chips that are now used to process information for AI systems are power-hungry microchips. By replacing them with brain-like organoids*, the new approach could help bridge the energy efficiency gap.

The brain cells use “only a fraction of the power required by digital computers”, a joint statement by the partners claimed.

“This prototype marks a major milestone in DayOne and Cortical Labs’ ambition to develop Singapore’s first large-scale biological data centre — and the first of its kind outside Australia,” it read.

Cortical Labs founder, Hon Weng Chong, said he planned to replicate the same model on a global scale.

“Our aim is to uncover the use cases where that advantage matters most, in areas such as drug discovery, humanoid robotics, cybersecurity and fraud detection,” he said.

He argued the method was a sustainable solution to using “technologies humankind depends on”.

The Singaporean university’s director of neurobiology* program, Professor Rickie Patani, said the partnership could help the researchers track learning and adaptations on a biological level, using brain cells.

“It gives us a real route to accelerate drug discovery and neurological disease research, turning laboratory insight into real-world impact far faster than we could before,” he said.

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POLL

GLOSSARY

• melanoma: a serious type of skin cancer that begins in the part of skin that gives it its colour. Melanoma can spread to other parts of the body if not treated early
• messenger ribonucleic acid: mRNA a single stranded molecule carrying genetic instructions from DNA
• Phase 3: when new medical treatments are tested on a large group of people for effectiveness. If it passes the Phase 3 trial the data can be submitted to medical regulators who will consider releasing the drug to the general public
• immunotherapy: a medical treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to fight diseases such as cancer
• adjuvant: adjuvant melanoma treatment is therapy given to people after melanoma is removed to kill any hidden cancer cells, stop it from spreading and reduce the risk of it returning
• treatment paradigm: an established model or set of rules that doctors use to treat a medical condition or disease
• mutational signature: a molecular fingerprint that reveals what damaged the DNA over time
• messenger RNA: same as messenger ribonucleic acid (see above)
• synthetic: human-made
• molecular instructions: genetic codes designed to enter human cells and direct the building of proteins
• auspicious: promising, future success is likely
• biological data centre: a data centre that uses living neurons grown from stem cells to process data and power AI
• prototype: test facility
• algorithms: a step by step set of instructions or rules designed to solve a problem, translating human logic into instructions a machine can use
• infrastructure: networks and structures for running a business, facility or society
• next-token: next-token prediction is the process where an AI model looks at a piece of text and guesses the next most likely piece of text that should follow
• The Matrix: a series of movies in which machines have trapped humans and tricked them into living a false reality – the matrix. While humans go about their daily lives thinking their reality is real, they are really plugged into a massive computer system which their energy is powering
• organoids: tiny, simplified 3D masses of cells grown in labs that come from stem cells
• neurobiology: the study of the nervous system, including the brain and spinal chord

EXTRA READING
AI robot could hit Oz ‘very soon’
Why AI is pulping our rare books
How to become an Oz astronaut

QUICK QUIZ
1. What does the new melanoma vaccine for cancer patients have to do with Covid-19?
2. How many Australians are expected to be diagnosed with melanoma each year?
3. What does the treatment breakthrough mean for cancer treatment more broadly?
4. In what way are human brain cells a more “sustainable” option than computer chips when it comes to powering AI?
5. What is another benefit to using brain cells in AI, according to research by Parasma?

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. How does it work?
Create a diagram or infographic that will help a younger kid understand how mRNA drugs work. Use information in the story to help you.

Time: Spend at least 45 minutes on this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science

2. Extension
What sort of problems do you think research using human brain cells for AI might lead to? Write a list of rules that you think scientists should follow to avoid these problems.

Time: Spend at least 25 minutes on this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science, Personal and Social Capability

VCOP ACTIVITY
Wow word recycle
There are plenty of wow words (ambitious pieces of vocabulary) being used in the article. Some are in the glossary, but there might be extra ones from the article that you think are exceptional as well.

Identify all the words in the article that you think are not common words, and particularly good choices for the writer to have chosen.

Select three words you have highlighted to recycle into your own sentences.

If any of the words you identified are not in the glossary, write up your own glossary for them.

Extension
Find a bland sentence from the article to up-level. Can you add more detail and description? Can you replace any base words with more specific synonyms?

Down-level for a younger audience. Find a sentence in the article that is high level. Now rewrite it for a younger audience so they can understand the words without using the glossary.