(Health Rounds is published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here)
By Nancy Lapid
July 29 (Reuters) - Hello Health Rounds readers! Virtual laboratories populated by AI scientists are closer than you think, as demonstrated by Stanford University researchers. We also highlight an important discovery into the causes of stuttering, and another study using artificial intelligence that looked at how the brain responds to having possibly contagious individuals nearby.
Virtual labs and scientists come up with possible vaccine improvement
Virtual scientists in a virtual lab at Stanford University are coming up with unorthodox ways to address clinical challenges, researchers reported on Tuesday in Nature.
The virtual lab is modeled after a well-established Stanford School of Medicine research group, complete with a principal investigator and seasoned scientists, the report says.
As in human-run research labs, the virtual lab has regular meetings during which agents generate ideas and engage in a conversational back-and-forth. They also have one-on-one meetings, allowing the virtual lab members to meet with the virtual principal investigator individually to discuss ideas.
Unlike human meetings, the virtual gatherings take a few seconds or minutes.
When humans tasked the virtual team with devising a better vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, they equipped the virtual scientists with tools and software to stimulate creative “thinking” skills. The virtual scientists even created their own wish list.
“They would ask for access to certain tools, and we’d build it into the model to let them use it,” study leader James Zou said in a statement.
Instead of opting for the usual vaccine design using an antibody, the AI team came up with using a nanobody, an antibody fragment that’s smaller and simpler.
“From the beginning of their meetings, the AI scientists decided that nanobodies would be a more promising strategy,” Zou said.
“They said nanobodies are typically much smaller than antibodies, so that makes the machine learning scientist’s job much easier,” Zou said, “because when you computationally model proteins, working with smaller molecules means you can have more confidence in modeling and designing them.”
When humans created the AI researchers’ nanobody in a real-world lab, they found it was stable and could attach itself to one of the COVID virus variants more tightly than existing antibodies - a key factor in determining vaccine effectiveness.
Aside from the initial prompt, the main guideline consistently given to the AI lab members was budget-related. Zou estimates that he or his lab members intervene about 1% of the time.
“I don’t want to tell the AI scientists exactly how they should do their work. That really limits their creativity,” Zou said. “I want them to come up with new solutions and ideas that are beyond what I would think about.”
Scientists find genes that cause stuttering
A new study found a clear genetic basis for stuttering, the speech disorder that affects more than 400 million people worldwide.
Overall, as reported in Nature Genetics, the researchers identified 57 distinct regions on 48 genes associated with stuttering. Some of the same genetic variants involved in stuttering can also contribute to autism, depression and musicality, they found.
Stuttering, characterized by syllable and word repetitions, sound prolongations, and breaks between words, is the most common fluency disorder, the researchers said.
“There have been hundreds of years of misconceptions about what causes stuttering, from ideas about left-handedness to childhood trauma to overbearing mothers,” study leader Jennifer (Piper) Below of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville said in a statement.
“Rather than being caused by personal or familial failings or intelligence, our study shows that stuttering is influenced by our genes.”
Young people who stutter report increased bullying, decreased classroom participation, and a more negative educational experience, her team noted.
Stuttering can also negatively impact employment opportunities and perceived job performance, as well as mental and social well-being.
Dillon Pruett, a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt and a co-author of the study, stutters.
“As someone personally affected, I wanted to contribute to this body of research,” he said. “Our study found that there are many genes that ultimately contribute to stuttering risk, and we hope to use this knowledge to dispel stigma related to stuttering and also to hopefully develop new therapeutic approaches in the future.”
At the sight of a sick person, the brain goes on alert
At the mere sight of a possibly contagious person, the human brain launches its germ-fighting preparations, researchers say.
In virtual reality experiments using Google’s Oculus Rift headsets, 248 healthy young adults were approached by human-like avatars, some of which showed visible signs of infection, such as rashes or coughing. Other avatars appeared neutral or fearful.
As the infectious avatars moved closer, noninvasive monitoring showed changes in brain regions involved in integrating awareness of the body’s position, movement, and relationship to the surrounding environment, which was not seen in response to the approaching neutral or fearful faces, the researchers reported in Nature Neuroscience.
Participants were more reactive to touch when the sick-looking avatars were nearby, the researchers also found.
Blood samples showed that exposure to the infectious-appearing avatars triggered an increase in volunteers’ innate lymphoid cell activity, a key component of the immune system, which is typically seen during responses to real infections or vaccines.
The results illustrate the power of the brain “to predict what is going on (and) to select the proper response,” study co-author Andrea Serino of University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland said in an accompanying news article in the journal.
The researchers said that someday, virtual reality might be employed to boost the efficacy of vaccines by boosting the brain’s effect on immune responses.

NNOX

Stanford University researchers have demonstrated the potential of virtual laboratories populated by AI scientists in addressing clinical challenges, including vaccine improvement for COVID-19. The AI team proposed using nanobodies instead of traditional antibodies, leading to promising results in stability and attachment to virus variants. Additionally, a study identified genetic factors contributing to stuttering, revealing 57 regions on 48 genes associated with the disorder. Lastly, research indicates that the brain reacts to the sight of potentially contagious individuals, preparing the body for defense.

- Researchers at Stanford University have developed virtual laboratories where AI scientists propose innovative solutions for clinical challenges, including a new approach to COVID-19 vaccines using nanobodies.  
- A separate study identified 57 genetic regions linked to stuttering, revealing that it is influenced by genetics rather than personal failings, with implications for stigma and future therapies.  
- Additionally, research using virtual reality showed that the brain reacts to the sight of potentially contagious individuals, enhancing immune responses, which could inform future vaccine efficacy strategies.

Health Rounds: Virtual labs with AI scientists produce promising result in Stanford study