What if you could precisely change the genome of a pre-implantation human embryo and then safely use that embryo to try to generate a healthier person? It’s a wild idea, but one that technology over the past decade has steadily made a bit less fantastical, at least practically speaking.
But even as CRISPR gene-editing research has advanced, including exciting work reported in a new preprint on base editing of human embryos from geneticist Dieter Egli’s lab at Columbia, the same tough ethical questions remain.
Time spent in daylight could lower the risk of dementia and offer extra benefits for people at particularly high risk, new research suggests. The findings, published in General Psychiatry, could provide a low-cost way to support brain health.
Having less than 0.7 hours of bright daytime light per day was a stronger predictor of dementia than six traditional risk factors. Moderately bright natural light exposure—equivalent to an overcast day outdoors—was linked with a 16% reduction in the risk of dementia.
“Daytime light exposure may serve as a novel indicator of dementia risk,” said researcher Hongliang Feng, PhD, from Guangzhou Medical University in China. Natural cycles of darkness at night followed by bright light during the day are fundamental to entrain circadian rhythms. These regulate physiology, behavior, and cognition, with circadian disruptions common among people with dementia.
Noting that modern lifestyles limit daytime exposure to natural light, the researchers investigated exposure to day- and nighttime light using actigraphy devices that track body movements with built-in light sensors.
The study included 87,577 UK Biobank participants who wore accelerometers on their wrists to measure physical activity and natural light exposure for seven days. Over a median follow-up of 8.1 years, 741 of these people (0.85%) developed dementia.
Higher daytime light, both in terms of average exposure and the duration in bright light, was significantly associated with a lower dementia risk. Daytime light exposure above 1000 lux—a moderately bright light level equal to an overcast day outdoors—was associated with a hazard ratio of 0.84 for dementia. Longer exposure to brighter light of at least 0.70 hours with at least 5000 lux was linked with a further risk reduction, and a hazard ratio of 0.83.
In exploratory analyses, circadian rest-activity rhythms (CRAC) and brain structures mediated up to a third of this association, supporting the idea that improvements in circadian rhythms may have contributed to these results. Dementia protection from light exposure was stronger in people with high levels of nighttime light exposure, those with a “night owl” evening chronotype, or who carried the APOE ε4 allele, with a risk reduction of up to 41%.
Having more than 0.7 hours per day of bright daytime light of at least 5000 lux outperformed the established dementia risk predictors, including alcohol consumption, obesity, air pollution, hearing loss, use of vitamin D supplements, and traumatic brain injury.
However, nighttime light showed no significant association with dementia risk.
The findings point to the importance of higher daytime light exposure in reducing the chances of dementia and offer a simple, cost-free way to reduce this risk.
“Practical implementation pathways could include optimizing indoor lighting at home, community‐based outdoor activity promotion programs, and workplace lighting modifications designed to increase daytime light exposure, such as ensuring adequate illumination and access to natural light,” the researchers suggested.
They added: “Our findings underscore a more pronounced protective association of daytime light exposure in individuals with higher average nighttime light exposure, an evening chronotype, or APOE ε4 carrier status.
“In other words, these findings suggest a targeted approach to mitigate dementia risk by increasing daytime light levels for these populations.”
A journey that has lasted more than 30 years for Sangamo Therapeutics, a pioneering gene editing biotech company in the Bay Area, has reached an unwanted milestone as the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Concurrent with its starting voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Sangamo simultaneously entered into two separate asset sale agreements: Eli Lillyhas agreed toacquire Sangamo’s capsid delivery platform, zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) platform, modular integrase (MINT) platform, and prion disease program, ST-506. Astellas Pharma has agreed to take over Sangamo’s Fabry disease program, isaralgagenecivaparvovec(ST-920).
To clinch the deals, Lilly and Astellas have agreed to be “stalking horse” bidders when Sangamo’s assets are sold in a future bankruptcy court auction. The stalking horse bids do not include the clinical-stage ST-503 program to treat chronic neuropathic pain, the giroctocogene fitelparvovec program to treat hemophilia A, and Sangamo’s cell therapy and regulatory T cell (Treg) assets. Sangamo said these are expected to remain available to interested bidders at the auction.
“We believe this process provides a clear framework to pursue value-maximizing transactions,” said Sandy Macrae, Sangamo’s CEO. “Our priority is to execute a disciplined and efficient saleprocess while supporting all ofour stakeholders. We are also pleased to have signed agreements with two large pharmaceutical companies to serve as stalking horse bidders in the process, underscoring the strategic interest in our assets.”
Ed Lanphier, founder, Sangamo Therapeutics
Founded by Ed Lanphier in 1995, Sangamo became an early developer of zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs), one of the first established gene editing platforms. In 2005, Sangamo scientists led by Fyodor Urnov, PhD, Phil Gregory, PhD, and Mike Holmes, PhD, demonstrated the use of ZFNs to engineer a base substitution in human DNA. The term “genome editing” was born around that report. Sangamo’s technology became the first gene editing platform to enter the clinic, initially for patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), followed by a series of rare genetic diseases.
More recently, the biotech branded itself as a “genomic medicine” company. In 2023, Sangamo trumpeted promising clinical data from its first-in-human Phase I/II STAAR trial (NCT04046224) in Fabry disease. All 25 patients dosed in the STAAR study have continued to show sustained, elevated α-Gal A levels, up to three years for the longest-treated patient. However, later that year, Sangamo deferred additional spending on planning a future Phase III program for ST-920, absent a collaboration partner or additional external funding.
Sangamo made the move as part of a restructuring that included a similar deferral of spending on chimeric antigen receptor-modified regulatory T-cell (CAR-Treg) therapies, the elimination of 40% of its U.S. workforce, and the narrowing of its pipeline. Sangamo said it was refocusing its spending on developing epigenetic regulation therapies treating neurological diseases, as well as novel adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsid delivery technologies.
In 2024, Sangamo shares surged 69% after it reached alignment with the FDA on a regulatory pathway to Accelerated Approval for ST-920 in advance of submitting a biologics license application (pre-BLA). However, Dennis Ding, an equity analyst with Jefferies, argued that the news posed little threat to the developer of the sole marketed drug for the rare disorder, Galafold® (migalastat), marketed by Amicus Therapeutics.
Last month, Sangamo said it remained in the process of completing a rolling BLA submission to the FDA for Accelerated Approval of ST-920 based on the mean annualized estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) slope at 52-weeks across all dosed patients in the study. Two-year eGFR data may serve as confirmatory evidence for traditional approval, Sangamo said the FDA affirmed.
Sangamo was also advancing the Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) module, ahead of completion of the rolling BLA submission for ST-920, which the company said it expected this summer (subject to the ability to secure adequate additional funding), while it was continuing to commercialize the Fabry gene therapy.
In reporting first-quarter results, Sangamo said that it had submitted preclinical and clinical modules for review, while also submitting its antibody assay companion diagnostic, designed to screen patients for eligibility with ST-920, to the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH).
Sangamo reported a $31-million net loss on revenue that plunged 78% year over year to $1.4 million from $6.4 million. Sangamo said $5 million of that decrease reflected Pfizer’s termination early last year of its collaboration with Sangamo to develop a hemophilia A gene therapy, giroctocogene fitelparvovec.
Speaking several years ago with The CRISPR Journal, a peer-reviewed journal and sister publication of GEN, Sangamo founder Edward Lanphier reflected on the company’s bright beginnings. In 1994–95, he recalled, he became aware of research being done by Jeremy Berg, PhD, and Srinivasan Chandrasegaran, PhD, on engineering zinc finger proteins (ZFPs).
A watt-hour meter, an electric usage measuring device designed and patented by the great-grandfather of Sangamo Therapeutics founder Ed Lanphier
“While it was certainly unclear what making novel DNA-binding proteins might do, novel DNA sequences represented the other half of this equation—an agnostic vector plus a platform for developing novel transgenes. I became quite interested in that, and thus in starting Sangamo,” Lanphier remembered.
After founding Sangamo in 1995, Lanphier joined the company full-time two years later. Sangamo’s name was derived from some fascinating family history—Lanphier’s great-grandfather, a Yale-educated electrical engineer, founded a company in Sangamon County, IL, during the 1890s.
He designed and patented “the watt hour meter—the thing that sits on the side of buildings and goes around and around recording electricity,” Lanphier recalled. The Sangamo Electric Company manufactured various electronic components before being sold in the 1970s to Schlumberger.
Lanphier remembered “this incredibly cool logo from Sangamo Electric. I asked my dad, ‘‘What do you think?’’ He said, ‘‘That would be great!’’ And so, I started Sangamo Biosciences.”
While ZFNs showed immense promise as a commercial gene editing platform, they were difficult and expensive to manufacture. The dramatic arrival of CRISPR in 2012–13 quickly pushed ZFNs onto the fringes of the clinical gene editing space.
“When the [gene editing] movie is written, I know it is going to focus exclusively on the Broad and Berkeley and Charpentier and their work. But it is completely unfair—not to me but to Fyodor and Ed [Rebar] and Philip and Mike Holmes and Jeff Miller and the dozens of people who did create this field.”
Lanphier was asked why Sangamo never joined the CRISPR revolution a decade ago. “My perspective was always that [CRISPR] is bacterial—it is nonspecific, it is immunogenic. It’s a great research tool. It’s going to give a lot of visibility to genome editing. When people actually want to use it therapeutically, that’s when they will end up talking to us.”
Alas for Sangamo, that eventuality did not materialize.
The Food and Drug Administration quietly told wearable maker Whoop last week that it would not take further enforcement action over a controversial feature that gives users a reading of their blood pressure.
In July 2025, the agency warned Whoop for releasing its Blood Pressure Insights feature without clearance, saying it was a medical device that required review. “The product is intended to provide a measurement or estimation of a user’s blood pressure, which is inherently associated with the diagnosis of hypo- and hypertension,” the agency wrote.
Whoop argued at the time that the feature could be released without review because it was intended for wellness purposes and not to diagnose or treat a disease. “We won’t let regulatory overreach dictate how people access their own health data,” CEO Will Ahmed wrote at the time.
<![CDATA[Learn how CYP450 genetics, phase 2 metabolism, and drug interactions shape psychiatric dosing—what’s actionable now and what’s next in PPGx.]]>
Background: Leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) participation among Chinese college students remains insufficient despite growing public health concerns regarding sedentary lifestyles and obesity. Social media platforms have increasingly become important channels for delivering social support related to physical activity (PA); however, different dimensions of social support on social media may exert distinct psychological influences on exercise intentions. Objective: Guided by the theory of planned behavior, this study aimed to examine the direct and indirect relationships between different dimensions of social support on social media and Chinese college students’ intentions to engage in LTPA. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among undergraduate and graduate students from a comprehensive university in East China between February and June 2022. A total of 310 valid responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling in R. Three dimensions of social support on social media, including companionship support, informational support, and self-esteem support, were examined as predictors of LTPA intention, with the theory of planned behavior constructs (attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) modeled as mediators. Demographic characteristics, BMI, social media use, and prior PA behaviors were included as covariates. Results: Companionship support demonstrated the strongest positive association with LTPA intention, including both a direct effect (β=.348; =.005) and an indirect effect through attitudes toward PA (β=.286; =.002). Self-esteem support also showed a significant positive indirect association with LTPA intention via attitude (β=.138; =.02). In contrast, informational support demonstrated a significant negative indirect effect on LTPA intention through attitude (β=−.291; <.001). Subjective norms and perceived behavioral control did not significantly mediate the relationships between social support dimensions and LTPA intention. The findings suggest that companionship-oriented interactions on social media may strengthen positive exercise attitudes, whereas excessive or low-credibility informational content may undermine exercise motivation. Conclusions: Different dimensions of social support on social media play distinct roles in shaping Chinese college students’ intentions to engage in LTPA. Social media–based PA interventions should prioritize companionship and esteem support while improving the credibility, personalization, and quality of informational support to reduce potential negative effects associated with misinformation and information overload.
The national conversation about the value of education is currently dominated by speculation about the risks and positive potential of AI.
Whatever your own perspective on that debate, I hope you’ll be glad to know that MIT is also working on a deeply important but comparatively old-fashioned challenge: American high school students’ startlingly uneven access to calculus. According to the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, which covers the nation’s more than 13,000 school districts, in almost half of US high schools calculus isn’t even offered.
As our graduates know better than anyone, preparation in calculus is effectively an admissions requirement at a place like MIT—which means that students in schools with no calculus classes are in practice locked out of an essential route to STEM careers.
Recognizing this glaring need, we set out to find a solution. With support and inspiration from the Siegel Family Foundation, in the fall of 2025 the Institute launched the MIT4America Calculus Project. Developed by the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP) Lab, the Calculus Project recruits and trains MIT undergraduates and alumni to provide weekly long-distance calculus tutoring for students in underresourced high schools across the country.
Reflecting the Institute’s longstanding commitment to national service, the MIT4America Calculus Project supplies an innovative answer to a hard practical problem, and it taps the uncommon skill of MIT’s people to create opportunity for others and spread the educational impact of the Institute beyond our walls.
The project is in its early phases, so far engaging 30 MIT undergraduates and seven alumni tutors. From its initial work with 14 school districts across the country, it’s on track to collaborate with about 20 this summer.
The demand is clear—and the response from the students we’re reaching makes it all worthwhile. This spring, the first Calculus Project students were prepared for their AP exams, thanks to their own persistence, diligence, and curiosity—and to the generosity, care, and patience of a dedicated group of people from MIT.
