When Craig Spencer contracted Ebola while working in Guinea during the West African outbreak in 2014, he was already back in the United States when he first developed symptoms. He credits the treatment he got at New York’s Bellevue Hospital for his survival.
If Spencer, an emergency medicine physician and an associate professor in Brown University’s School of Public Health, were to contract Ebola in the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda — if he’d even had high-risk exposures to Ebola patients — he wouldn’t be allowed back into the U.S. for care or quarantine.
Administration officials confirmed Thursday that any Americans who contract Ebola will not be brought to the United States for treatment. Instead, they will be evacuated to as-yet-undetermined locations in Europe. An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department are working to identify tertiary care facilities that could take Americans needing care. One such case has already occurred.
Biotech is producing scientific breakthroughs that once seemed impossible. But according to longtime industry executive Jeremy Levin, the institutions that support these advances, from regulators, to investors, and even public trust in science itself — are beginning to fracture.
Levin is the founder and chairman of Ovid Therapeutics and former CEO of Teva Pharmaceuticals. In his new book, “Biotech in the Balance: Saving a Strategic Industry in an Age of Distrust,” he argues that political upheaval, weakening institutions, short-term investing, and more are putting the future of the industry at risk, even though the science itself continues to accelerate.
On this week’s episode of “The Readout Loud,” Levin advocates for federal changes that could incentivize biotech investment, and for pharmaceutical companies, in particular, to call out how regulatory upheaval is harming the drug industry. “When an institution such as this, which is critical, is shaken, the industry must stand firm. It must call out why this is a problem. … The titans are dead silent right now,” he said.
Below are highlights from his conversation with hosts Elaine Chen, Adam Feuerstein, and Allison DeAngelis.
This transcript of the interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
On this week’s episode of “The Readout LOUD,” we chat with longtime biotech executive Jeremy Levin about his new book, “Biotech in the Balance: Saving a Strategic Industry in an Age of Distrust.” That sounds alarmist, and it is in some respects, but as Levin explains, the book is also a roadmap to a brighter future for the biotech industry.
Researchers say they’ve found a new way to extract lithium, a crucial metal used in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles and energy storage arrays. This new technique could be more environmentally friendly and cheaper than existing ones.
The research was published today in Science, and a startup called Rock Zero is working to commercialize the process.
“At scale, we believe this will be the lowest-cost way of sourcing lithium in the world,” says Yet-Ming Chiang, one of the study authors, who is an MIT professor and a serial entrepreneur behind climate tech companies including Form Energy and Addis Energy.
The most economical way to get lithium currently is to extract it from brine, salty water that’s pulled the metal out of rock over the course of millennia. But this technique is geographically limited and currently requires vast tracts of land for massive evaporation pools. The more common tactic is hard-rock mining, where large bodies of ore are blasted apart, cooked at high temperatures, and processed using dangerous chemicals.
The researchers’ new method uses a weak acid to dissolve typically nonreactive silicate minerals. That frees not only the lithium but also other useful materials, including alumina and silica.
The origin story for this research, and the resulting company, came from another startup founded by Chiang, Sublime Systems, which makes cement using electrochemistry.
The team was trying to find a source of highly reactive silica in order to form stronger cement. One way to make reactive materials, which can bond easily with other materials, is to take a nonreactive material, dissolve it, and then allow it to become solid in a more reactive form. It’s not impossible to dissolve silicates, but the best-known way is to use hydrofluoric acid, an extremely dangerous chemical. Other fluorine-containing chemicals are candidates too, but some will produce hydrofluoric acid as a side product during reactions.
Chiang drew inspiration from a previous home renovation project involving glass, which is made of silica. “I was remodeling a shower in Framingham, Massachusetts, about 25 years ago,” he says. “So when we started this project, I remembered that glass etching cream and thought, ‘What’s in that?’”
The glass etching cream he remembered, which can be found on shelves at any craft or home improvement store, uses ammonium fluoride, a weak acid. And the MIT researchers discovered that in the right conditions, it can effectively dissolve silicate minerals without producing hydrofluoric acid in the process.
This chemistry could be useful for any silicate minerals—and there are a lot of them. But spodumene, the mineral that’s often mined for lithium, became a prime first target. (Chiang says a suggestion from Doug Wicks, one of the company’s advisors and a former ARPA-E official, pointed the team in spodumene’s direction.)
From left to right: spodumene, silica, alumina and lithium salts.
ROCK ZERO
Today, a key step in processing spodumene ore is to roast it in a kiln at super-high temperatures. This causes a phase transformation, essentially puffing up the material and making the lithium more accessible.
By avoiding the need to reach these temperatures, you could save on energy costs and potentially reduce carbon emissions as well, says Camden Hunt, one of the authors of the study and the CEO and cofounder of Rock Zero.
Avoiding the kiln could also unlock the ability to use some ores that can’t be roasted properly, Hunt adds. Ore that contains too much iron won’t go through the phase change correctly, instead melting and turning into a glassy material.
The new process relies on simple stirred plastic tanks and takes place at temperatures up to about 95 °C (200 °F). The ammonium fluoride dissolves the silicates, which in earlier experiments allowed nearly all of the lithium inside the spodumene ore to be extracted within a couple of days. The researchers have since cut this time to under 12 hours, says Benjamin Mowbray, first author of the study and the CTO and cofounder of Rock Zero.
The products (after some additional steps to clean them up) are lithium carbonate, which can be used to make batteries; alumina, which can go into a smelter to make aluminum; and cementitious silica, which can be added into concrete. And the acid can be reused in the same loop.
Chiang calls this “nose-to-tail” mining—using every part of the ore provided, like eating every part of a butchered animal.
The researchers are currently working to scale and optimize the process. The tanks in the lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts can handle three kilograms of spodumene concentrate in each batch.
They have also estimated the cost of this process once fully scaled up. Assuming that the ammonium fluoride can be recycled at a high level, they should be able to extract lithium for less than $6,000 per metric ton. (They’ve identified a potential cheap industrial source of the acid as well, as an alternative to recycling it.)
The total cost is projected to be lower than that of other processes used to extract lithium from hard-rock ore today, and it could be competitive with brine.
The team has designed a pilot plant and is looking for space to build it. The plan is to have construction done by the end of 2026 and start operating the facility in 2027. Talks are underway with potential partners in the mining industry.
One difficulty for new players in lithium extraction is the volatility of the market: Prices have seen huge swings in recent years, from a peak in 2022 to lows in late 2024 and a slow climb starting in early 2026.
Rising prices might benefit new players like Rock Zero, but there are many projects that could come online if prices continue to rise, and that could bring the market right back down, says Simon Jowitt, chair of exploration geology at the University of Nevada, Reno. “People are waiting to see what happens with the lithium price,” he says. “It’s a crowded market, and there’s some big players out there.”
And even though batteries are driving up demand for lithium, the market is still relatively small, Jowitt adds: “That means it’s going to be volatile.” New lithium extraction technologies like Rock Zero’s will have to compete with methods used by existing giants, and there’s also the potential that technological alternatives, like sodium-ion batteries that don’t need lithium, could make the market more difficult to navigate, Jowitt says. He also thinks some of the company’s economic estimates could be optimistic.
For its part, Rock Zero’s team hopes not only to scale this technology for lithium, but to use it for other minerals in the future. As Mowbray says, “The Earth’s crust is made of silicates.”
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RFK Jr. removed two snakes from Dr. Oz’s patio, bare-hand grabbing the black racers, one of which briefly tangled with his tie. That species, while not venomous, often bites and defecates a foul-smelling musk when handled. Send news tips and bad ideas to John.Wilkerson@statnews.com or John_Wilkerson.07 on Signal.
What is MFN anyway?
Let’s be honest. Most favored nation is one of those odd terms, like “direct and indirect remuneration,” that drug policy folks casually use as though they mean something.
<![CDATA[Phase 3 data show COMP360 psilocybin rapidly lifts treatment-resistant depression, with durable MADRS gains and stronger effects from two sessions.]]>
As global population aging accelerates, preventing and treating cognitive impairment has become a major public health priority. Music therapy is a safe, well-tolerated non-pharmacological intervention with substantial potential to improve cognitive function. This review synthesizes the neurologic music therapy (NMT) framework, encompassing techniques targeting attention, memory, and executive function, delivered through both active and receptive approaches. Clinical investigations indicate that music therapy may improve cognition and neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular cognitive impairment (VCI), Parkinson’s disease–related cognitive impairment, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and traumatic brain injury (TBI); however, effects appear to vary by intervention duration and disease stage. This narrative review aims to provide a theoretical foundation and practical guidance for the non-pharmacological intervention of cognitive impairment by collating evidence on the neuroplasticity theoretical foundations, technical systems, and clinical applications of music therapy.
Glaucoma is a heterogeneous group of irreversible and blinding optic neuropathies caused by multiple factors. It is clinically characterized by progressive loss of visual field and decline in visual acuity, ultimately culminating in complete blindness. Hallmark pathological features include progressive degeneration of retinal ganglion cells and atrophy of the optic nerve. Importantly, the pathological process of glaucoma extends far beyond the eyeball, involving transsynaptic degeneration across the entire visual pathway. Microglia, as the principal immune regulators of the central nervous system, serve as the earliest sensors and effectors in the pathogenesis of glaucoma. By modulating synaptic plasticity, microglia contribute to synaptic loss and the disruption of neural circuits. They also play essential roles in maintaining neural tissue homeostasis. This review summarizes current evidence and underlying mechanisms of bidirectional transsynaptic degeneration in glaucoma. It highlights that targeting microglial functional homeostasis, particularly their regulation of synaptic plasticity, may be a promising strategy to mitigate glaucoma-associated transsynaptic degeneration and promote central neuroprotection.
BackgroundAdvanced Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is generally regarded as a stage of irreversible functional decline. Psilocybin is known to transiently alter large-scale brain network dynamics and to induce plasticity-related mechanisms in preclinical models, yet clinical data in advanced dementia remain lacking.Case presentationWe report the case of an octogenarian Japanese-American woman with a 10-year history of Alzheimer’s disease, including 5 years of marked hypofunction and predominantly monosyllabic speech. Baseline features included chronic urinary incontinence, executive dysfunction, dysphagia, dependent mobility, flat affect, and severe reduction in spontaneous communication. The patient received 5 g of orally administered psilocybin-containing mushrooms (Enigma strain). The acute phase was marked by autonomic activation, clinically suspected hyperthermia, profuse sweating, and a prolonged deep sleep-like state. Approximately 19 h post-administration, spontaneous autobiographical speech emerged. Over subsequent days and weeks, functional improvements included restoration of urinary continence, improved ambulation, autonomous dressing, increased emotional responsiveness, sustained social interaction, contextual memory retrieval, preserved working memory for social context, and spontaneous conversational engagement.ConclusionThis case documents transient multidomain functional improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following psilocybin administration. The findings do not imply disease reversal but suggest that residual functional capacity may persist in late-stage neurodegeneration and may become transiently accessible under specific neuromodulatory conditions.
