Jonathan Smith, Author at Labiotech.eu

About

Reporter for Labiotech. I hail from the UK. I was born in Bristol, studied Neuroscience in the University of Bristol, and trained mice in Eisai, Hertfordshire, for one year. I then tickled locusts for my Ph.D. at the University of Leicester, before eventually ending up here!
Out of the office, I travel, play video games and board games, drink beer and play the piano.

Articles by Jonathan Smith

Caszyme crispr climate change Anastasiia Slynko

Interview 17 Oct 2022

CRISPR gene editing: a key tool for counteracting climate change

Monika Paulė, CEO and co-founder of the Lithuanian CRISPR developer Caszyme, explains how gene editing technology could fight climate change by boosting agriculture and biodiversity. The invention of CRISPR-Cas gene editing technology in the last decade sparked a revolution in biology, providing researchers a way to make selective and precise changes to an organism’s genetic […]

October 17, 2022 - 6 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

boston bioworks precision fermentation Elena Resko

Startup Scout 13 Oct 2022

Boston Bioworks helps precision fermentation startups scale up

Precision fermentation startups have few options when looking for ways to scale up their technology. The newly launched scaling service provider Boston Bioworks aims to address this bottleneck. In the food protein industry, sustainability, climate change and animal welfare are a growing concern for many consumers, leading to soaring interest in alternative protein. This wide […]

October 13, 2022 - 5 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

Mike Nally Generate Biomedicines ai drug discovery

Interview 12 Oct 2022

Boosting pharma’s falling productivity with AI in drug discovery

The pharmaceutical industry is struggling with mounting costs of drug development. Generate Biomedicines’ CEO, Michael Nally, outlines the firm’s mission to tackle the trend by making drug discovery scalable. Over the decades, the pharma and biopharma industry has suffered a growing stagnation in productivity. According to a report from University College London in 2018, for […]

October 12, 2022 - 5 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

Anastasiia Slynko biotech investment 744x368 1

In Depth 11 Oct 2022

The biggest private biotech investments in September 2022

The companies Acelyrin, InnovaFeed and Arsenal Biosciences bagged the biggest biotech investments in September 2022, with insect protein and cell therapies attracting big funding rounds. Autumn is in full swing in the Northern Hemisphere. After a breather in August 2022, September saw the return of big fundraising activity for biotech companies. We’ve gathered the biggest […]

October 11, 2022 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

Startup Scout 29 Sep 2022

Baseimmune makes future-proof vaccines with AI

Baseimmune is using artificial intelligence (AI) to design vaccines that can protect against future variants of infectious diseases including COVID-19 and malaria. Big data has taken off in the last decade, with dramatic improvements in bioinformatics, data science and AI. These advances allow researchers to store and handle more and more data generated by research […]

September 29, 2022 - 6 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

Best in Biotech 28 Sep 2022

The 5 hottest private biotechs in South Africa

Biotechnology companies are sprouting in South Africa’s maturing life sciences industry. We’ve listed five private biotech companies that have turned heads in the last few years. South Africa boasts the second biggest economy in Africa after Nigeria. While famous for its rich mineral wealth, South Africa’s economy has diversified widely in the past decades to […]

September 28, 2022 - 5 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

Interview 28 Sep 2022

How the alternative protein space aims to address food waste

Food waste impacts the whole of society, including the field of alternative protein. Nick Cooney, managing partner of Lever VC, explains how companies and investors in the space aim to tackle the global problem. This week, the UN and its food security-focused arm, the Food and Agriculture Organization, celebrate the International Day of Awareness of […]

September 28, 2022 - 7 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

kai pinkernell glycostem nk cell therapy

Interview 27 Sep 2022

Natural killer cells: a thriving frontier in allogeneic cell therapy

Kai Pinkernell, chief medical officer at Glycostem, discusses how natural killer (NK) cell therapies could usher in off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapies. Since their first approvals in 2017, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell immunotherapies have showcased the potential of immuno-oncology in providing long-lasting treatments for cancer. This impact was felt in not just the CAR-T cell therapy […]

September 27, 2022 - 6 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

Interview 26 Sep 2022

Rapid diagnostics are needed to tackle antimicrobial resistance

As the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis grows, bacterial infections are becoming harder to treat. Chris Lock, vice president of R&D at the mass spectrometry specialist SCIEX, discusses how rapid diagnostics can help doctors wield antimicrobial treatments more effectively. The AMR crisis is growing increasingly severe, resulting in superbugs that are able to shrug off multiple […]

September 26, 2022 - 5 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

Startup Scout 22 Sep 2022

Cartography Biosciences unearths cancer immunotherapy targets

Despite its meteoric growth in the last twenty years, cancer immunotherapy research is hamstrung by a lack of viable drug targets. Cartography Biosciences is using a single-cell sequencing approach to meet this demand. Immuno-oncology as a field barely existed 20 years ago, but has rapidly grown into a thriving field of biotechnology research. This has […]

September 22, 2022 - 5 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

Best in Biotech 21 Sep 2022

The 5 hottest biotech companies making waves in Israel

Despite its small population, Israel hosts a high concentration of startups. Here’s a collection of the hottest biotech companies raising big cash in the Middle Eastern nation. Historically, Israel’s biotech industry has been viewed as secondary to its thriving medtech scene. However, in spite of a population of just 9 million people, the nation has […]

September 21, 2022 - 6 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

In Depth 20 Sep 2022

Looming challenges for Europe’s cell and gene therapy space

The double whammy of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have posed major logistical challenges for the development of cell and gene therapies (CGTs) in the last two years. In spite of these obstacles, Europe’s CGT market is catching up to that of the U.S. The CGT space experienced a shot in the arm in the […]

September 20, 2022 - 7 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith

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The twelve hottest biotech companies in the Boston area

Biotech bankruptcies: what to expect in 2024 following a record year?

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RNA editing set to take off: could it outperform gene editing?

Future of cancer treatment: what will therapy look like in 2034?

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