Insilico Medicine announced LabClaw, an intelligent laboratory operating system designed to enable autonomous coordination across AI-driven drug discovery workflows. Integrated with the company’s automated LifeStar2 laboratory, the system combines AI-based decision-making, robotic execution, and human oversight within a unified framework.

LabClaw connects target identification, experimental design, automated execution, and data analysis into a closed-loop process supported by multiple specialized AI agents. The platform also incorporates human-in-the-loop validation at key steps to ensure scientific and regulatory oversight.

The system is designed to address limitations of existing laboratory automation, including rigid workflows, fragmented data integration, and high coordination demands. By enabling natural language-driven experimental design and real-time data feedback, LabClaw supports more flexible and scalable research operations.

The development represents a step toward fully integrated, AI-enabled laboratory systems that link computational prediction with experimental validation to accelerate drug discovery.

Nature-based group activities can reduce loneliness, improve sleep and cognition, and increase a sense of connection to nature in older adults living in care homes.

In “Nature Communications,” Max Delbrück Center researchers show how immune cells initiate zebrafish heart regeneration, highlighting the possibility that precisely timed inflammatory signaling of specific immune cells — rather than broad suppression — could inform new approaches to cardiac repair.

Vaia Lida Chatzi, MD, PhD, professor of population and public health science and pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC has received the highly competitive Revolutionizing Innovative, Visionary Environmental health Research (RIVER) award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The $10 million grant will support research on the health effects of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), as well as efforts to translate these discoveries into real-world solutions. The new grant will fund research on the link between PFAS and metabolic conditions, including obesity, type 2 diabetes and metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease. Chatzi and her colleagues will combine several research methods to investigate these links and identify ways to reduce risk. They will conduct large-scale studies of more than 50,000 people, analyze human tissue samples in the lab, use advanced technology to search for a “signature” of PFAS exposure and work directly with affected communities to develop practical, tailored solutions.The project’s overarching goal is to build a “precision environmental health” approach that connects the dots between PFAS exposure, disease risk and ways to reduce that risk. In the coming years, the researchers aim to generate evidence to inform public health guidelines and regulatory decisions around PFAS. They also expect to create new tools to identify the earliest biological effects of PFAS exposure, as well as scalable strategies to reduce exposure and prevent disease.