A Houston-based software startup received a multimillion-dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health for its work within neurophysiology. Getty Images

Armed with a nearly $3.8 million federal grant, a Houston startup aims to boost neuroscience research around the world.

Vathes LLC, a developer of data management software that collaborates with neuroscience research labs in North America and Europe, recently received the $3.78 million grant from the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). That initiative is part of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Vathes says the NIH funding will enable the startup to ramp up its DataJoint Pipelines for Neurophysiology project. The project aims to make open-source software for data science and engineering available to researchers who specialize in neurophysiology, a branch of neuroscience that looks at how the nervous system functions. The pipeline project holds the promise of benefiting research in areas like autism, Alzheimer's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

The project's principal investigator is Dimitri Yatsenko, vice president of research and development at Vathes. Technologically speaking, neuroscientists are playing catch-up with their counterparts in fields like astrophysics, genomics, and bioinformatics, according to Yatsenko.

Neuroscience "is undergoing a fast transformation in terms of moving toward much more data-centric, data-intensive, computation-intensive, and collaborative projects," Yatsenko says. This means that neuroscientists are "now finding themselves having to quickly adapt to an environment," he adds, "where they have to share big data and computations with their collaborators in very dynamic settings and perform them in a very fluid way."

Yatsenko says the NIH-funded project will help smaller research groups tap into the technical expertise of larger research labs.

Vathes' DataJoint Neuro platform and services, which help create so-called DataJoint pipelines, enable neuroscientists to streamline, analyze, and visualize complex data. Among its customers are Princeton University's Neuroscience Institute and Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute. The federally funded project will empower smaller labs to capitalize on existing DataJoint pipelines as ready-to-go turnkey packages, Yatsenko says.

In essence, Vathes' technology acts as a translator. Big research labs collect data in databases that can vary by computer language and platform. Through the Vathes setup, that data can be incorporated by a lab of any size into algorithmic, machine learning, and artificial intelligence mechanisms, regardless of the computer language or platform.

Edgar Walker, CEO of Vathes, says this simplifies the construction and use of databases, giving scientists "more room to focus on the logic of their data pipeline rather than on the physical implementation of it."

Founded in 2016, Vathes is housed at the Texas Medical Center's Innovation Institute. It employs 10 people. The startup previously received a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Yatsenko says the project backed by the $3.78 million NIH grant will propel the startup's growth, as it "gives us a big window of opportunity" to provide tools and services that support the startup's open-source software.

"As the NIH and other funding agencies are shifting a lot of their focus to collaborative projects that are distributed among multiple institutions," Walker says, "we've established a reputation as the company that can facilitate such research, be efficient, and actually be cost-effective as well, and make the projects very smooth."

"We expect to continue to grow this business at the same exponential rate," he adds. "We'll keep our fingers crossed and see how things go."


CEO Edgar Walker (left) and Dimitri Yatsenko, vice president of research and development, lead Houston-based Vathes. Photos courtesy of Vathes

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Axiom Space-tested cancer drug advances to clinical trials

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A cancer-fighting drug tested aboard several Axiom Space missions is moving forward to clinical trials.

Rebecsinib, which targets a cancer cloning and immune evasion gene, ADAR1, has received FDA approval to enter clinical trials under active Investigational New Drug (IND) status, according to a news release. The drug was tested aboard Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) and Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3). It was developed by Aspera Biomedicine, led by Dr. Catriona Jamieson, director of the UC San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute (SSCI).

The San Diego-based Aspera team and Houston-based Axiom partnered to allow Rebecsinib to be tested in microgravity. Tumors have been shown to grow more rapidly in microgravity and even mimic how aggressive cancers can develop in patients.

“In terms of tumor growth, we see a doubling in growth of these little mini-tumors in just 10 days,” Jamieson explained in the release.

Rebecsinib took part in the patient-derived tumor organoid testing aboard the International Space Station. Similar testing is planned to continue on Axiom Station, the company's commercial space station that's currently under development.

Additionally, the drug will be tested aboard Ax-4 under its active IND status, which was targeted to launch June 25.

“We anticipate that this monumental mission will inform the expanded development of the first ADAR1 inhibitory cancer stem cell targeting drug for a broad array of cancers," Jamieson added.

According to Axiom, the milestone represents the potential for commercial space collaborations.

“We’re proud to work with Aspera Biomedicines and the UC San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute, as together we have achieved a historic milestone, and we’re even more excited for what’s to come,” Tejpaul Bhatia, the new CEO of Axiom Space, said in the release. “This is how we crack the code of the space economy – uniting public and private partners to turn microgravity into a launchpad for breakthroughs.”

Chevron enters the lithium market with major Texas land acquisition

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Chevron U.S.A., a subsidiary of Houston-based energy company Chevron, has taken its first big step toward establishing a commercial-scale lithium business.

Chevron acquired leaseholds totaling about 125,000 acres in Northeast Texas and southwest Arkansas from TerraVolta Resources and East Texas Natural Resources. The acreage contains a high amount of lithium, which Chevron plans to extract from brines produced from the subsurface.

Lithium-ion batteries are used in an array of technologies, such as smartwatches, e-bikes, pacemakers, and batteries for electric vehicles, according to Chevron. The International Energy Agency estimates lithium demand could grow more than 400 percent by 2040.

“This acquisition represents a strategic investment to support energy manufacturing and expand U.S.-based critical mineral supplies,” Jeff Gustavson, president of Chevron New Energies, said in a news release. “Establishing domestic and resilient lithium supply chains is essential not only to maintaining U.S. energy leadership but also to meeting the growing demand from customers.”

Rania Yacoub, corporate business development manager at Chevron New Energies, said that amid heightening demand, lithium is “one of the world’s most sought-after natural resources.”

“Chevron is looking to help meet that demand and drive U.S. energy competitiveness by sourcing lithium domestically,” Yacoub said.

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapital.