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Kasian Franks, Founder And CEO“What we do not know about human physiological limitations hinders our ability to plan a human exploration campaign beyond LEO (low-Earth orbit). The most limiting factor that makes human space exploration a risky endeavor is strictly dependent on safety issues. Therefore, the principal barriers to human exploration far from LEO are those given by the limits of medicine," says Nancy Atkinson, author of We Don't Know Enough About the Biomedical Challenges of Deep Space Exploration.
Scientists are conducting extensive research to develop countermeasures (e.g. drug repurposing) for DNA damage and muscle and bone atrophy. The data acquired from these studies using language modeling, the foundation of generative AI, can be used to develop new therapies and precision medicines for all mankind.
Vector Space Biosciences, is spearheading this journey, in collaboration with leading scientific labs and institutions, through its state-of-the-art language modeling tools such as SLMs (Small Language Models) and LLMs (Large Language Models) and biological CubeSat program. Leveraging its three divisions in tandem - biosciences lab, AI, language modeling & discovery lab, and hardware lab - it collects and studies data related to the effect of space exploration on the human body and uses its proprietary language models to identify hidden relationships within the data.
“There will be no space race without space biosciences, which also results in new marketable therapies and precision medicine for everyone on the ground,” says Kasian Franks, Founder and CEO of Vector Space Biosciences.
Placing pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies at the forefront of scientific breakthroughs, they can leverage this invaluable data for discoveries and advancements in the biosciences biosciences field, for example, Merck's development of Keytruda which leveraged the ISS (International Space Station).
Unlocking Valuable Data on Space Stressors
Vector Space Biosciences deals with two primary stressors— radiation and microgravity.
Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) carry a small amount of heavier particles that can penetrate the body and cause double-strand DNA breaks, leading to chromosomal aberrations. These abnormalities result in the production of malformed proteins, increasing the likelihood of cancer.
Microgravity is also a prominent space stressor. A NASA study conducted on astronaut Scott Kelly and his twin, who remained on Earth, showed that microgravity during space travel had caused the loss of seven percent of body mass, thirty percent of heart mass, and a significant amount of bone density. Solving muscle atrophy and dystrophy is crucial for prolonged health.
Vector Space Biosciences aims to protect astronauts by contributing to the creation of therapies that can combat space-related ailments. Creating these therapies could entail drug repurposing, drug development, or exploring nutrigenomics solutions.
It deepens the understanding of microgravity and radiation stressors and their effect on the human body, profiling an astronaut’s genome, epigenome, microbiome, inflammasome, and matrisome—the extracellular matrix (ECM) that supports cellular connectivity.
The ECM plays a crucial role in maintaining healthy tissue integrity and communication between cells. As particles from space affect an astronaut’s body, they can disrupt the ECM, leading to ailments that affect muscle, the brain’s decisionmaking abilities, and more.
It has shared its expertise and insights with NASA GeneLab and is currently collaborating with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to spearhead a groundbreaking CubeSat program that will stand at the center of its operations. By beaming data back down to the ground to a Microsoft Azure Space base station, they combine that data with other clinical trial data to develop new therapies in precision medicine for all mankind.
These compact satellites are equipped with state-of-the-art biological experimentation instrumentation, collecting valuable data on the effect of microgravity and radiation on controlled specimens. This project holds the key to the discovery of critical insights for the customers of Vector Space Biosciences research, which include biotechs and pharmas.
Cracking the Code of Hidden Molecular
Relationships Vector Space Biosciences’ language modeling capabilities form the foundation of its ability to make revolutionary discoveries. Unlike the language models for chatbots, such as ChatGPT and other similar applications, its language models can interpret human and nonhuman languages like molecular sequences. It is collaborating with NVIDIA and Oracle to develop language models and combine them with other models to achieve superior results in terms of precision and accuracy.
“We are focused on making discoveries, moving beyond the typical language model to change the way certain ailments are treated,” says Franks.
Data from a CubeSat, which is launched in collaboration with companies like SpaceX'sRideShare, is analyzed by the language models to identify new connections between proteins, pathways, drug compounds, and molecular sequences. Vectors with feature attributes are extracted from this data to construct correlation matrix datasets, which are then transformed into graph networks and relationship networks, driving the discovery of hidden relationships between the data elements.
To ensure the effectiveness of its language models, context control and context dependency are emphasized. Data is prepared for input into language models by pre-processing the data.
The models are fed data from published papers in renowned scientific repositories like the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed, and from databases that store molecular sequences of proteins impacted by drug compounds. By filtering data within a specific category, the scope of the language modeling is narrowed down and analysis accuracy is improved.
Showcasing the efficacy of Vector Space Biosciences’ language modeling is the prediction of a relationship between two proteins. It detected the hidden relationship when its language model analyzed data from PubMed. These proteins had never been mentioned together in published papers and had not been experimentally validated. An experiment in a peer-reviewed published paper later confirmed the relationship between the two proteins, validating this prediction.
Vector Space Biosciences emphasizes dataset security and provenance throughout its operations. It acknowledges that datasets are a new attack surface, and any malicious alteration can have severe consequences.
To this end, it uses blockchain technology to ensure data lineage and governance. The VXV utility token contains secure datasets and offers an additional layer of security and transparency that give clients the ability to track provenance.
Its world-class scientific advisory board includes noteworthy labs, like City of Hope, Imperial College of London, University College London, IFO Rome, Cal Poly and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, which has fifteen Nobel laureates.
Providing pharmaceuticals and biotechnology companies with valuable insights into protein relationships, Vector Space Biosciences enables them to make breakthrough discoveries and advance scientific understanding. Its ability to predict future and latent relationships between proteins clearly positions it as a leader in the field.
The company’s language modeling capabilities are applicable in various industries. Vectorspace AI, its subsidiary, uses proprietary language models to bring state-of-the-art products to financial markets. For example, its thematic basket generator identifies hidden connections between stocks and global events, providing investors with real-time information on the affected stocks. This enables traders and institutions to take advantage of changing stock prices during worldwide developments.
“We find treatments for diseases caused by spaceflight, a difficult environment for humans, helping solve the same problems for everyone on Earth”
Biosciences with Expert-Driven Innovation
A diverse team sits at the core of Vector Space Biosciences’ operations, with experts in biosciences, hardware and CubeSat development, language modeling, machine learning, AI, data engineering, and visualization. The brilliant minds that moved on from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to form the organization are highly experienced in computer science, genomics, computational biology, and life sciences.
Without understanding how to protect and repair the human body during spaceflight, we simply wont be establishing lunar bases or going to Mars. However, if we focus on creating solutions in this area now, we can develop and repurpose new therapeutic applications in precision medicine that benefit all mankind, today. This is the focus of Vector Space Biosciences
Vector Space Biosciences plans to offer interested Biotech and Pharma organizations the opportunity to design experiments that can be launched in biological CubeSats. By 2024, it aims to achieve two to three launches per week, surpassing the frequency of launches by other providers. It aims to serve as an implementation and launch partner for biotech and pharma companies and consulting firms like Deloitte, which has a space consulting unit.
Collaborating with leading scientific labs, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical companies, Vector Space Biosciences is driving the future of bioscience research, enabling new hypotheses development, discoveries, insights, and interpretations. It is leading the charge in the quest for enhanced well-being and resilience in space and on Earth, with its work paramount to achieving critical milestones in this journey.
If you’d like to participate, SBIO is in the process of registering as the security token for Vector Space Biosciences and is trading on Lbank at https://www.lbank.com/trade/sbio_usdt/, and on Probit at https://www.probit.com/app/exchange/SBIO-USDT with listings on additional platforms coming soon. See Kasian Frank's interview in the Nasdaq studies at https://www.newtothestreet. com/category/vector-space-biosciences. Reach out to us at info@ vectorspacebio.science.
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