Impact of Current

Efforts to Solve
Health Challenges

Created by Nicholas Salone

The Quest to Reverse-Engineer the Brain
● Scientists have been trying to re-create various processes of the human brain through different
forms of electronics and biotechnologies for a long time
● One of the most widely used examples of this is called the neural network
● Neural networks work by creating nodes that act as artificial neurons, being activated based on
parameters set up by the designer [1]
● Even though we make the neural networks, we still don’t know exactly what goes on between
the inputs and the output
● Some researches have decided that what many think of as a problem with a human brain, sleep,
might actually be necessary for artificial ones as well [2]
● Neural networks experience a decline in accuracy after extended processing time

Bullet 1 - Expand with examples of Frankenstein’s monster to current video game

Artificial intelligence
Bullet 4 - Explain about hidden layers in Neural networks and the difficulties we are
currently facing in making them better mimic human brain processes
Bullet 5 - Talk about Los Alamos National Laboratory, Garrett Kenyon and Yijing
Watkins discovery
Bullet 6 - Explain how researchers are solving this problem by introducing “sleep” to
their networks
Technical Details

● The issue at hand occurs mostly in neural networks

that are attempting to mimic human analogous
processes as a human would, for Los Alamos National
Laboratories this was an neural network learning to
see like a person [3]
● In order to try and stabilize the neural network the
researchers tried to use various different types of noise
to mimic a sleep state in order to stabilize the network The nodes of a neural network visualized
[6]
[3]
● Researchers Yijing Watkins and Garrett Kenyon
ultimately used Gaussian noise on the artificial neurons
to mimic the waves the human brains experience
during sleep on its neurons [3]

Bullet 1 - This is opposed to how an AI in a game may see, where they don’t a game
screen and colors like we do when perceiving the game, but rather data based on
how far the player is compared to them in the game world with global coordinates.
Humans instead need to rely on light being reflected off of surfaces and hitting our
eyes, where the image is then reversed by our brains and processed into what we
see.
Bullet 2 - Gaussian noise is used in many other applications in the Comp-Sci such as
random number generators
Outcomes of the work
● A period of exposure to Gaussian noise in between the processing
workloads ended up increasing the stability of the neural network [2]
● The next steps for the researches is to try and put the “sleep” algorithm
into Intel’s Loihi neuromorphic chip [3]

Bullet 2 - This will allow them to process information from a human eye analog
camera in real time
Value and Societal Impact
● The value of the discovery is in its ability to allow for the better replication of
human processes
● This also diminishes the chance at having super-human androids that can think
and act like us, without the need to eat or sleep
● This has potential to restore vision to the blind

Bullet 2 - While they may not need food, it seems that in order to think like a human
requires downtime, and that maybe mimicking human processes is not the best future
for androids and robots
Bullet 3 - Being able to replicate human eye processing in real-time in a stable way
might eventually lead to neural network powered eyes that can link up with our brains
to replicate vision in a human way
Using Yeast to Cure Cancer
● Yeast is known to many people as the thing that makes bread rise
● “Yeasts are eukaryotic unicellular microfungi that are widely distributed in the
natural environment.”[4]
● Scientists at Clemson University have been working on ways to genetically modify
certain species of yeast to create new medicine [5]

Bullet 1 - But there is a lot more to yeast than just that

Bullet 2 - There are around one thousand known species of yeast according to the
Encyclopedia of Microbiology
Bullet 3 - And the discoveries from these scientists are what will be discussed now
Technical Details
● A team of researchers at Clemson University led by Mark Blenner are developing ways
to use yeast in drug production[5]
● They create pharmaceutical compounds that are gathered in low amounts in plants by
replicating the plants genes in Yarrowia lipolytica yeast [5]
● “Flavonoids have cancer-fighting antioxidant properties and alkaloids could turn out to
be effective chemotherapeutics” - Mark Blenner [5]

Bullet 3 - The yeast species used in this research is a precursor that is needed to
make these Flavonoids and alkaloids
Next steps for the researchers
● “Blenner said that placing a plant gene in yeast can be done inexpensively.
However, it often fails to make protein correctly, he said, and the critical challenge
in the new research is to figure out why.” [5]
● “The team plans to analyze the genetically modified yeast with bioinformatics —
computer algorithms that help researchers understand large sets of biological
data.” [5]

Bullet 1 - The researchers have already figured out how to implant plant genes for
cheap, but still need to find a way to make it more efficient in making the protein. This
is one of their next challenges.
Bullet 2 - This goal of the researchers crosses lines with another NAE goal, that of
medical informatics. By combining the two fields with each other the researches will
hopefully be able to analyze the RNA in the genetically modified cells, and see how it
is producing the proteins
What could come of this?
● If scientists are able to perfect the yeast drugs many medicines may be made
more affordable
● Rare compounds that are impractical to use in medicine due to scarcity could
become viable
● Pharmaceutical companies may want to hinder growth in this field

Bullet 1 - It is a simple math to determine that cheaper ingredients equals a less

expensive to produce product
Bullet 2 - Compounds that we don’t have enough plants or natural resources that can
be feasibly farmed can instead be produced in the yeast, which could allow for higher
quality/ more potent drugs
Bullet 3 - “Big Pharma” is notorious for hiking up prices of drugs and making new drug
research nigh impossible without permission from the top companies. Some of their
ilk may try to put a stop to compound-producing yeasts if it would get in the way of
their profits, which is a very unfortunate but historically probable thing.
References
[1]"Neural Networks - What are they and why do they matter?", Sas.com, 2022. [Online]. Available:
https://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/analytics/neural-networks.html#:~:text=How%20Neural%20Networks%20Work,neuron%20
in%20a%20human%20brain.
[2]F. Lang, "Artificial Brains Need Sleep Just as Much as Regular Brains Do", Interestingengineering.com, 2022. [Online]. Available:
https://interestingengineering.com/artificial-brains-need-sleep-just-as-much-as-regular-brains-do.
[3]J. Riordon, "Artificial brains may need sleep too", Lanl.gov, 2022. [Online]. Available:
https://lanl.gov/discover/news-release-archive/2020/June/0608-artificial-brains.php.
[4]G. Walker, Encyclopedia of Microbiology, 3rd ed. Dundee: Academic Press, 2009, pp. Pages 478-491.

[5]"Engineering better medicines: Advances in genetically modifying yeast could help create new drugs · Clemson News", Clemson
News, 2022. [Online]. Available:
https://news.clemson.edu/engineering-better-medicines-advances-in-genetically-modifying-yeast-could-help-create-new-drugs/

[6] S. Gupta, Architecture of ANN. Knoldus Blogs, 2021. https://blog.knoldus.com/architecture-of-artificial-neural-network/