The Needle

ISSUE 11 Welcome to the Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science to help you navigate the latest translational research, with a roundup of the latest news on biotech startups from around the world. This week we’re “stuck” on the fast-moving field of ‘molecular’ glue drugs. This is an area that is going places, with a steady stream of new ventures (by our count nearly 30 companies still in the preclinical stages), a burgeoning stream of papers describing new compounds in the literature and...

ISSUE 10 Welcome to another issue of the Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science helping you understand the latest translational research and the latest news from around the world on biotech startups. Over the past few days, CAR-T cell therapies have been front and center in the news. Not your typical ex vivo CAR-T, but Capstan Therapeutics’ therapy that directly reprograms patient T cells in situ, which was the focus for a high-profile merger with AbbVie at the end of June. There...

ISSUE 9 Welcome to the latest issue of the Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science helping you navigate the latest translational research and the latest news in early-stage biotech. After a busy week up in Boston at RESI 2025 and BIO, there was a lot to digest. So, it took us a bit longer to send out our roundup. This week, the immunoproteosome is in our crosshairs with an exciting new study revealing its involvement in neurometabolism and neuroinflammation. Neuroinflammation was a...

ISSUE 8 Welcome to the latest issue of the Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science helping you understand the latest translational research and goings on in the biotech startup world. This week, we talk about mitochondrial disease, a corner of the gene and base-editing universe that, until recently, had been somewhat neglected, at least in terms of biotech startups. Also, there was the usual harvest of papers describing drug targets and a couple of intriguing drug delivery papers. We...

ISSUE 7 Welcome to the latest issue of the Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science on the latest translational research and goings on in the biotech startup world. This week, we take a look at an exciting breakthrough in hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy using lentiviral vectors injected directly into the body. There was an unusually large slew of interesting therapeutic papers, including a description from Insilico Medicine of the discovery of an asset from its internal...

ISSUE 6 Welcome to the latest issue of the Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science on preclinical biotech. This week, we look forward to the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago and describe a new mechanism to improve on the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy by inhibiting adenosine transport in lymphocytes. We also highlight new substantial risk investment funding designated to early-stage dementia therapies, as well as state-led funding efforts in cancer...

Welcome to the latest issue of the Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science on preclinical biotech. This week, we take a look at all the action at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Meeting in New Orleans and announcements around next-generation DNA and RNA editing technologies, with one base editing therapy for an ultrarare disease grabbing the headlines. It was a slow week for industry news, but there were a notable number of deals and financings for companies out of...