#105 - Tick-borne nairoviruses & nuclear nibbling
The coffee break biotech roundup, by SomX.
Hello, my fellow venture capitalists,
This week: tick-borne nairoviruses have found a new way to dodge human immune signals, an Apple Tree partner has been ordered to hand over control of the biotech venture fund, biotech IPOs in H1 2026 have already beaten 2025’s year-total tally, Harvard hosts the world’s largest longevity conference, and German researchers discover that bacteria will hoover up dissolved uranium if you give them a glycerol snack.
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🪲 Tick-borne nairoviruses use OTU proteases to evade human antiviral signals (GEN): Scientists studying the not-so-humble tick have discovered a new pathogenic concern: nairoviruses. These RNA viruses, spread by ticks in Asia, Europe, Africa and the US, can cause high fevers, severe headaches, and organ dysfunction in humans. The researchers examined four emerging nairoviruses – SGLV, TTV1, YEZV, and PCTNV – revealing that the enzyme ovarian tumour protease (OTU) strips away the protein tags ubiquitin and ISG15, which activate human immune responses. PCTNV, carried by ticks on the Pacific Coast, had the strongest immune-dodging effect.
Our take: Each summer, it seems we are at the mercy of new tick-borne diseases and scientists are not resting on their laurels (Editor’s note: I cannot find out if Dodos carried ticks, but feathered dinosaurs certainly did!) In this study, the team resolved high‑resolution crystal structures of several OTU proteases, in order to train computational models and predict the threat of emerging nairoviruses before they spread. The research paints a compelling picture of tick diversity; it’s not just Lyme disease we should be looking out for!
⚖️ Judge orders Apple Tree partner to forfeit oversight of venture fund (BioPharma Dive): A Cayman Islands court has ordered Seth Harrison, general partner of biotech VC Apple Tree Partners, to hand control of the fund to two court-appointed directors. The ruling caps a year-long legal fight with primary backer Rigmora – tied to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev – which pledged $1.5B to ATP back in 2012. A parallel US bankruptcy case rumbles on, with Harrison himself emerging as a bidder for ATP’s portfolio companies.
Our take: Spare a thought for the biotechs caught in the middle. ATP’s portfolio companies – including Red Queen Therapeutics and Ascidian Therapeutics – all have staff and patients relying on funding that’s now tied up in a boardroom fight. Just last year, Delaware courts sided with ATP, ordering Rigmora to pay roughly $97M to meet its capital commitments to its startups. Let’s hope the science survives the litigation.
📈 Biotech IPOs surge in H1 of 2026, shattering records and doubling last year’s total (BioSpace): 18 biotechs went public in the first half of 2026, already more than double 2025’s rather meagre total of eight. Two of them, obesity player Kailera and peptide outfit Parabilis, set new records for the largest biotech IPO ever, at $625M and $670M respectively. Of the US contingent, seven (of 13) have already shown strong performance, with hair-loss biotech Veradermics leading the way – up a jolly 550% since its February debut.
Our take: 2026 looks set to become biotech’s strongest IPO year since the market highs of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021 produced around 100 IPOs). Two biotechs hoping to join the IPO bandwagon are CRISPR engineers Scribe Therapeutics – despite only having one candidate in the clinic – and metabolic upstart Kalohexis, which has two lead assets for durable weight loss and cancer cachexia in clinical trials.
🎓 Harvard University hosts the world’s largest conference dedicated to longevity biotechnology (News Medical): The ‘13th Aging Research & Drug Discovery Meeting’ lands at Harvard in October, kicking off Boston Longevity Week. Organised by Insilico Medicine, the meeting’s headline sponsor is Eli Lilly, with AbbVie, BioAge, and Morgan Stanley rounding out the sponsor list. Tracks span clinical development, AI drug discovery, and future tech, with executives from ten of the world’s largest pharma companies confirmed to speak.
Our take: No longer just the domain of health-maxxers (this old Dodo prays this is a phrase!), longevity science has transitioned from trendy buzzword to a multi-billion-dollar category. At last year’s conference, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk proposed that GLP-1 agonists may well be the first longevity drugs (read the article in Nature Biotechnology). With a slew of pharma companies now developing longevity programs across areas such as fibrosis, anti-muscle-wasting and cellular rejuvenation, who knows what headlines will emerge this year.
And finally…
☢️ Bacteria turn dissolved uranium into stable compound in 130 days, study finds (Phys.org): Give a microbe a glycerol snack, and it will hoover up radioactive waste in water. That’s the finding of German and Spanish researchers, who fed the stuff to bugs living in water from a flooded mine in the Ore Mountains. 130 days later, 95% of the dissolved uranium had been packed away into their cell walls as FeU(V)O4, a rare pentavalent compound thought to be atmospherically stable.
Our take: These chemical findings have obvious environmental implications, and the authors plan to investigate the extent to which bacteria might help render toxic uranium harmless for remediation purposes. By mimicking a deep mine’s natural low-oxygen conditions, the team has a lead on what might trigger the same reaction in the wild – without needing to tip glycerol into a mine by the tanker-load.
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🕵️ You have plenty to hide from AI: AI has dissolved the friction that once made mass surveillance data practically harmless, putting cheaply available personal data within easy reach of governments, foreign powers, and ad brokers.
🏘️ The data centre next door: Environmental health scientist Jacoby Wilson explains how data centres bring noise, water consumption, and rising utility bills disproportionately to working-class neighbourhoods, and what regulatory tools could push back.
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💡 22.07 | Startup Lab x Specialist Briefings: AI Innovation vs. Regulation - Is the UK Falling Behind or Playing it Safe? | London, UK: An evening panel with Curistica, Aival, ZINC and RADIANT picking apart whether the UK’s regulatory posture on digital health is a prudent guardrail or growth-throttling bureaucracy.
It seems that the fledglings have begun to fly the nest this summer and are having a well-earned break, which means we’re all quiet on the event front. However, get in touch if you know of any upcoming biotech events that should be on our radar! Post an event here
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