Remember back in 2018 when the plague of electric scooters descended upon our lands, wreaking havoc, ruining days, and cluttering up sidewalks? The very natural response was to subject these seemingly endless scooters to violence and terror in the hopes that they would leave our families and our children in peace. To fight back, Ford’s scooter company, Spin, is going to start snitching on you when you take our your bad day on a scooter.

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Yeah. Ford and Spin have teamed up with Drover AI, an artificial intelligence company that’s developed a technology that can detect improper scooter riding and parking with up to 95 percent accuracy, according to a Ford press release.

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This tech, called Spin Insight Level 2, uses Drover AI’s computer vision, machine learning, cameras, and sensors to map out the path ahead of the scooter to tell if, say, you’re riding too fast, or if you’re riding on a sidewalk instead of a proper scootering lane, or if you just dump the fucker off in the middle of the street.

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Spin is saying this will “assist riders in making safe decisions.” It sounds like these scooters are just going to snitch on us for the tipsy ride home we take from the bar. And the company is pursuing permits for these bad boys right now.

Here’s more from the release:

Additionally, the technology will enable Spin to share accurate insights with cities about the prevalence and location of sidewalk riding and bike lane riding, which can be used to identify potential congestion issues and road damage and highlight areas that may benefit from infrastructure improvements.

Akin to advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) that use on-board sensors to help automobile drivers park, brake, and stay in their lanes, Spin Insight Level 2 has the ability to combine the latest in sensor and artificial intelligence technologies to enable local regulation compliance enforcement and create a safer experience for riders and pedestrians.

Again—it just sounds like Spin is going to tell on anyone attempting to get away with questionable riding.

Better, Faster, Stronger: 5 Trends Impacting Biopharmaceutical Science

While 2020 has been an incredibly trying year, it has also resulted in notable achievements. These milestones, from vaccine development to new modalities, have transformed the biopharmaceutical industry. Here, we look back on five trends that have influenced the industry this year that will continue to shape it in 2021 and beyond.

More analytes than ever before
Traditional engineered protein and monoclonal antibody drugs continue to account for a large percentage of new biologics under development, but next-generation modalities including cell and gene therapies, multi-specifics and genetic vaccines and therapeutics, to name just a few, are experiencing explosive growth. 

Consequently, there is an increasing need for highly flexible analytical systems useful for the rapid characterization of many types of analytes with sensitivity, precision and high resolution. These systems must be capable of separating, detecting and identifying multiple analytes simultaneously across a broad range of concentrations in complex matrices.

Often the analytes have highly similar structures, such as nanobodies differentiated by just a deamidation or two. Protein contaminants from host cells and media, which can have a negative impact on safety and efficacy, also present analytical challenges. Developing an effective single assay that can analyze the different host-cell protein (HCP) profiles (up to 1,000 or more in each host cell) has not been possible using conventional ligand binding assays.

A simple, quick, and effective technique with exceptional resolving power and a high degree of precision, capillary electrophoresis (CE) is increasingly being used to check and confirm the purity, heterogeneity, and glycan association of biologic drugs of all types. Specialized and standardized reagents and kits optimized for specific CE methods, such as capillary isoelectric focusing (CIEF), capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE), CE-sodium dodecyl sulfate (CE-SDS) and purposes CE – laser induced fluorescence (CE-LIF) offer complete workflow solutions that are precise, but also simple and flexible enough for quality control applications.

CE is also being combined with mass spectrometric methods for a range of analyses required during the development and commercialization of next-generation modalities. Meanwhile, liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) leveraging a data-independent acquisition technique has proven to offer substantially more comprehensive coverage, dramatically faster and simpler assay development, better indications of biotransformation and analyte characterization, fewer false negatives, and cheaper reagents when multiplexed. For instance, this method can detect HCPs from different organisms simultaneously and identify and quantify all the HCPs in a single injection regardless of their concentration. In addition, it can be applied to any biologic, including cell and gene therapies, without the typical 1.5-2-year development effort.

Demand for novel vaccines at all-time high
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred unprecedented activity in the development of new vaccines. A range of traditional and cutting-edge vaccine development approaches are being pursued. Genetic vaccines based on naked DNA plasmids, viral vectors and mRNA that leverage robust, scalable platform manufacturing concepts and integrated processes have shortened timelines. Advanced analytics are playing a crucial role in ensuring the safety and efficacy of these new vaccines as they are rapidly developed and commercialized.

Many analytical technologies initially developed for protein therapeutics have been modified to address the assessment needs for genetic vaccines. CE-LIF provides a rapid, sensitive, reproducible, and automated method for the quantitative analysis of plasmid DNA isoforms and mRNA detection, separation, and sizing. It is important to consider what unique chemistries to analyze when completing routine or difficult automated Sanger genome sequencing.

LC-MS/MS can be leveraged for identification and quantification of HCPs and other contaminants in viral vector capsids. Confirmation of the LNP composition of formulated mRNA vaccines can also be achieved using LC-MS/MS with a targeted lipidomic assay, scheduled multi-reaction monitoring (MRM) and fast polarity switching, allowing the identification and quantification of nearly 1150 different polar and neutral lipids.

Regardless of the vaccine technology, confirmation that the desired antigen is expressed, and adequate T-cell responses are achieved, is essential. State-of-the-art MS, CE-LIF and multiplex genome analyses can help support manufacturers in this confirmation phase.

Unchartered territory with new modalities
In addition to new genetic vaccines, many new RNA- and DNA-based therapies such as oligonucleotide antiviral drugs, viral and other gene therapies, various types of cell and gene-modified cell therapies, bi- and tri-specific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates bi-specific T-cell engagers, peptibodies and nanobodies are under development today.

These newer modalities overcome some of the limitations of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), such as enabling simultaneous binding to multiple sites, greater stability, and the ability to access solid tissues and cross the blood-brain barrier. However, the complexity of these new modalities and processes can yield numerous variants. Titers are also generally much lower (10-50%) than those for mAbs.

The diversity and greater complexity create a higher analytical burden beginning at the clone selection stage through process development and commercial production.  It is necessary to distinguish molecules with minor structural differences at low concentrations. Additional sensitivity and separation resolution are therefore essential when developing analytical methods for these new modalities.

To overcome these challenges, existing trusted mAb methods are being adjusted for variants during assay development. As an example, CE-SDS, cIEF, CZE and fast glycan analyses for peptibody and nanobody analyses may be optimized by increasing the percentage of reagents in the sample, using different reagents, lowering the pH and changing the temperature and time of the analysis.

The industry has been working towards alternative orthogonal techniques (instead of just modified mAb methods) that can address the specific complexity of mAb variants. Hyphenated techniques such as Capillary Electrophoresis paired with mass spectrometry (CE-MS) can support analysis of charge variants of intact nanobodies even with mass differences of just 1-2 Daltons.

High resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) can ensure sufficient resolution of parent oligos and major and minor metabolites for oligonucleotide antiviral drugs.

For characterization of multispecifics on the subunit level, increased throughput can be achieved using a LC-MS/MS system with differential mobility separation (DMS) technology. This technique enables separation of protein subunits and unambiguous characterization of each chain with a single injection and without the need for chromatographic separation, reducing the overall time required to complete studies.

Patients need therapies quicker
For developers of both traditional and next-generation therapies, time to market is critical. For new modalities that target specific genes, the urgency is even greater; the first to market wins ─ there is no second place.

The key to improving the manufacturing of gene and other novel therapies is therefore development of consistent, scalable, high-yielding platform processes and rapid analytical methods. Without speedy assays, the ability to fully understand all the relevant process parameters and how they impact product quality attributes is limited, which prevents the development of robust processes.

Advances in automation and data analysis have the potential to reduce analysis times as well as simplify analyses while increasing consistency and accuracy. These assays must also have greater sensitivity and preci