MIT Researchers Stunned to Learn Human Bodies Not Just Bags of DNA, Actually Have Other Stuff in Them
In a breakthrough that will shock absolutely no one with a high school biology education, a team of MIT spinout researchers has finally discovered that the human body is made of more than just genes. Yes, apparently, metabolism—even that thing responsible for your ill-fated New Year’s weight loss resolutions—actually plays a key role in health and disease. Groundbreaking.
ReviveMed, a company founded by MIT alum Leila Pirhaji, has created a cutting-edge AI-powered system to analyze metabolites, which are basically the tiny molecules hanging out in your body, like cholesterol, sugar, and lipids. You know, the everyday villains doctors have been nagging you about for decades. Now, instead of relying on old-school knowledge like “maybe cut back on the deep-fried butter,” we can just use artificial intelligence to figure out why people get sick.
“For too long, medicine has focused on genes while completely ignoring the biochemical soup sloshing around inside us,” said Pirhaji. “We realized that if we squint hard enough at a spreadsheet filled with thousands of unreadable data points, maybe we can solve disease.”
The discovery came after Pirhaji, during her PhD, received a massive Excel file filled with metabolite data and was told to ignore most of it because researchers had no idea what it meant. Instead of doing the logical thing—closing the laptop and taking a nap—she decided to build an entire company around deciphering this metabolic gibberish.
Now, ReviveMed is helping major pharmaceutical companies fine-tune their miracle drugs by figuring out why some patients respond well to treatment while others…well, don’t. This means Big Pharma will now have an even more precise way of charging people exorbitant amounts of money for medication that may or may not actually work.
The startup is also “democratizing” this research by making its AI models freely available to academic researchers. Translation: Science nerds around the world can now spend their sleepless nights staring at digital simulacra of human metabolisms.
As part of this effort, ReviveMed has developed “digital twins” of patients, sophisticated AI models that can predict who might develop cardiovascular disease, thus allowing doctors to say, “Oh no, you’re doomed,” with remarkable accuracy, decades in advance.
“Leila has solved incredible challenges in turning an academic idea into a real-world tool,” said MIT professor Ernest Fraenkel. “And if we monetize this correctly, I believe we can finally reach our ultimate goal—understanding the human body just enough to continue making money off of it indefinitely.”
In the meantime, experts advise consumers not to hold their breath. “It’s exciting technology, but while AI is mapping out biochemical pathways, we still haven’t figured out a cure for the common cold,” admitted one skeptical researcher. “Maybe someone should plug that into an Excel sheet and see what happens.”
