Brian Buntz

Berkeley

Pharma Editor at Drug Discovery & Development

Pharma Editor at WTWH Media LLC

Pharma Editor at Pharmaceutical Processing World

Editori-in-Chief at R&D World

Articles

Compact AI model lets ESP32 microcontroller predict network failures and memory leaks in real time

1 week ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

Santa Clara-based startup OTAinfo has introduced an on-device AI system designed to enhance reliability on Espressif’s popular and low-cost ESP32 microcontrollers. The embedded intelligence layer, which the company compared in a LinkedIn post to “ChatGPT for ESP32,” runs entirely within the device’s firmware using only 32 kb of memory to predict network communication failures and prevent memory leaks in real-time.
Artemis III Orion powers on at Kennedy, marking milestone for Moon-landing push

1 week ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

Assembly and testing of NASA’s Artemis III Orion spacecraft are progressing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This spacecraft is slated to carry astronauts on the first crewed lunar landing mission since Apollo 17 in December 1972. Recent milestones included the initial power-on of the crew module’s core avionics, which include two redundant vehicle-management computers and six power-and-data units. This event marked the transition from assembly to a comprehensive series of subsystem checks.
Driving success in fast-paced high-tech pharma construction projects

1 week ago | pharmaceuticalprocessingworld.com | Brian Buntz

Getting a manufacturing plant from investment to start-up as quickly as possible is a priority in almost every industry. Yet speed-to-market is even more important when it comes to a biotech or pharmaceutical facility. When going online means getting a lifesaving or health-improving solution into the hands of the people who need them, a heightened sense of urgency and care should guide every step of the project.
CAS maps the 'Triangle of Success' for AI in scientific research

1 week ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

When many organizations first started with AI, many assumed more data is always better. While in some cases, more data volume does lead to better performance, sometimes added data can hurt. “Garbage in, garbage out, still applies to AI,” said Michael W. Dennis, Ph.D., vice president, legal, PMO, and innovation for CAS.
SpaceX achieves first Super Heavy reuse in Starship Flight 9

1 week ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

SpaceX successfully launched Starship Flight 9, marking the first re-flight of a Super Heavy booster, the reusable first stage of its Starship system. Lifting off from Starbase, Texas, after a couple of brief holds at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, the mission prioritized aggressively testing the reused first stage.
MIT's new sodium fuel cell beats lithium for regional aviation

1 week ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

Researchers have chased practical electric aviation for decades, especially for short‑haul routes, but progress remains slow. Projects such as all-electric helicopter Sikorsky Firefly (2010), the Airbus E-Fan (2017), the experimental aircraft NASA’s X-57 Maxwell (2023), and nine-passenger commuter Tecnam’s P-Volt (2023) stalled when current batteries proved too heavy, delivered too little energy, or degraded faster than operators could tolerate.
Human study tracks brain’s glymphatic flow in real time

1 week ago | drugdiscoverytrends.com | Brian Buntz

Applied Cognition, a clinical-stage platform therapeutic company, and academic partners have published the first continuous, non-invasive measurements of the human glymphatic system in Nature Biomedical Engineering. The glymphatic system is a brain-wide waste-clearance network that removes toxic proteins including amyloid-β and tau during sleep. Dysfunction of the system is implicated in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions.
Xaira and Verily co-founder ponders FDA’s genAI rollout

1 week ago | drugdiscoverytrends.com | Brian Buntz

The FDA is betting big on genAI to transform tedious workflows, setting a June 30 deadline for agency-wide deployment. While details of its plans are scarce at present, using genAI to reduce FDA’s paperwork burden seems inevitable. The broader goal doesn’t qualify as “a high-order AI problem today,” said Vik Bajaj, managing director at Foresite Capital. Bajaj envisions a low-risk, relatively easy scenario where genAI could find widespread use in “the bulk of paperwork” agency-wide.
Unilever R&D head lifts lid on AI, robots and beating the ‘grease gap’

2 weeks ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

For many people, the personal-care aisle may be the last place you associate with machine learning. But for UK-based Unilever, decades of hair-protein data and more than 500 live AI projects have turned those shampoo and skin care shelves into a proving ground. Creating that foundation has been something of a “journey” over the years, according to Tiffany Yizar, the company’s head of beauty and wellbeing R&D in North America.
White House fast-tracks nuclear R&D while mandating 'gold standard science'

2 weeks ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to slash reactor-licensing reviews to 18 months and instructed every federal science agency to follow a newly defined “gold standard science” playbook that emphasizes reproducibility, transparent data and conflict-of-interest checks.