Cenovus Energy has announced a $1.5 billion investment plan over five years for its Ohio refineries, including those in Lima and Oregon, with a focus on maintenance, reliability and market access projects. The company employs nearly 1,200 people in Ohio and is the state's largest refiner.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals is set to acquire Alpine Immune Sciences to gain access to povetacicept, which is designed to treat IgA nephropathy and will be assessed in a Phase 3 trial in the second half of 2024. The cash deal is valued at $4.9 billion, with each share worth $65.

Artificial intelligence could support many aspects of recycling, from maintaining infrastructure and improving sortation to modeling interactions in chemical recycling, said panelists during the 2024 Plastics Recycling Conference in Texas. Applying AI to chemical recycling is a focus for Google X, said executive Rey Banatao.

A new artificial plant prototype with flexible electricity-generating textile "leaves" can generate enough electricity to power 10 LEDs with just the movement from wind or raindrops hitting the fabric. The leaves use textile triboelectric nanogenerators (T-TENGs) and textile droplet-based electricity generators (T-DEGs) that avoid the brittle and rigid nature of solar cells, making them suitable for applications such as wearables embedded in clothing.

DG Fuels, BP and chemicals maker Johnson Matthey plan to make sustainable aviation fuel from sugar cane waste at a plant in Louisiana. Maurits van Tol, chief executive of the catalyst technologies unit at Johnson Matthey, said the company sees investing in SAF production as a key long-term strategy.

Moderna unveiled positive early data from its trial assessing its individualized cancer vaccine co-developed with Merck to treat a subset of patients diagnosed with melanoma, a head and neck cancer. The data showed its vaccine, mRNA-4157, combined with Keytruda, exhibited a strong benefit in terms of prolonging survival, according to a presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting.

Cannabis products provider Kanha FX uses nanotechnology to create cannabis items that target specific therapies and reduce the time it takes to feel effects, says Kanha's Cameron Clarke. "Nanotechnology is a technology where the cannabinoid particles ... are nanoscale ... they're absorbed directly into the bloodstream," Clarke says.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday finalized the nation's first-ever standards for certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in drinking water. The ACC previously expressed concern about parts of the proposal, questioning the science behind the standards and noting that it may place a costly strain on communities and water systems.

Organized by AIChE's Society for Biological Engineering, the 2024 International Mammalian Synthetic Biology Workshop (mSBW) is a unique forum focused on mammalian cell engineering and rational design approaches that push the field beyond gene editing. This year's program includes coverage of synthetic biology for therapeutics and cancer, as well as scalable technologies and AI. Abstracts are due today, April 16. Reduced registration rates apply through June 28. Learn about the featured speakers and register.

At next week's meeting of AIChE's Virtual Local Section (VLS), Tony Rogers, formerly of the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Wind Energy Center, will present the basics of wind energy and wind turbine design, along with important features of onshore and offshore wind farms. He will also discuss wind power's potential role in a net-zero world. The live VLS meeting takes place on Wednesday, April 24, 9:00-10:00 PM Eastern, and will be repeated at alternative times. Reserve your seat.

If you feel like you're just phoning it in every day, it may be time to shake things up by pushing yourself to take some risks, setting new goals, identifying barriers to progress or letting go of limiting beliefs, writes author and leadership expert Gregg Vanourek. "Somewhere in between the extremes, there's a healthy place of urgency to live intentionally, achieve important things, serve others, and cherish your days, not squandering your time in a cloud of complacency," Vanourek writes.