The FDA has accepted the supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for durvalumab (Imfinzi; AstraZeneca) to treat patients with resectable, early-stage, and locally advanced—stages II, III, or IVA—gastric and gastroesophageal (G/GEJ) cancers, granting the agent priority review status and breakthrough therapy designation, according to a news release from AstraZeneca.1
These FDA actions are based on positive data observed in the phase 3, multinational, double-blind, randomized MATTERHORN trial, the results of which were presented at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In combination with a chemotherapy regimen (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and docetaxel; [FLOT]), durvalumab elicited meaningful improvements in event-free survival (EFS), the study’s primary end point, compared with FLOT alone.1,2
“This priority review reinforces the potential for a perioperative approach with [durvalumab] to transform care for patients with early gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancers, who frequently face disease recurrence or progression even after curative-intent surgery and perioperative chemotherapy,” Susan Galbraith, executive vice president of oncology hematology research and development at AstraZeneca, said in the news release. “This novel treatment is the only immunotherapy-based regimen to show a statistically significant reduction in the risk of progression, recurrence, or death in this setting, and if approved, is poised to change the clinical paradigm.”1
Detailed Results from the MATTERHORN Trial
MATTERHORN investigators sought to evaluate the impact of adding durvalumab to the standard-of-care FLOT regimen for resectable G/GEJ cancers. Researchers estimate that about 1 in 4 patients with G/GEJ cancer who undergo surgery with curative intent develop recurrent disease within 1 year, highlighting a major area of unmet care. Given the high recurrence rates attributed to G/GEJ cancers, the authors speculated that adding durvalumab immunotherapy to standard care would improve outcomes and lessen recurrence.1-3
Patients with G/GEJ cancer were randomly assigned to receive either 1500 mg of durvalumab or placebo every 4 weeks, plus FLOT for 4 cycles—2 cycles each of neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy, respectively—followed by durvalumab or placebo every 4 weeks for 10 cycles. The primary end point was EFS, while key secondary end points included overall survival (OS) and pathological complete response (pCR), according to the authors.2
In total, 474 patients each were randomly assigned to the durvalumab and placebo groups. The authors found that 2-year EFS was 67.4% among durvalumab-treated patients, whereas it was 58.5% in the placebo group (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.71 [95% CI, 0.58–0.86]; P < .001). Regarding OS rate, investigators measured an OS of 75.7% in the durvalumab group and 70.4% in the placebo group, while pCR was determined to be about 19.2% in the durvalumab-treated patients and 7.2% in the placebo patients.2
Safety observations were consistent with the known tolerability profiles of both FLOT and durvalumab, with similar rates of grade 3 or higher adverse events between the 2 treatment arms.1,2
Durvalumab Continues to Demonstrate Efficacy in Wide Range of Cancers
As a human monoclonal antibody that can block the interaction of PD-L1, durvalumab is designed to counter a tumor’s immune-evading mechanisms while allowing for stronger immune responses against a cancer. Durvalumab is a standard-of-care option for a series of cancers and is approved for the treatment of unresectable non-small cell lung cancer, limited-stage small cell lung cancer, and muscle-invasive bladder cancer.1,4,5
Pharmacists are pivotal in counseling patients on the use of durvalumab for the treatment of its approved indications. Given the myriad indications for durvalumab, it is understandable for a patient to feel overwhelmed or confused when considering whether durvalumab is the right choice for their treatment. Patients can be assured by their pharmacists as to the proven safety and efficacy of durvalumab, solidified in multiple extensive phase 3 trials.
For patients with G/GEJ cancers, the granting of priority review and breakthrough designation by the FDA to durvalumab signifies the growing potential for the agent to transform the treatment paradigm for this population. Patients and pharmacists should remain aware and stay updated on durvalumab’s clinical development pipeline for this indication and be prepared if the agent eventually becomes approved for this treatment indication.
REFERENCES
1. AstraZeneca. IMFINZI® (durvalumab) granted Priority Review and Breakthrough Therapy Designation in the US for patients with resectable early-stage gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancers. News Release. Released July 28, 2025. Accessed July 28, 2025. https://www.astrazeneca-us.com/media/press-releases/2025/IMFINZI-durvalumab-granted-priority-review-and-breakthrough-therapy-designation-in-the-US-for-patients-with-resectable-early-stage-gastric-and-gastroesophageal-junction-cancers.html?utm_source=external-comms&utm_medium=memo&utm_campaign=MATTERHORN+Priority+Review&utm_term=corporate&utm_content=matterhorn#!
2. Janjigian YY, Al-Batran SE, Wainberg ZA, et al. Perioperative durvalumab in gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer. N Engl J Med. 2025;393(3):217-230. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2503701
3. Li Y, Zhao H. Postoperative recurrence of gastric cancer depends on whether the chemotherapy cycle was more than 9 cycles. Medicine (Baltimore). 2022;101(5):e28620. doi:10.1097/MD.0000000000028620
4. McGovern G, Halpern L. Durvalumab receives FDA approval for muscle invasive bladder cancer. Pharmacy Times. Published March 28, 2025. Accessed July 28, 2025.
5. McGovern G. FDA approves durvalumab for treatment of adult patients with LS-SCLC. Pharmacy Times. Published December 5, 2024. Accessed July 28, 2025. https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/fda-approves-durvalumab-for-treatment-of-adults-patients-with-ls-sclc
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to the media as he meets with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (not pictured) at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 28, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland.
Christopher Furlong | Getty Images
U.S. tariffs on incoming goods look to be settling in only slightly less than what President Donald Trump had threatened in April, but the difference has been enough to ease some of Wall Street’s worst recession fears.
With the U.S.-European Union trade deal over the weekend, it now appears that the effective tariff rate, or the net impact aside from the nominal level, will end up in the 15%-20% range. That’s well above the low single-digit rate in place at the beginning of the year, but well off the feared 25% rate or worse that could have happened as a result of the April 2 announcement.
Economists had feared that aggressive tariffs Trump proposed in his April 2 “liberation day” announcement would spike inflation and lead to a pronounced slowdown or recession.
But doomsday pronouncements around the tariffs have abated since then. Economists cite a strong global growth backdrop, a less-than-expected, long-term inflationary impact of the tariffs and a general easing in financial conditions as reasons for why the landscape looks less dire.
JPMorgan Chase, for instance, has lowered its recession risk from a liberation-day level of 60% down to 40% — still higher than normal, but at least less pessimistic.
“Tariffs are a tax hike on U.S. purchases of foreign goods, but this tax drag is not likely to be large enough to derail the U.S. expansion,” JPMorgan chief economist Bruce Kasman said in a note.
Like others, the bank had expected the Trump tariffs to result in a damaging round of retaliation globally. “But an expected rise in global trade restrictions has turned into a modest step toward opening markets for the U.S.,” Kasman said.
Tariffs still a danger
Commentary around Wall Street following the U.S-EU deal for 15% tariffs echoed the belief that the recession risk had dimmed, even if tariffs still have the strong potential to exert a stifling impact on growth.
“We still believe the most likely outcome is slow growth and firm inflation: Not a recession, but a backdrop where the adverse effects of trade and immigration controls on growth outweigh the boost from deregulation and fiscal largesse,” Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Zezas wrote.
To be sure, the final outcome of the trade negotiations is far from clear.
There are still a slew of other issues that need to be settled before Trump’s imposed Aug. 1 deadline, which could still result in significant levies affecting major U.S. trading partners, including Japan and others.
Further aggression in the trade skirmishes “could easily tip the scales toward a mild recession,” Zezas added. “In sum, we see outcomes for the U.S. economy skewing toward a slowdown, but with more clarity on the fiscal situation and deficits now front-loaded, the risk of a substantial recession is easing.”
The U.S.-Europe deal will give the Federal Reserve more to chew on this week when it discusses the impact that tariffs will have on inflation. Since Trump has taken office, the Fed has held its benchmark short-term interest rate steady, in large part because policymakers are cautious over the impact tariffs will have on inflation.
Markets don’t expect any action at the meeting, which concludes Wednesday. But they will be watching for clues on the Fed’s further intentions, which will be influenced by where the final effective tariff rate lands.
The Fed is expected to approve a rate cut in September, and the chances of that happening seemingly would increase if the economy weakens while inflation is held in check.
“Effective tariff rates are significantly higher than they were at the start of the year,” Citigroup economist Andrew Hollenhorst wrote. “But with major trading partner tariffs stabilizing closer to 15% than the much higher rates proposed on April 2, markets and Fed officials will be increasingly confident that the drag on growth and upside risk to inflation will be modest.”
A new study reveals the secrets of how nickel catalysts use electricity to convert carbon dioxide to fuels, particularly long-chain and branched hydrocarbon fuel molecules.
Traditionally, scientists have relied on Fischer–Tropsch synthesis, a carbon-coupling process, to convert syngas to long-chain hydrocarbons. Syngas is a mixture of hydrogen and CO, which can be made by treating carbon dioxide with hydrogen. However, these methods “require high temperatures and pressures, [whereas] our electrochemical route runs at ambient conditions with green electricity,” explains lead author Boon Siang Yeo, an expert in electrocatalysis at the National University of Singapore.
What’s more, chemists have long counted on copper catalysts to convert carbon dioxide to fuels, but this process comes at a cost—they produce shorter molecules. Nickel, on the other hand, is unique in the production of butane, pentane, and even hexane, longer hydrocarbons than those created with copper catalysts, Yeo says.
Moreover, nickel catalysts allow researchers to control the proportion of branched hydrocarbons, which are attractive as components of gasoline and fuels because of the better combustion properties and higher octane ratings. “[It’s] an electrochemical route to gasoline-range fuels,” says Yeo, whose study was published recently in the journal Nature Catalysis.
Electrochemical reduction of CO2 to make long-chain hydrocarbons is challenging, according to Magda H. Barecka, an expert in carbon conversion and electrochemistry at Northeastern University in Boston.
While copper can’t create long, branched hydrocarbons, the nickel catalyst in the new study “delivers important products for large-scale applications,” such as transportation.
Because electrochemical reactors are relatively compact and low cost, they “could become scalable, to implement [decarbonization] in a decentralized manner,” explains Barecka. This could also help democratize access to fuels in remote locations, “allowing access to fuels directly at the point of need.”
A hydrocarbon breakthrough
In the study, Yeo and colleagues discovered interesting mechanistic differences between copper and nickel catalysts.
Using a combination of experimental and computational techniques, carried out in collaboration with the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) and the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), the researchers revealed that copper favors the formation of oxygenated and hydroxylated intermediate species, which eventually lead to shorter hydrocarbons, mostly alcohols. By contrast, nickel catalysts promote removal of oxygen from reaction intermediates, which controls the reactions and lengthens carbon chains.
“It’s a breakthrough in the formation of linear and branched hydrocarbons,” says Yeo. Other techniques, including pulse potential electrolysis, which uses a series of pulses instead of constant currents of electricity, further increase the selectivity toward branched hydrocarbons, up to 4.7 times.
Fabulous fluorine
Additionally, researchers uncovered various doping mechanisms to tune and tailor the composition of the products. “Our reaction offers a route to produce . . . desirable components in gasoline and aviation fuels,” Yeo says.
Fluorine, for instance, is instrumental in tuning selectivity in nickel catalysts, the study says. That’s because fluorine modifies the nature of the catalyst’s active sites, specifically the region that straps the substrate to the surface, explains Barecka.
The synthesis of the fluorine-featuring catalyst shows some similarities to the process of preparing water-splitting catalysts, she adds, which could simplify industrial implementation.
Additionally, fluorine also stabilizes active sites in the electrochemical reduction reaction and decreases the incidence of catalyst poisoning, particularly with carbon monoxide. Therefore, fluorine doping “may help prolong the lifetime of catalysts,” says Yeo. Plus, it’s potentially applicable to other metals, opening opportunities in different sectors.
Barecka believes the new study will inspire the electrochemical community to examine catalysis holistically.
“Other researchers might look into the catalyst stability, process scalability, and ultimately its industrial application,” she says. She also praised the study’s synergy between computational and experimental methods, which strengthens and supports the results and helps people “better understand the overall reaction mechanism.”
For Yeo, such synergies seem essential, especially to “design better catalysts,” as well as to “bridge lab discoveries with real-world applications.”
People who developed mesothelioma, ovarian cancer and other diseases as a result of asbestos-contaminated talc continue to seek justice. But companies like Avon and Johnson & Johnson are fighting claims in court with mixed results.
In recent weeks, Avon’s own insurers have moved to block talc lawsuits in bankruptcy court. Meanwhile J&J faces its second trial in Boston this year, and a federal judge is pressing for accountability in the collapse of J&J’s third failed bankruptcy.
Boston Gears Up for Second Talc Trial Involving Johnson & Johnson
J&J is back in a Boston courtroom, this time facing a lawsuit from Paul Lovell. The Massachusetts resident was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2021 after using the company’s iconic baby powder for 40 years.
Lovell’s legal team alleges J&J knowingly sold talc contaminated with asbestos and hid the risk from consumers and regulators for decades. Attorney Danny Kraft told jurors in his opening statements that J&J’s talcum powder had “a dirty little secret.”
Kraft argued it was a secret J&J “hid from us all for decades.” He added J&J concealed the truth from “Mr. Lovell and his family, from the three decades that he used it.”
He said it was: “A secret that J&J hid from the FDA, regulators, scientists, nurses and doctors. But most importantly the people like Paul Lovell who used the product every single day, year after year, decade after decade.”
Attorneys for Johnson & Johnson deny the claims. They argue Lovell’s illness stems from a “very rare gene fusion,” and not exposure to asbestos.
The trial follows a recent Boston verdict in which a jury awarded $8 million to Janice Paluzzi. She was also diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2021.
The jury concluded J&J’s talc products, baby powder and Shower-to-Shower contained asbestos, which contributed to her illness. Paluzzi was awarded $5 million for past pain and suffering, and $3 million for future suffering.
The company is facing more than 63,000 similar mesothelioma lawsuits. J&J continues to deny its products are responsible.
J&J Bankruptcy Strategy Draws Scrutiny
J& J’s third bankruptcy attempt, filed through its subsidiary Red River Talc LLC, was dismissed. This left creditors and fee applicants in limbo, without any decision on how their compensation would be handled.
In April, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez tossed the case without addressing the pending professional fees. Now, U.S. District Court Judge Keith P. Ellison has ordered Lopez to clarify the legal basis for declining to rule on the outstanding matters.
The pharma giant had tried three times to perform a strategy known as a “Texas Two-Step.” This involves creating subsidiary companies, most recently Red River, to absorb the company’s talc related liabilities, then filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Courts have repeatedly rejected the filings, citing bad faith and that the parent company, J&J, remains financially solvent and capable of defending lawsuits against it.
In March, J&J officially abandoned the bankruptcy strategy and announced it would be returning to fighting the remaining lawsuits. The company also reversed approximately $7 billion it had held in reserve for the bankruptcy proceedings.
Avon Insurers Urge Court To Dismiss Bankruptcy
Avon, the global cosmetics and personal care brand, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2024, partly in response to a growing number of lawsuits alleging that its talc-based products caused cancer. At the time, Avon said the move was intended to “address its debt and legacy talc liabilities.”
But now, Avon’s own insurers have challenged the talc claims. In a recent Delaware bankruptcy court filing, they urged the judge to either dismiss the bankruptcy case entirely or convert it to a Chapter 7 liquidation.
Chapter 11 allows the company to continue operating while restructuring its debts. But Chapter 7 would require Avon to shut down and sell its assets to pay the claims.
The insurers argue that under Avon’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan, the plaintiffs in the talc lawsuits would be limited to seek compensation from a $30 million insurance fund. This could be much less after administrative costs are paid. The judge will decide if the bankruptcy is dismissed, which could allow the talc litigation against Avon to continue in civil court.
Avon is the defendant in hundreds of talc lawsuits. But the company denies its talc products are responsible for the plaintiffs’ injuries.
Plaintiff Rita-Ann Chapman, an Arizona woman, received a $52.1 million trial award in 2022, after winning her lawsuit against Avon. The family of an Illinois mesothelioma survivor received a $24.4 million trial award from another jury.
Access Trust Funds, Grants & Compensation for Mesothelioma
The UK online payments company Wise is to move its main share listing to the US after shareholders approved the move.
Investors in Wise, one of the biggest financial technology businesses in the UK with a market value of about £11bn, voted in favour of a dual listing in the US in an attempt to attract more investors and boost its value.
The vote at the extraordinary general meeting was controversial as it was bound with also agreeing an extension of the company’s “dual class” structure giving enhanced voting rights to those holding “B” class shares.
A chief beneficiary of this is the co-founder and chief executive, Kristo Käärmann, with his 18% economic interest in Wise becoming 55%, although his voting power is capped at 50%.
The company has said that moving its main listing would “drive greater awareness of Wise in the US, the biggest market opportunity in the world for our products today, and enabling better access to the world’s deepest and most liquid capital market.”
However, Estonian co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, who has 5.1% of the shares and controls 11.8% of the votes, had publicly disagreed with the “all or nothing” vote.
Hinrikus, who left the firm soon after listing in 2021, has said that the two issues should have been the subject of separate votes and that “Wise owners deserve governance structures that enhance value, not entrench power”.
The arrangement was set at listing in 2021 and was due to expire next summer under a “sunset” clause Wise wanted to extend by 10 years.
Wise structured the vote such that if shareholders wanted the company listed in New York, and voted to do so, they would also be accepting the extension of the dual class structure.
Shareholder advisory service Pirc recommended investors vote against the resolution saying that “the retention of enhanced voting rights further suggests a shift toward entrenching management control”.
The proposal required a supermajority of 75% in both classes of share by value, and a turnout of 50% in each class.
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Almost 91% of class A shares were voted in favour of the special resolution to move the main listing and reconfirm the dual class structure, while 84.5% of class A shares were voted in favour.
“We’re pleased that our owners have overwhelmingly approved the proposal, giving us a strong mandate to proceed,” said David Wells, the chair of Wise. “We appreciate the extensive engagement with our owners. With this high level of support, our focus is firmly on moving forward, further accelerating our mission of money without borders and creating long-term value for our owners as we progress to moving trillions.”
Wise expects the US listing and new structure to come into force in the second quarter of next year.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024.
Kent Nishimura | Bloomberg | Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase says fintech middlemen — the companies that have helped a new generation of financial apps connect with traditional checking accounts — are flooding the bank’s systems with unnecessary data requests.
“Aggregators are accessing customer data multiple times daily, even when the customer is not actively using the app,” a JPMorgan systems employee wrote last week in an internal memo to retail payments head Melissa Feldsher. “These access requests are massively taxing our systems.”
Of 1.89 billion data requests from middlemen hitting JPMorgan’s systems in June, only 13% were initiated by a customer for transactions, according to the memo, which was seen by CNBC.
The majority of data pulls, known as API calls, were for purposes ranging from helping fintech companies improve their products or prevent fraud to other efforts including harvesting data for sale, said a person with knowledge of the memo who declined to be identified amid talks between JPMorgan and the fintechs.
JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, is preparing to charge the middlemen new fees for access to systems that it says are increasingly costly to maintain. Negotiations between JPMorgan and the fintech middlemen are ongoing, but the new fees could start as soon as October, said people with knowledge of the matter.
The bank’s move could lead to upheaval in the fintech ecosystem, which flourished as aggregators including Plaid and MX connected traditional banks with newer arrivals. The API access had been free for years, which enabled the fintech upstarts to offer accounts with no-fee checking or trading services.
The situation changed in May after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a motion in support of a banking industry lawsuit seeking to end the so-called “open banking” rule.
That rule, finalized by the Biden-era CFPB in the waning months of that administration, mandated that banks had to provide data to authorized parties for free. A week after the rule’s passage, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon called on bankers to “fight back” against what he said were unfair regulations.
Surging volumes
News this month that JPMorgan was planning to charge for customer data, first reported by Bloomberg, led to accusations from venture capital investors and fintech and crypto executives that JPMorgan was engaging in “anti-competitive, rent-seeking behavior” by putting up paywalls to customer data.
But JPMorgan says it bears the rising costs from maintaining the infrastructure needed for the surge in volumes, as well as elevated fraud claims linked to payments made in the fintech ecosystem.
The total volume of API calls received by JPMorgan has more than doubled in the past two years, according to the memo.
Transactions involving money sent over electronic ACH transactions were 69% more likely to result in fraud claims if they involved data middlemen, according to the memo.
JPMorgan saw about $50 million in fraud claims from ACH transactions initiated through aggregators, a figure the bank expects to triple within 5 years.
Among the 13 fintech companies tracked in the bank’s memo, more than half of all June activity, with 1.08 billion API requests, came from a single company. Though the firms aren’t named, CNBC has learned that the largest player represented in the data is Plaid.
JPMorgan’s data show that just 6% of Plaid’s API calls were initiated by customers.
Plaid co-founders William Hockey and Zach Perret
Source: Plaid
Granting access
Plaid said in a statement to CNBC that this figure “misrepresents how data access works” because all activity begins when customers grant permission to fintech companies when they sign up for accounts. Of course, many customers don’t closely read the lengthy “Terms and Conditions” pages that contain data-sharing disclosures before opening new accounts.
“Calling a bank’s API when a user is not present once they have authorized a connection is a standard industry practice supported by all major banks in order for consumers to get critical alerts for overdraft fees or suspicious activity,” Plaid told CNBC.
Plaid also said that JPMorgan’s claims of higher fraud among aggregators were “misleading,” though it didn’t elaborate.
“It is not surprising that the volume of data access is increasing alongside demand from consumers for financial tools that are smarter, faster, and more tailored to their needs,” Plaid said.
“To be clear, we believe it is essential that the data sharing ecosystem works for everyone, including consumers, fintech developers, and financial institutions – many of whom leverage open banking in their own products,” the company said.
The proposed fee schedules circulated by JPMorgan could result in Plaid paying $300 million in new annual fees, according to a Forbes report.
The rest of the companies tracked in the JPMorgan document are far smaller entities; only four other middlemen registered more than 100 million monthly API calls.
Bid-ask spread
If the Biden-era “open banking” rule is struck down by the courts, the main question is not whether the middlemen will have to pay for data, but how much they will have to pay.
The back-and-forth between JPMorgan and the middlemen is a private process, spilling into public view, to arrive at a new reality that is acceptable to all.
JPMorgan has had productive conversations with several data aggregators who acknowledge that they can change the way they pull data if it is no longer free, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations.
“I think both sides fully acknowledge there are things they could do to right-size call volume,” this person said.
Biomarker development (e.g., IgE, cytokine panels) for risk stratification.
Dual-target biologics to prevent compensatory pathway activation.
Dynamic immune monitoring via liquid biopsies.
Conclusion
Skin adverse reactions due to immune drift not only exacerbate patient suffering and increase treatment costs but also place pressure on social healthcare resources and economic productivity. The underlying mechanisms may involve immune imbalances between Th1/Th2 cells, as well as imbalances between IL-17 isoforms, decreased expression of antimicrobial peptides leading to Staphylococcus aureus infections, and disruption of the skin barrier function, among other factors. By reviewing these phenomena and revealing the dual effects of biologic therapies, we can provide a theoretical basis for optimizing treatment strategies and strengthening risk management in the future through mechanism-based research. In the future, interdisciplinary cooperation will be essential to promote the development of safer immunotherapies. It is expected to achieve the therapeutic goal of “maximizing efficacy and minimizing toxicity” and to reshape the landscape of immunotherapy.
Source:
Journal reference:
Miao, F., et al. (2025). A Review of CD4+ T Cell-mediated Immune Drift and Mechanisms in the Treatment of Immune Inflammatory Skin Diseases with Biological Agents. Future Integrative Medicine. doi.org/10.14218/fim.2024.00057.
Prof. Burgers’ research will explore the use of a novel atomic state for fast quantum computation with neutral atoms.
Alex Burgers. Photo: Jero Lopera
Alex Burgers has received a $1.5M grant from the Army Research Office for his research on neutral atom platforms for quantum computing. His proposed project, “Exploring the Versatility of Ytterbium’s 3P2 State for Quantum Computing Applications,” aims to investigate the utility of new atomic states in Ytterbium for quantum computing.
Quantum computers have the potential to solve problems that are challenging, or even impossible, for today’s computers. This ability could advance the development of medicines, AI technologies, financial market predictions, cybersecurity, and more. Burgers’ research into a novel energy state in ytterbium atoms is fundamental to making these visions a reality.
“There are a lot of different platforms for quantum computing,” said Burgers, assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Our platform utilizes arrays of neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezers. Neutral atoms have many advantages. They’re very coherent, identical, and controllable.”
“The nature of neutral atoms allows us to create large arrays of these atoms, where each atom can act as a quantum bit—a qubit—of information.”
A classical computer bit has a binary value of either 0 or 1, allowing information to be encoded as a series of 0s and 1s. Conversely, the value of a qubit is a continuous combination of |0⟩ and |1⟩.
In a quantum computer, one qubit can’t tell you much. Instead, researchers are interested in pairs or sets of entangled qubits whose atomic states are inherently linked.
“The outcome of a quantum gate operation is an entangled state of the two qubits being in some superposition or combination,” explained Burgers. “But at the end of the day, you have to be able to do a computation and get out an actual answer, not a probabilistic one.”
“Part of the problem that we run into currently, in all quantum computing platforms, is that we can’t be fully confident about the outcome. We need to be sure that the value we are reading out is the answer, and that if you wait a long time, the probability of that state having shifted to a different state is still very small.”
The most extensively developed neutral atom platforms utilize alkali atoms, such as cesium and rubidium, which can quickly perform the qubit gate operations necessary for calculations. However, the information in these systems is only available momentarily. Over time, the information “decoheres,” or becomes meaningless due to a high probability of errors.
Burgers sees a solution in ytterbium, an alkaline-earth-like atom. Ytterbium has an energy state with an extremely long coherence, known as a metastable state, that allows researchers to get an answer to a large calculation with a high degree of confidence. But there’s a catch: operations in this 3P0 metastable state are slow. Burgers plans to use a second metastable state in ytterbium, called 3P2, to speed up the calculations.
“Nobody’s ever looked at this 3P2 state for quantum computing before,” said Burgers, “but the advantage of ytterbium is that it has many internal states, which can give us the best of both worlds—a computational qubit that can do fast operations [3P2] and a storage qubit that is robust against decoherence [3P0].”
With the ARO support, Burgers will explore the versatility and utility of the new 3P2 state, trapping atoms in pairs of lasers called optical tweezers, transitioning them between energy states, and performing gate operations. Ultimately, he hopes to scale this work up to create larger arrays of entangled ytterbium atoms that can process information in parallel.
Burgers’ groundbreaking research in his Quantum Optics Lab has also been recognized with funding from AFOSR, DARPA, and NSF.
