Latest news with #IOTA
International Business Times
3 days ago
- Business
- International Business Times
MYBW 2025: Blockchain Gets National Stage as IOTA Headlines Malaysia's Flagship Web3 Event
Global distributed ledger innovator IOTA has been named title sponsor for Malaysia Blockchain Week (MYBW) 2025, the nation's flagship blockchain event returning this July at the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur. Organised by Lydian Labs and helmed by Noelle Lee Yi Ching and Dr Ian Tan Wei Lun, MYBW aims to position Malaysia at the forefront of the Web3 movement. The event, scheduled to be held on July 21 and 22, comes after a successful debut in 2024, and this year brings even stronger global backing. Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder of IOTA, said, "IOTA is proud to be the title sponsor of Malaysia Blockchain Week 2025, marking a shared commitment to inclusive innovation and responsible technology." "With our new Mainnet, we offer a secure and efficient foundation for a truly decentralized digital economy," said Schiener, adding, "We look forward to connecting with builders across Malaysia who are ready to build their solutions on IOTA." Known for its feeless, scalable, and energy-efficient protocol, IOTA supports real-world Web3 applications—ranging from smart cities to supply chains. Its partnership with MYBW signals international confidence in Malaysia's blockchain ambitions. MYBW 2025 also draws high-profile support from major players like Base (by Coinbase), MIMOS, Kaspa Ecosystem Foundation, AILiquid, and JadaEx, among others. The event will highlight cutting-edge themes like DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure), AI in DeFi, cross-chain custody, and Layer2 innovations. Attendees can expect keynotes, panel discussions, hackathons, VC pitch sessions, and airdrop activations, alongside regulatory and institutional conversations aimed at bridging Web2 and Web3. Visitors can avail the tickets via with early bird discounts while stocks last.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
IOTA Co-founder Dominik Schiener on a Crypto Comeback 10 Years in the Making
IOTA Co-founder Dominik Schiener on a Crypto Comeback 10 Years in the Making originally appeared on TheStreet. Ten years in crypto is a lifetime. For IOTA co-founder Dominik Schiener, it's also just the beginning. Originally launched in 2015 with a vision of connecting the Internet of Things to a new kind of distributed ledger, IOTA is now reintroducing itself — armed with a newly upgraded mainnet called Rebased, staking rewards for IOTA holders, and a wider embrace of decentralization. 'I really like this story of reemerging and us coming back with vengeance,' Schiener told Coinage. 'IOTA has been on the market for ten years ... and I think what sets us apart… is that we are really mission driven.' Considering how long Schiener has stuck with it, it's hard to argue with that. From its peak in 2017 as the fourth-largest crypto project by market cap to its more recent quiet rebuild, IOTA's story mirrors many of the crypto industry's lessons — early hype, long winters, and now, a comeback shaped by pragmatism and persistence. 'I can confidently say that nobody back in those days thought that this space would get this big,' said Schiener, reflecting on raising '1300 bitcoins through an ICO' when launching the project. 'Back then it was all about the publishing crazy ideas and concepts on Bitcointalk… look at the industry today where it has become very professionalized.' But unlike other projects that pivoted into NFTs or memecoins to stay relevant, IOTA doubled down on building in the real world — with a strategy focused on infrastructure for trade and institutional-grade adoption. 'What we've been focused on in IOTA is really focus on this vertical and international trade… We started a project in Kenya in 2019… It already runs in production,' Schiener said. 'Now, we're starting to expand it across Africa and also in Europe and the Middle East.' The infrastructure IOTA has built is being used to digitize trade data, issue digital identities for exporters, and even bring tokenized commodities like rare earth minerals onchain. It's what Schiener describes as IOTA's 'real yield ecosystem.' 'Where we differentiate with IOTA and where we really want to build up a moat… is everything related to real world adoption,' he said. 'We have a lot more credibility and a lot more trust in the market, and we can leverage that trust… to feed them into the DeFi ecosystem.' That trust, Schiener argues, stems from IOTA's long-standing choice to avoid the VC-fueled playbook. 'We gave 100% of the token supply to the community. We would never raise capital from investors,' he said. 'Look at all of these other VC coins… they were just in it to make a quick buck and to win a single cycle… and then the founders basically retired.' Despite pursuing a different strategy, IOTA's token price has largely tracked other tokens in the space. However, over the past year as IOTA worked through its re-launch, the token has risen 31%. It's an impressive gain considering the changes that went into IOTA during that time. As Schiener explains, part of the relaunch was tied to abandoning earlier research efforts to pivot into programming options offered by the Move programming language pioneered by Sui. "We wrote a lot of white papers around that, and we were very confident in [00:19:40] the release of it. But, um, we just also realized that we were building a protocol with a different market in mind, he said reflecting on the market back in 2017. "It was a very difficult decision, but ultimately, we really decided that we have to be pragmatic here and be fast to update the mainnet." That tradeoff — between loyalty to the original roadmap and delivering faster to market — was ultimately approved by tokenholders. Now, Schiener says IOTA is ready to expand globally, especially in the U.S. 'What we are doing right now is… pilots to ship goods between the U.S. and other countries to really showcase how IOTA can be used to solve a real world problem,' he said. 'We are absolutely planning our entry into the US… and also thinking about how we can tokenize some U.S. funds and working together with some institutional financial players.' The strategy is to focus on capital efficiency — not just attracting TVL, but doing so in a sustainable way. 'Our objective is obviously to keep that cost to a minimum and to make sure that there's real interest in participating in that real yield.' More than a decade after publishing their original white papers, IOTA's builder-in-chief is still laser-focused on the big picture. 'I want to see IOTA as one of the handful of layer ones… to become a standard, to be this infrastructure on which the world is being digitized,' Schiener said. And if the next cycle favors real-world adoption, Schiener is confident the tides will turn in IOTA's favor. 'I think we have some real world adoption cases that no other layer one has in this market,' he said. 'And I'm sure that the price will catch up sooner than later.' Over the last month, IOTA's 25% run has outperformed the respective 18% and 10% gains posted by Ethereum and Bitcoin. IOTA Co-founder Dominik Schiener on a Crypto Comeback 10 Years in the Making first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 16, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 16, 2025, where it first appeared.
Forbes
02-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Swarm Intelligence Is Reshaping How AI Gets Trained
A decentralized AI training swarm could be more cost effective, equitable and inclusive that current ... More closed AI training approaches. It's no secret that current AI models are built behind closed doors in secrecy and seclusion. Only a handful of Big Tech companies hold the keys to those doors, the massive server centers, petabytes of data, training pipelines and protocols. The artificial intelligence models they produce are locked away behind their self-serving black boxes of seeming techno wizardry that the public can query but never really understand, influence or change. A ballsy decentralized AI start-up called Macrocosmos wants to change that. With the relaunch of Subnet 9 on the Bittensor network — think of a subnet as a mobile phone app and Bittensor as an app store — Macrocosmos is taking the first meaningful step toward a more democratic future for artificial intelligence. The clue to how they've achieved this feat is captured in the subnet's new acronym, IOTA: Incentivized Orchestrated Training Architecture. This construct allows anyone with a graphic processing unit, no matter how modest, to help train cutting edge AI models. Based on a novel 'swarm" approach, which is a theoretical pre training strategy for AI, Macrocosmos' breakthrough resolves key challenges around data and model compression, as explained in their white paper published on Friday. At its core is a vision that reimagines how intelligence is built and who gets to participate in that process. 'We are single-minded and obsessed in our pursuit of building competitive decentralized technologies that can compete with centralized labs,' wrote Macrocosmos CTO Steffen Cruz in a post on X. Before we can understand swarm training, we need to understand the key differences between traditional AI and decentralized AI. At its simplest, decentralized AI means that the training of an AI model doesn't happen in one place or under the control of one company. Instead, it's spread out, distributed — across homes, labs, campuses and servers anywhere in the world. The same way that Bitcoin decentralized money away from centralized banks, Bittensor and Macrocosmos aim to democratize intelligence itself. This matters because AI is infiltrating more and more of our lives. It's deciding what news we see, what products we are offered, how we shop, how we interact with each other, how we work and even how we're hired. Concentrating that power within a few cabalistic computing systems risks not just privacy or fairness, but the future of innovation itself. By opening those locked doors to public participation and direct engagement, decentralized AI offers a new kind of alignment — one where users are also co-creators. 'Not only is this a new research endeavor for Macrocosmos and Bittensor, but it's something bigger and more personal to us,' Cruz added. 'We are scientists, researchers and developers.' Swarm training, as deployed by Macrocosmos through IOTA, takes cues from the natural world. Similar to how a swarm of bees, school of fish or a flock of birds can accomplish complex navigation without central control, this novel subnet enables thousands of independent machines to orchestrate and collaborate on training a single massive AI model. Instead of forcing each network participant to download and run the full model — a costly and impractical ask — Macrocosmos uses a technique called model parallelism. Each subnet member — also called a miner since their actions 'mine' actual monetary incentives that benefit the entire network — trains just one slice of the model, typically a few layers of the neural network. As data flows through those individual layers, each miner processes their portion and passes the output forward. Then, a lightning fast reverse review grades how far off the model was and adjusts miner payouts accordingly. This approach isn't just efficient than centralized methods — it's more inclusive. Rather than requiring top-tier hardware, the architecture allows both low- and high-compute participants to contribute meaningfully. This breaks down the barriers to entry that have long kept open-source communities at the margins of AI model training. To understand the difference between how traditional AI models are trained and what Macrocosmos is doing, this graphic offers a useful side-by-side comparison: This side-by-side comparison depicts the differences between centralized and decentralized AI ... More training. In centralized training, one model is split into layers that are tightly linked across GPUs within a single data center. Everything is optimized for high-speed local connections. But this setup is expensive, exclusive and closed. In contrast, the decentralized swarm training distributes different layers of the model across a global network of contributors or miners. Each of these individuals handles a piece of the workload and communicates their results with others. The swarm system regularly syncs up all the parts into a single, shared model. Instead of requiring giant compute clusters, it leverages a far flung spectrum of connected devices — ranging from a personal desktop GPU to larger industrial setups. The outcome? Lower costs, more transparency and an AI model built by the many, not the few. However, training models this way has its challenges. Internet bandwidth is a lot slower than the fiber optics inside a data center. And decentralized participants can drop out, try to cheat the incentive system or go offline at a moment's notice without warning. While some of those issues are beyond Macrocosmos' control, they have developed an elegant solution for potential problems tied to miner incentives and rewards. The design of its new IOTA network overcomes three big challenges: In this video clip, the firm's co-founders Cruz and Will Squires discuss why decentralized training matters, and how it can open a new era for AI. This is more than a technical upgrade — it's a seismic philosophical shift. For years, decentralized AI projects have relied on centralized training behind the scenes. Macrocosmos is finally changing that. 'The time has come for us to move forward as a community and tackle new challenges in model training. This is an imperative for Bittensor. The competition are at our heels,' Cruz added. 'We beat nation states, we tirelessly benchmarked our progress and we shared our findings in our white paper. It was a fantastic experiment, and we pushed it far beyond its original design.' This effort to distribute AI's compute and ownership to all comers through swarm training enables a future reality where AI isn't something reserved for elite power brokers while inferential dregs are grudgingly dripped to the masses. It's a collective thing we build together. Macrocosmos is taking decentralized training out of Big Tech's locked, walled garden and into the wild. If they're successful, the next breakthrough frontier AI model might not come from OpenAI, Google or Meta — but rather from a swarm of us.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Crypto Daybook Americas: All Eyes on Jobs, Fed as Bitcoin Prepares for Breakout Rally
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) Markets seem bullish ahead of the jobs report due later Friday, with bitcoin (BTC) rising toward $97,000 after stocks rose for an eighth straight day on Thursday. That gave the S&P 500 its longest rally since August as investors grew more confident that trade tensions between Washington and Beijing are cooling. Still, the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index is little changed over the last 24 hours with the drop in first-quarter GDP pointing to economic strain from the trade war. While traders are now betting the Federal Reserve could cut interest-rates four times this year — one more than they'd priced in before the reciprocal tariffs were announced — personal consumption expenditures (PCE), the Fed's preferred measure of inflation came in above forecasts, which limits the central bank's room for easing, said James Butterfill, the head of research at CoinShares. Today's payrolls data remains a 'critical piece of the puzzle,' he said. 'When the Fed eventually decides to cut rates, it is likely to do so in a knee-jerk and forceful manner — reacting to a significant deterioration in economic conditions rather than being proactive. Such a dramatic policy shift could act as a catalyst for a significant breakout rally in bitcoin, as investors seek alternative stores of value amid aggressive monetary easing,' Butterfill said. That policy shift could align with bitcoin's historical performance. Since 2013, the cryptocurrency has seen an average gain of 7.52% in May, according to CoinGlass data. And it's not alone: ether (ETH), which has been significantly underperforming BTC, has posted an average gain of 27.3% in May since 2016, the best-performing month for the Ethereum blockchain's token. 'Investor confidence is gradually returning to crypto markets following a volatile start to the year, with April seeing a rebound across majors as tariff-driven macro fears eased,' said Vijay Chetty, CEO of Eclipse. Growing regulatory clarity is an 'underappreciated catalyst that will set the stage for broader institutional use cases,' Chetty added. Stay alert! Crypto: May 5, 3 a.m.: IOTA's Rebased network upgrade starts. Rebased moves IOTA to a new network, boosting capacity to as many as 50,000 transactions per second, offering staking rewards of 10%-15% a year and adding support for MoveVM smart contracts. May 5, 11 a.m.: The Crescendo network upgrade goes live on the Kaspa (KAS) mainnet. This upgrade boosts the network's performance by increasing the block production rate to 10 blocks per second from 1 block per second. May 6: Casper Network (CSPR) launches its 2.0 mainnet upgrade, introducing faster transactions, enhanced smart contracts, and improved staking features to boost enterprise adoption. May 7, 6:05 a.m.: The Pectra hard fork network upgrade will get activated on the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet at epoch 364032. Pectra combines two major components: the Prague execution layer hard fork and the Electra consensus layer upgrade. Macro May 2, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases April employment data. Nonfarm Payrolls Est. 130K vs. Prev. 228K Unemployment Rate Est. 4.2% vs. Prev. 4.2% May 2, 9 a.m.: S&P Global releases Brazil April purchasing managers' index (PMI) data. Manufacturing PMI Prev. 51.8 May 2, 11 a.m.: S&P Global releases Mexico April purchasing managers' index (PMI) data. Manufacturing PMI Prev. 46.5 May 5, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (Final) U.S. April purchasing managers' index (PMI) data. Composite PMI Est. 51.2 vs. Prev. 53.5 Services PMI Est. 51.4 vs. Prev. 54.4 May 5, 10:00 a.m.: Institute for Supply Management (ISM) releases U.S. April economic activity data. Services PMI Est. 50.6 vs. Prev. 50.8 Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data) May 6: Cipher Mining (CIFR), pre-market, $-0.07 May 8: Coinbase Global (COIN), post-market, $2.08 May 8: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market May 8: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market Governance votes & calls Compound DAO is voting on moving 35,200 COMP (~$1.5 m) into a multisig safe to test selling covered calls on COMP for USDC, lend that USDC in Compound for extra yield, then use the returns to buy back COMP and repeat—targeting roughly 15 % annual gain. Voting ends May 2. May 5, 4 p.m.: Livepeer (LPT) to host a Treasury Talk session on Discord. Unlocks May 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 3.10% of its circulating supply worth $53.44 million. May 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.56% of its circulating supply worth $13.84 million. May 9: Movement (MOVA) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $9.85 million. May 11: Solayer (LAYER) to unlock 12.87% of its circulating supply worth $79.71 million. May 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.82% of its circulating supply worth $62.09 million. Token Launches May 2: Binance to delist Alpaca Finance (ALPACA), PlayDapp (PDA), Viberate (VIB), and Wing Finance (WING). May 5: Sonic (S) to be listed on Kraken. CoinDesk's Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes. May 6-7: Financial Times Digital Assets Summit (London) May 11-17: Canada Crypto Week (Toronto) May 12-13: Dubai FinTech Summit May 12-13: Filecoin (FIL) Developer Summit (Toronto) May 12-13: Latest in DeFi Research (TLDR) Conference (New York) May 12-14: ACI's 9th Annual Legal, Regulatory, and Compliance Forum on Fintech & Emerging Payment Systems (New York) May 13: Blockchain Futurist Conference (Toronto) May 13: ETHWomen (Toronto) May 14-16: CoinDesk's Consensus 2025 (Toronto) By Shaurya Malwa Memecoin discussions are rising, while interest in layer-1 and layer-2 tokens is declining, signaling a shift toward speculative trading behavior, according to a Santiment report on Thursday. Retail investors are embracing hype-driven buying, favoring short-term gains over fundamentals. Market timing may be off, as historically the best altcoin entry points occur when crowd sentiment is low — not when terms like "altseason" and "bull cycle" are trending, the report said. Mentions of 'buying crypto' have spiked, especially on dips, suggesting widespread eagerness and potentially premature confidence. Overconfident markets often face sharp corrections, especially when traders expect nonstop gains. As May begins, it remains to be seen if this altcoin surge is sustainable or simply another hype-driven blip. BTC's current ascent appears structurally fragile, with a -$30 million liquidity delta across the 1% order book despite a 2.7% price rise since the start of the month, CoinGlass data show. This reduction in top-of-book liquidity as the price climbs leaves a thinner order book with an increasing the risk of slippage and volatility if momentum stalls. Liquidation heatmaps reveal sizable clusters at $97.6K ($67 million) and $96.1K ($58 million), reinforcing these zones as potential inflection points for intraday, volatility-driven reversals or stop-driven extensions. Binance funding rates show a sharp divergence in sentiment across major tokens, with APT, TON, UNI and XRP hitting +10.95% APR, while USDE (-29.73%), BNB (-19.06%), and SUI (-10.26%) reflect more intensive short-side pressure, Velo data shows. The concentration of elevated funding among large caps indicates directional long bias, while deeply negative rates in select altcoins suggest either event-driven shorts or systematic derisking. Open-interest (OI) rotation is flowing into low-cap, niche assets; with PUNDIX (+191%) and HAEDAL (+157%) leading 24-hour OI gains, according to Velo data. As open interest broadens out, market sensitivity to catalysts may increase across low to mid-cap tokens. BTC is up 2.27% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $96,817.27 (24hrs: +0.54%) ETH is up 1.48% at $1,822.64 (24hrs: -0.82%) CoinDesk 20 is up 1.39% at 2,781.37 (24hrs: -0.32%) Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 9 bps at 2.958% BTC funding rate is at -0.0093% (-10.2251% annualized) on Binance DXY is down 0.51% at 99.74 Gold is up 0.62% at $3,258.47/oz Silver is unchanged at $32.38/oz Nikkei 225 closed +1.04% at 36,830.69 Hang Seng closed +1.74% at 22,504.68 FTSE is up 0.75% at 8,560.68 Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.48% at 5,236.81 DJIA closed on Thursday +0.21% at 40,752.96 S&P 500 closed +0.63% at 5,604.14 Nasdaq closed +1.52% at 17,710.74 S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.19% at 24,795.55 S&P 40 Latin America closed -0.25% at 2,523.42 U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 8 bps at 4.23% E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.47% at 5,649.50 E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.33% at 19,935.75 E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.47% at 41,045.00 BTC Dominance: 64.85 (+0.16%) Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.1886 (-1.0%) Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 847 EH/s Hashprice (spot): $49.98 Total Fees: 5.51 BTC / $533,450.65 CME Futures Open Interest: 141,430 BTC BTC priced in gold: 29.8 oz BTC vs gold market cap: 8.46% Ether has reclaimed its previous swing low, with the $1,750 level now acting as a key support zone. On the daily timeframe, price action is compressing between the 20- and 50-day exponential moving averages — a setup that often precedes a directional breakout. Assuming bitcoin remains in consolidation near its current resistance, ether has room to push higher, potentially retesting the prior range low around $2,100, which aligns with the 100-day EMA, adding further evidence for this as a target. Strategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $381.6 (+0.39%), up 1.37% at $386.82 in pre-market Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $201.3 (-0.78%), up 0.56% at $202.42 Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at $24.05 (+9.72%) MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.05 (+5.09%), down 0.14% at $14.03 Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.77 (+7.32%), down 1.93% at $7.62 Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.55 (+5.56%), up 0.58% at $8.60 CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.67 (+6.12%), up 0.69% at $8.73 CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.59 (+6.65%) Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $33.33 (+3.09%) Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $40.38 (+3.43%), up 4.95% at $42.38 Spot BTC ETFs: Daily net flow: $422.5 million Cumulative net flows: $39.53 billion Total BTC holdings ~ 1.15 million Spot ETH ETFs Daily net flows: $6.5 million Cumulative net flows: $2.51 billion Total ETH holdings ~ 3.45 million Source: Farside Investors Data from BitcoinCounterFlow comparing BTC's performance from the bottom of each of the last three cycles suggests the top isn't in yet. If history is any guide, the current trajectory around day 700–800 implies we're entering a phase that could develop into the steep rally seen in prior cycles. The smoother rise this time may be a reflection of the increased institutional participation in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Movement Labs Suspends Rushi Manche Amid Coinbase Delisting, Token-Dumping Scandal (CoinDesk): Co-founder Manche was suspended after Coinbase delisted MOVE following reports that a market maker tied to Web3Port dumped over 5% of the token's supply, triggering a crash. China Is Considering Trade Talks With U.S., but It Has Conditions (The New York Times): China's Commerce Ministry said it won't enter trade talks unless U.S. tariffs are dropped, calling their removal the only way to demonstrate sincerity and rebuild trust. Metaplanet Issues $25M Bonds to Buy More Bitcoin (CoinDesk): EVO FUND purchased 3.6 billion yen ($24.8 million) of zero-coupon debt from Metaplanet, which intends to buy more bitcoin after recently exceeding 5,000 BTC. UK's FCA Seeks Public and Industry Views on Crypto Regulation (CoinDesk): The Financial Conduct Authority is seeking feedback on staking, lending, intermediaries and decentralized finance. How China Is Quietly Diversifying From US Treasuries (Financial Times): China is reallocating reserves into gold, mortgage-backed securities and assets managed in places like Hong Kong, reducing reliance on dollar-denominated assets that could be sanctioned or frozen. Eurozone Inflation Holds Above Target as ECB Weighs Cuts (Bloomberg): Eurozone inflation held steady at 2.2% in April, defying expectations of a slowdown, while core inflation jumped to 2.7%. Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Wire
23-04-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Aurion Biotech Appoints Edward J. Holland, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer and Eris P. Jordan, O.D., as Chief Development Officer
SEATTLE & CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aurion Biotech, a clinical-stage regenerative medicine company whose mission is to restore vision to millions of patients, today announced the appointments of Edward J. Holland, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer, and Eris P. Jordan, O.D., as Chief Development Officer. Aurion Biotech is developing AURN001, an investigational, single-administration, allogeneic cell therapy for the treatment of corneal edema secondary to corneal endothelial disease, a condition that causes progressive vision loss in millions of people worldwide. Dr. Holland has been a key supporter of Aurion since its inception, serving as Chair of the Medical Advisory Board and leading the first team of U.S. corneal surgeons to deliver the cell therapy developed by Aurion Biotech, based on foundational technology from Professor Shigeru Kinoshita at Kyoto Prefecture University of Medicine. His insights and clinical leadership have helped shape the trajectory of Aurion's development program. Dr. Jordan, a co-founder of Aurion, has been instrumental at every stage of the company's clinical journey. She led the foundational clinical trials in El Salvador, including the IOTA and ESCALON studies, and has since overseen the expansion of Aurion's clinical development program into North America. Her contributions have brought Aurion's mission to life — grounded in tireless advocacy for patients and deep collaboration with the global corneal surgeon community. 'I've had the privilege of knowing Dr. Holland for over a decade,' said Arnaud Lacoste, Ph.D., M.B.A., Chief Executive Officer of Aurion. 'His dedication to patients and his leadership in corneal care have been instrumental to the success of our program. His appointment as Chief Medical Officer further strengthens our clinical and scientific foundation as we move toward late-stage development and, ultimately, broader patient access.' 'Over the past four years, Dr. Jordan has poured her heart into this program,' Lacoste continued. 'Her leadership of our global clinical trials has been extraordinary, and her commitment to patients and surgeons alike reflects who we are as a company. I'm honored to continue working with Eris as Chief Development Officer.' Dr. Holland added, 'Joining Aurion in this capacity is both exciting and deeply meaningful. I've seen firsthand the transformative potential of AURN001, and I look forward to helping the team bring this therapy to patients who urgently need new options.' Dr. Jordan commented, 'This program has always been about patients — those we've met and those still waiting. I'm grateful to lead the development of AURN001, and to work alongside a team so deeply committed to scientific excellence and to the people we serve.' About Edward J. Holland, M.D. Dr. Holland is a globally recognized leader in cornea and external disease. His numerous honors include the Senior Achievement and Life Achievement Honor Awards from the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Binkhorst and Lindstrom Medals from the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, and the Castroviejo Award from the Cornea Society. He has been named among the 'Best Doctors in America' and has published extensively in both basic and clinical research, with over 300 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Holland was the co-principal investigator of the Cornea Donor Study, the largest clinical trial ever conducted in the field of cornea, and he has co-edited five editions of Cornea, the most widely read textbook on corneal disease and surgery. About Eris P. Jordan, O.D. Dr. Jordan brings over two decades of experience across clinical practice and the ophthalmic industry, and she continues to serve as a practicing clinician specializing in cornea and anterior segment. Prior to co-founding Aurion Biotech and serving as Vice President of Clinical and Medical Affairs, she held leadership roles including Senior Director of Medical Affairs at CorneaGen, Clinical Team Lead and Surgeon Educator at AcuFocus, Inc., and Executive Clinical Outcomes Specialist in Bausch & Lomb's surgical division. Before transitioning to industry, Dr. Jordan spent a decade in direct patient care and served as Clinic Director for a cornea and anterior segment surgical practice. She completed her post-graduate training at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute—the top-ranked U.S. eye care institute—and earned both her Doctor of Optometry and Bachelor of Optical Sciences degrees in a fast-tracked program from Salus University, graduating with highest clinical honors. About Aurion Biotech Aurion Biotech's mission is to restore vision to millions of patients with life-changing regenerative therapies. The company is developing AURN001, an investigational cell therapy for corneal endothelial disease. AURN001 is the first cell therapy for the corneal endothelium to be commercially launched (in Japan) and is advancing through clinical development in North America. Aurion received the prestigious Prix Galien award for Best Start-Up in Biotech in 2022. In 2025, Alcon acquired majority ownership of Aurion Biotech. For more information, visit
