Now, onto the latest headlines

Here’s a story you’re going to want to read: Remember Nectome, the memory-preservation startup that last year gave the impression that it was rounding up dead people’s brains and pitching “suicide, with benefits,” as one headline put it? My STAT colleague Sharon Begley journeyed out to South San Francisco to understand the startup. In a long piece well worth your time, she chronicles Nectome’s quest to gain scientific respectability — and create a field that doesn’t yet exist.

Among its many projects in health care, Google is working on an artificial intelligence technology that crunches images of the eye to diagnose diabetic retinopathy, a condition that causes blindness in patients with diabetes. But when the Wall Street Journal visited a hospital in India where the tool is being tested, the newspaper found that the technology often doesn't work with the low-quality images captured in field clinics.

In Google-adjacent news, its life-sciences spinout Verily is expanding its program under which it supports and collaborates with health-care startups, TechCrunch reports.

One of the men who brought you the meal-replacement drink Soylenthas moved into the business of smoking cessation. The Los Angeles startup, called Lucy, is pitching nicotine gum and doesn’t want to be compared to controversial vaping device company Juul, Business Insider’s Erin Brodwin reports in a new profile.

There’s endless excitement about the microbiome’s potential for health, but businesses built around the idea have had a slow and sometimes rocky start. The most recent setback: uBiome, a San Francisco-based startup known for its consumer test, recently laid off more than 50 of its 300 employees as it doubles down on therapeutics, CNBC’s Chrissy Farr reports.

What does California’s opposition to President Trump look like in 2019? Under the new administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom, it’s laser-focused on health care, Politico’s Victoria Colliver reports.

When I started this newsletter last fall, I never expected to write about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, but here we are. A Southern California medical cannabis company called C3 International has named former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos to its board of advisers. You’ll recall that Papadopoulos last fall served a 12-day prison sentence for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia, unearthed as part of Mueller’s ongoing probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.