Ira Pastor, ideaXme longevity and aging ambassador and founder of Bioquark interviews Dr. Shai Shen-Orr, Founder and Chief Scientist of CytoReason and Associate Professor Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.
Ira Pastor comments:
The year is now 2019 and we have surpassed $7 trillion in total annual healthcare expenditures around the globe. As part of that $7 trillion, we’re now spending close to $1 trillion a year on pharmaceutical products.
As we’ve been watching the traditional pharma product basket change over the last century, from small organic molecules drugs and vaccines to larger macromolecule biologics (proteins and antibodies), and now into an era of gene and cell therapies, as well as other therapeutic modalities, the tools that allow these discoveries and development of these novel interventions has been changing as well.
AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning
A set of tools that we have been hearing quite a bit about in recent years is the triad of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning, and their respective applications in the drug discovery and development processes.
Artificial intelligence in general is defined as a computer system able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, examples including, but not limited to, visual perception, speech recognition, translation and decision-making.
Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence that involves methods of data analysis that automate analytical model building and is based on the idea that systems can learn from data, identify patterns, and make decisions with minimal human intervention.
Deep learning is a machine learning technique that teaches computers to do what comes naturally to humans: learning by example.
In the example of the driverless car business, deep learning technology can enable cars to recognize a stop sign, or to distinguish a pedestrian from a lamppost.
Artificial Intelligence in the Drug Discovery Process
We recently did a show with a colleague in big pharma, as of last week his internal competitive intelligence group counted 153 companies currently attempting to apply this set of AI tools in some fashion to the drug discovery process, so it’s needless to say, it is an area that is really heating up.
So, for today’s guest, I could think of no one better to come and talk with us for a while about this exciting, evolving set of R&D tools in the bio-pharma space, and some of their real world translational possibilities, than Professor Shai Shen-Orr, Associate Professor at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and founder and Chief Scientist of CytoReason.
Professor Shai Shen-Orr
Professor Shen-Orr has a PhD from Harvard University in Molecular Cell Biology & Bioinformatics and runs the The Shen-Orr Lab for Systems Immunology & Precision Medicine at Technion, where their core focus is on understanding how immunity is orchestrated in humans and how to apply this knowledge towards advancing genomic medicine.
The lab combines experimental and computational approaches to cover three main themes: identifying biomarkers of immune health, translating this understanding to model organisms and humans, and to understand the system-level properties of immunity and harness these insights to understand complex systems in general.
CytoReason
Dr. Shen-Orr founded CytoReason in 2016, based on more than a decade of his research, not just from Technion but also his previous work at Stanford.
With the understanding we now have of the human immune system being at the epicenter of so many different pathologies in 2019, both direct (autoimmune disease/allergies), to its use as a biotherapeutic tool (immunotherapies) to all of the secondary aspects of inflammation where we see connections to pathologies such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, neuro-inflammation in the case of Alzheimer’s, etc., as well as aging in general and the topic of the “inflamm-aging” processes, I thought he’d make for a great guest to go through this fascinating topic with.
Topics Covered:
Today we will hear about Professor Shen-Orr’s background, how he became interested in science, how he became interested in bioinformatics and molecular biology, and ultimately how he finds himself in 2019 at the epicenter of a very “hot” area of the biopharma drug discovery and development process. We will also hear a general overview of AI/deep learning in the healthcare/biopharma space, a discussion about CytoReason and its platform, a discussion of CytoReason’s collaborations with big pharma, as well as a discussion of the bio startup ecosystem in Israel.
Credits: Ira Pastor interview video, text, and audio.
Follow Ira Pastor on Twitter: @IraSamuelPastor
If you liked this interview, be sure to check out our interview with Dr John (Jose) Mejia on the potential of curing disease with mosquitoes!
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