#89, Accelerating Drug R&D, Part One of the Health Innovation Compilation Series

AWS Health Innovation Podcast

Pushing the boundaries of drug research and development, visionary companies are harnessing the power of engineering, artificial intelligence, and novel technologies to revolutionize how we discover and design new therapies. In this compilation episode, we explore the cutting-edge approaches of VivoDyne (Andrei Georgescu, CEO), Seer (Serafim Batzoglou, Chief Data Officer), Ordaōs (Dave Longo, CEO), Insilico Medicine (Alex Zhavoronkov, Founder and CEO), and Alchemab Therapeutics (Young Kwon, PhD, CEO).

1. How is VivoDyne's microfluidic bioengineering platform revolutionizing drug research?

• VivoDyne's platform enables growing tens of thousands of human tissue samples at scale, providing precise control over microenvironments to study complex cell interactions and dynamics that drive disease.
• This approach overcomes limitations of simplistic cell cultures and animal models, bridging the gap between preclinical results and human responses.

2. What makes Seer's approach to proteomics so powerful?

• Seer develops nanoparticle technologies that enable unbiased, deep, and large-scale access to the proteome, the full set of proteins in the body.
• Their approach detects 8x more proteins than conventional methods, unlocking insights into complex biological systems and paving the way for new diagnostic and therapeutic breakthroughs.

3. How are Ordaōs' "mini-proteins" transforming drug development?

• Ordaos designs "mini-proteins" from scratch, combining advantages of small molecules and antibodies for optimal drug properties like stability, tumor penetration, and oral delivery.
• Their AI models complex biological systems to engineer these powerful therapeutic candidates, tackling the high failure rates and costs of traditional drug development.

4. How is Insilico Medicine leveraging generative AI to reimagine drug discovery?

• Insilico Medicine leverages generative AI like generative adversarial networks (GANs) to accelerate the traditionally slow and costly drug discovery process.
• Their AI-driven approach generates novel small molecule candidates with desired properties, aiming to transform pharmaceutical R&D.

5. What is unique about Alchemab Therapeutics' approach to developing antibody therapies?

• Alchemab Therapeutics identifies protective antibodies from resilient patient populations, using machine learning to find rare sequences and predict functional antibodies against hard-to-treat diseases like Alzheimer's and cancers.
• Their AI-powered platform accelerates antibody therapy development by combining machine learning with experimental validation.

Companies featured in this compilation:

• VivoDyne - Andrei Georgescu, CEO (vivodyne.com)>>Listen to the full episode
• Seer - Serafim Batzoglou, Chief Data Officer (www.seer.bio)>>Listen to the full episode
• Ordaōs - Dave Longo, CEO (ordaos.bio)>>Listen to the full episode
• Insilico Medicine - Alex Zhavoronkov, Founder and CEO (insilico.com)>>Listen to the full episode
• Alchemab Therapeutics - Young Kwon, PhD, CEO (alchemab.com)>>Listen to the full episode

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