What are virtual cells and their limits?

Artificial intelligence is transforming how we discover and develop new medicines. But how far can it really take us? In this episode, Jacob and Saloni trace the path of drug development from discovery to testing, manufacturing, and delivery. They explore where AI could speed things up, and where it still hits the limits of biology, data, and economics. They ask what it would take, beyond algorithms, to actually cure and eradicate diseases.

Hard Drugs is a new podcast from Works in Progress and Open Philanthropy about medical innovation presented by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen.

You can watch or listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

Saloni’s substack newsletter: https://www.scientificdiscovery.dev/

Jacob’s blog: https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/ 

Chapters:
0:00:00 Intro
0:09:56 Drug discovery
1:02:20 Animal models
1:49:09 Drug efficacy
2:32:56 Drug safety
2:58:29 Manufacturing and healthcare
3:43:23 R&D funding
4:00:56 Trust and ambition
4:16:01 Summary

Blogposts:

• Claus Wilke (2025) We still can’t predict much of anything in biology https://blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/we-still-cant-predict-much-of-anything 
• Elliot Hershberg (2025) What are virtual cells? https://centuryofbio.com/p/virtual-cell 
• Jacob Trefethen (2025) Blog series. 1) What does AI progress mean for medical progress? https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/ai-progress-medical-progress/ 2) AI will not suddenly lead to an Alzheimer’s cure https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/ai-san-francisco/ 3) AI could help lead to an Alzheimer’s cure https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/ai-optimism/ 

Articles:

• Wendi Yan (2024) Discovering an antimalarial drug in Mao’s China https://www.asimov.press/p/antimalarial-drug 
• Jason Crawford (2020) Innovation is not linear https://worksinprogress.co/issue/innovation-is-not-linear/ 
• Shayla Love (2025) An ‘impossible’ disease outbreak in the Alps https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/03/als-outbreak-montchavin-mystery/682096/ 
• Alex Telford (2024) Origins of the lab mouse https://www.asimov.press/p/lab-mouse 
• Jonathan Karr et al. (2012) A whole-cell computational model predicts phenotype from genotype https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3413483/ 
• Wen-Wei Liao et al. (2023) A draft human pangenome reference https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05896-x 
• Per-Ola Carlsson (2025) Survival of transplanted allogeneic beta cells with no immunosuppression https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2503822 
• Saloni Dattani (2024) Antipsychotic medications: a timeline of innovations and remaining challenges https://ourworldindata.org/antipsychotic-medications-timeline 
• Saloni Dattani (2024) What was the Golden Age of antibiotics, and how can we spark a new one? https://ourworldindata.org/golden-age-antibiotics 

Books:

• Sally Smith Hughes (2011) Genentech: The beginnings of biotech

Theses:

• Alvaro Schwalb (2025). Estimating the burden of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and the impact of population-wide screening for tuberculosis.

Acknowledgements:

• Aria Babu, editor at Works in Progress
• Graham Bessellieu, video editor
• Abhishaike Mahajan, cover art
• Atalanta Arden-Miller, art direction
• David Hackett, composer

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