The Importance of Deep Learning in Drug Discovery

On the latest episode of the AWS Health Innovation Podcast, Dr. Yin He, Principal Business Development, Healthcare & Life Sciences Startups, welcomes Alex Zhavoronkov, the CEO of Insilico Medicine, to the show for a fascinating conversation about their transformative work at the intersection of AI & BioTech.

Insilico Medicine is an end-to-end generative AI-driven biotech company. They harness the capabilities of their proprietary Pharma.AI platform to accelerate drug discovery & development. The conversation goes into detail about how Insilico uniquely combines AI and genomics to bridge computation and biology, enabling them to help global pharmaceutical companies accelerate their drug development.

Listen in as Alex Zhavoronkov goes into detail about his and Insilico’s journey to leverage computational tools in chemistry & biology, and the how AI's capabilities evolved over time, ultimately helping them hone their approach. We also shed light on the ethical and regulatory challenges surrounding the application of AI for drug development and Insilico's strategies to address them.

• [03:55] Alex Zhavoronkov background & career journey
• [09:40] Shift to using computational tools in chemistry
• [16:40] AI's evolution over time & developing Insilico's core approach
• [24:20] Ethical and regulatory challenges of using AI for drug development
• [29:30] Bits meet atoms - automated labs & GenAI
• [34:10] Federating drug development - great research from every hospital
• [37:10] Advice for potential biotech entrepreneurs
• [42:36] The importance of the number 42

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