🧬 Noam Solomon - Immunai - Part 3 | Deciphering the Book That is the Human Immune System | Building Immunai’s Team | The Importance of Single Cell Multi-Omics | Big Pharma & Dancing With Gorillas

As a podcast listener, you can redeem exclusive discounts with a growing list of biotech vendors and get $500 off your first equipment lease by using promo code “TBSP” on https://www.excedr.com/rewards.

Part 3 of 4. 

My guest for this week’s episode is Noam Solomon, CEO and co-founder at Immunai, a pioneering biotech company that is comprehensively mapping and reprogramming the immune system with single-cell biology and AI to power new therapeutic discoveries, accelerate drug development, and improve patient outcomes. 

Prior to co-founding Immunai, Noam had a career in both industry and academia. Noam has a double PhD in math and computer science and served as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and Harvard. Noam also worked as an algorithms developer, consultant, and head of data science in several high-tech companies in Israel. Noam's extensive background in math, computer science, AI, and machine learning gives him a unique depth of experience that founders can learn from.

Please enjoy my conversation with Noam Solomon.

00:28 Intro

02:04 Episode starts, the human genome project and the alphabet used to read the book of the human immune system

05:10 Bringing an outsider's perspective to Immunai and their unique approach

08:07 Building the the Immunai team with both immunology and computer science experts who are not afraid to ask the stupid questions

12:10 Observing the hospital, pharma, AI landscape and how that shaped their philosophy of doing what's right even if they don’t know what they’re doing

19:00 Balancing both your naivete as a CEO with judging who’s advice to take

20:03 What is single cell multi-omics, the technology behind Immunai and what they learned from Netflix

24:44 How to embrace failure without creating a failure culture and other lessons learned from setting up their first lab

28:22 “Do you know how you dance with a gorilla?” and how to work with different pharma companies

33:05: Outro

https://www.immunai.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/ 

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@excedr 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/excedr_inc 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ExcedrInc 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/excedr 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@excedr 

Podcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/ 

Immunai https://www.immunai.com/ 

Human Genome Project https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project 

Single Cell Multi-Omics https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5303816/ 

Recommender Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recommender_system 

What Is Bioinformatics https://www.excedr.com/blog/what-is-bioinformatics-and-computational-biology 

New Drug Application https://www.excedr.com/blog/new-drug-application-process 

Guide to the FDA Drug Approval Process https://www.excedr.com/blog/fda-drug-approval-process-guide 

Equipment Leasing for Laboratories https://www.excedr.com/leasing

Biotech Startup Support https://www.excedr.com/resources-category/biotech-startup-support

Louis Voloch  https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisvoloch 

Ansuman Satpathy https://www.linkedin.com/in/ansuman-satpathy-3b386639/ 

Danny Wells https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-wells-bb03453a/ 

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.