The Biotech Startups Podcast 🧬eMalick Njie, Ph.D - Ecotone - Part 2 | What is Memory? | Playing “Stump the Professor” | Lab Coat Labs vs Sandals Labs | Wanting to Help People at Scale
Oct 10, 2024
55:03
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Part 2 of 4: Jon Chee hosts our latest guest, eMalick Njie, CEO of Ecotone AI, a healthcare company that is using AI to find cures for inherited diseases. eMalick is an experienced scientist and entrepreneur who has focused on blending his expertise in neuroscience with his knowledge of AI.
In addition to founding two AI companies, Ecotone and Genetic Intelligence, eMalick received his PhD in Neurobiology and Neuroscience from the University of Florida. His extensive and diverse experience from being a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia university to being the CEO of the AI thinktank NeuroStorm makes our conversation with him one you won’t want to miss.
Join us this week to hear about:
- Answering the question “What is memory?”
- How playing “Stump the Professor” led eMalick to Columbia
- Studying C Eligans in a sandals-wearing lab
- The wide applicable uses for AI and ML in research
- Wanting to help people at scale
Please enjoy Jon’s conversation with Dr. eMalick Njie!
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Enriched Notes:
Topics Mentioned:
Alzheimer’s Disease: https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-alzheimers
Amyloid Plaques: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyloid_plaques
CAR T Therapy: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/immunotherapy/car-t-cell1.html
Amyloid Hypothesis for Alzheimer’s https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/alzheimers-new-study-supports-amyloid-hypothesis-suggests-alternate-treatment
Biotech Startup Support: https://www.excedr.com/resources-category/biotech-startup-support
People Mentioned:
Dr. Wolfgang Streit: https://neuroscience.ufl.edu/profile/streit-wolfgang/
Dr. David Borchelt https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-borchelt-42474623/
Timestamps:
00:28 Intro
01:52 Moving to Florida and dealing with massive shifts in weather and culture
04:48 Experience working to answer the questions, “What is memory,”
06:21 Studying the other extreme edge of memory, Alzheimer’s disease
10:43 Investigating possible plaque busting proteins
13:43 Benefits of having more freedom and other differences between MIT and Borchelt's Lab
16:25 Playing “Stump The Professor” with Martin Chalfie
20:06 Getting both invited and challenged to write a proposal to study at Columbia
25:47 Learning to love the constant surprises and level of people in New York
29:46 Going from a lab coat lab to a sandals lab to study C Eligans at Columbia
34:25 Researching neurons responsible for touch sensitivity in C Eligans
38:30 Martin Chalfie’s mentorship brilliant mentorship style allowing his students to grow
43:43 How a data deluge stemming from one of his experiments started his AI/ML journey
49:53 Choosing the entrepreneurship path and wanting to help people at scale
54:27 Outro
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.