

AI and Statistics Start-ups: Opportunities and Challenges
10 snips Jun 30, 2025
Manjari Narayan, a speaker at the Effective Statistician Conference 2024, dives into the transformative impact of AI on biotechnology and drug development. She discusses the untapped opportunities for statisticians to innovate before clinical trials and the challenges posed by AI-guided experiments. Manjari emphasizes the importance of experimental design, decision-making, and the need to rethink biomarker discovery. She also encourages embracing generalism and risk-taking for career growth, highlighting strategies for expanding professional opportunities.
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21st Century Is Biology's Century
- The 21st century is aptly called the century of biology due to a boom in biotechnology and multiplexed experiments.
- We now measure human biology in unprecedented spatial, temporal, and resolution detail with new model systems replacing animals.
Rethinking Scientific Validity
- Target trial emulation and causal roadmaps advance validity by aligning studies with scientific questions.
- Increasing focus is on validating estimates beyond p-values for better scientific conclusions.
AI-Guided Multiplexed Experiments
- AI-guided high-throughput experiments iteratively predict and test molecular perturbations for drug discovery.
- This allows efficient exploration of vast mutation spaces through adaptive learning and sequencing barcodes.