Beyond Biotech - the podcast from Labiotech Using AI to crack undruggable drug targets
As we mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we welcome Avital Sharir-Ivry, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of ProPhet, an innovative Israeli startup launched in late 2024 from the AION Labs venture studio.
With a PhD in computational biology and drug research, Avital brings deep expertise in structural biology, enzyme design, and evolutionary bioinformatics to her role leading ProPhet's scientific efforts.
ProPhet itself is changing small molecule drug discovery by using advanced AI and machine learning to map proteins and compounds into a shared interaction space. This enables rapid, scalable screening of billions of molecules—even for so-called "undruggable" targets—without relying on solved structures or massive datasets, speeding up hit-finding and expanding the reachable therapeutic landscape.
01:36 Meet Avital Sharir-Ivry
08:55 How ProPhet emerged from AION Labs challenge
12:12 Core AI technology for hit-finding at scale
15:00 Benchmarks and collaborations
17:54 ProPhet’s differentiation from traditional drug discovery
19:45 Importance of scaling small molecule exploration
24:19 Pharma AI investments and emerging trends
26:11 Future AI breakthroughs in drug discovery
27:04 Challenges and progress for women in science
31:15 Keep up with ProPhet
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