Tech on Drugs with Shai Shen-Orr

Shai Shen-Orr, Co-founder and Chief Scientist at Cytoreason, shares his insights on using AI in drug development. He discusses how computational disease models help transform vast biological data into actionable insights. Shai explains the importance of automating routine tasks to enable scientists to focus on critical issues and ensure data trustworthiness. The conversation also dives into how CytoReason assists major pharma players like Pfizer in making informed treatment decisions while addressing the challenges of an ever-expanding data landscape.

Prof. Fabian Theis, a pioneering computational biologist known for his work in single-cell RNA-seq and AI in biology, joins Shai Shen-Orr for a captivating discussion. They delve into the transformative impact of the single-cell revolution on the industry and the potential of foundation models in research. The conversation explores futuristic concepts like virtual biotech labs and one-person operations, alongside challenges in causal inference and integrating diverse data types. Ultimately, Fabian shares valuable advice for early-career scientists pursuing their curiosity.

Nir Hacohen, the esteemed Director of the Center for Cancer Research at MGH and a pioneer in immunology, dives into captivating topics. He discusses the surge in antibody therapies and the challenges of STING agonists, urging caution before mechanistic understanding. Nir emphasizes the need for personalized cancer vaccines and reveals intriguing findings about a unique immune cell linked to sepsis. He showcases how spatial biology within tumors impacts therapeutic responses and the importance of tailoring treatments to individual patient profiles.

Tom Bumol's career spans major roles at Eli Lilly, the Allen Institute, and beyond. He is also a distinguished member of CytoReason's Science Advisory Board.In this episode, Tom shares insights into drug development's successes, failures, and future direction, including:Lessons from lupus - the story of a failed lupus trial that revealed the critical importance of understanding disease heterogeneity and inspired new approaches in immunology.From trial and error to predictability - how AI and systems biology can transform drug development by embracing human complexity.Combination therapies and beyond - designing drugs with precision to improve patient outcomes and broaden therapeutic reach.All this and much more in a captivating discussion with our Chief Scientist Shai Shen-Orr. Enjoy!

This episode was recorded in the beautiful Island of Crete, at CytoReason's employee conference, the CytoSummit.CytoReason's Co-founder Shai Shen-Orr hosts AION Labs CTO Yair Benita. Yair is a computational biologist who spent more than 20 years studying biology through omics and clinical data in an effort to piece together mechanisms of human disease. He’s been leading computational teams in drug discovery at CytoReason, Compugen, and Merck. In this candid conversation with Shai, Yair reflects on the highs and lows of his professional journey over the past two decades, as well as the broader industry landscape.Key questions discussed include:What major shift did Keytruda's development introduce to the industry?How did pharma's 'Kodak moment’ come about?What needs to happen in pharma R&D so data is no longer JUST supporting decisions, but actually driving them?And plenty of other industry gems. Enjoy!

While most neuroimmunologists try to understand how the immune system affects the brain, Prof. Asya Rolls has taken the road less traveled in her lab at the Technion. She and her team try to understand how the brain affects the immune system. In this episode of Tech on Drugs, Asya and Shai talked about the power of placebo and how brain activity, particularly in the reward system, can influence the immune system. They discussed the immense potential of harnessing brain-immune pathways for new treatment approaches. For example, research that shows that stimulating certain brain areas can boost immune responses and even reduce tumor sizes.But it's not so simple; as Asya put it, this is "complexity on steroids." To better understand the brain-immune connection and develop more holistic treatments, future research will require advanced computational models for different diseases and tissues, as well continuous data integration. 

This one was fun.In the latest episode of Tech on Drugs, Shai met with Prof. Eran Segal from the Weizmann Institute of Science.Eran heads a multidisciplinary team of computational biologists and experimental scientists working in the area of Computational and Systems biology. His lab at Weizmann aims to develop personalized nutrition and personalized medicine using machine learning, computational biology, probabilistic modeling, and analysis of heterogeneous high-throughput genomic and clinical data.Among other things, Eran and Shai talked about precision nutrition and preventative medicine, and the importance of large-scale, longitudinal health data for advancing personalized medicine and improving drug development efficacy.

Our guest this time was Prof. Ido Amit, whose lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science pioneered single cell transcriptomic analysis and its application to the immune system.Amit’s research focuses on some of the most important questions in immunology – specifically those relevant to novel targets for immunotherapy in autoimmune diseases, neurodegeneration, and cancer.A fascinating discussion between two leading scientists about the potential of single cell RNA analysis to revolutionize target discovery and drug development.

What will the future of precision medicine look like 5-10 years down the line? And how will AI accelerate this future?I asked Dr. Emanuele de Rinaldis to answer this and many other questions. Emanuele is VP, Global Head of Precision Medicine & Computational Biology at Sanofi R&D. He believes that AI will help us define new taxonomies of diseases. We will identify different types of Asthma, different types of Fibrosis.And AI will help us create a new textbook – not one driven by just clinical observations, but a textbook driven by genetics and gene expression, together with real world evidence. This will take drug development and precision medicine to a level we have never seen before.

Our guest this time is serial biotech entrepreneur Yanay Ofran. Yanay is a renowned computational biophysicist and the CEO and Co-founder of Biolojic Design. More importantly, Yanay, together with his stellar team, developed the first AI-designed antibody. He shared with Shai his (strong) opinions about: The barriers to precision medicine (and how to overcome them).The potential of AI-designed antibodies (and how, just a few weeks ago, a cancer patient in North Carolina became the first American to receive treatment with such an antibody).The reasons why even in this golden digital era drug development is still insanely expensive (and how - to use a battle metaphor - we've mastered the intelligence phase, we have great ammunition, but we need to seriously up the ante in execution!).Enjoy!