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2
Feb
2025

The Future of AI and Health, Part III: Improving Health By Enhancing Agency

Part II of this series is here “Agency,” Harvard’s Zak Kohane and I agree, is the word of 2025.    Kohane’s reasoning: “Patients understand how to increase their agency in their disease journey with often correct and thoughtful instant second opinions from AI.”    This perspective aligns with the opportunities described by A16z VCs Vijay Pande and Marc Andreessen, as...
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2
Feb
2025

The Future of AI and Health, Part II: Andreessen and Colleagues Weigh In

Part I of this series is here. Over its 15 years of existence, the Andreessen Horowitz (“A16z”) venture capital firm has evolved from a media-savvy disruptive upstart to an exceedingly well-heeled incumbent and powerful force in Silicon Valley and the country.  In April 2024, the firm announced a gargantuan $7.2B (with a “B”) fund.  For a typical VC firm with...
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27
Jan
2025

Looking at Live Cells and How They Interact at Scale: Mostafa Ronaghi on The Long Run

Mostafa Ronaghi is today’s guest on The Long Run. He is the co-founder and an executive board member at Foster City, Calif.-based Cellanome. Mostafa is a molecular biologist and technology developer. He is an inventor of pyrosequencing methods for DNA sequencing, and is best known for his work as chief technology officer at Illumina during its glory days from 2008-2021....
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20
Jan
2025

Pfizer’s Oxbryta Was Transformational For My Sickle Cell Warriors. Bring it Back

Following Pfizer’s voluntary withdrawal of Oxbryta from the global market, a mother of three daughters battling sickle cell disease shares why patients need it as a therapeutic option. The headline rocked our family to the core. At 5 pm ET, Sept. 25, 2024, the statement read: “Pfizer Voluntarily Withdraws All Lots of Sickle Cell Disease Treatment OXBRYTA® (voxelotor) From Worldwide...
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13
Jan
2025

RNA Editing Medicines: Ram Aiyar on The Long Run

Ram Aiyar is today’s guest on The Long Run. Ram is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Korro Bio. The company is developing medicines that edit RNA, instead of DNA, which more people have heard about. Previously, Ram co-founded Corvidia Therapeutics and served on the management team up through its $2.1 billion acquisition by Novo Nordisk. He’s had a long and...
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13
Jan
2025

Moving from Biotech to Nature

Everything started with my love for animals. I studied biology and journalism at the University of Warsaw — science because I loved nature, and journalism because I believed it would be my escape from the confines of post-communist Poland. I yearned to explore the world with friends, and did a variety of jobs – waiting tables, gorilla zookeeping, blackjack dealing...
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9
Jan
2025

Australia’s Little-Known Biotech Advantages and Risks

Most US biotech entrepreneurs and investors don’t consider Australia a thriving global hub. But there are compelling reasons to take another look at what’s happening there now. Australia has become more attractive based on its willingness to allow fast, affordable clinical trials to help early-stage developers gather human data on new drug candidates. That low-cost, high-speed, high-quality early development capability...
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8
Jan
2025

How the US Can Continue to Lead As China Rises

China made its intentions known 10 years ago. In the “Made in China 2025” plan, released in 2015, the government identified biopharmaceuticals as one of the industries where it sought a world leadership position. The investment has paid off. By making biotech a top priority, the China biotech ecosystem is now thriving. As we enter 2025, the strength of China’s...
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6
Jan
2025

AI Needs Natural Language to Give Structure to Biology

The word of the day, at least in the AI for Biology community, is foundation models. Everyone wants bigger data on more things to throw into bigger models. Virtual cell models will enable us to predict how cell states will change in response to chemical perturbations. Protein language models will enable us to identify better enzymes for degrading plastics or...
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2
Jan
2025

Investing in Biotech: David Schenkein on The Long Run

David Schenkein is today’s guest on The Long Run. David is a general partner with GV. It’s the non-strategic corporate venture firm formerly known as Google Ventures. GV is backed by a single limited partner, Alphabet, and has $10 billion in assets under management in 400 active portfolio companies working in tech and life sciences. In this conversation, we talk...
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12
Dec
2024

The Past, Present and Future of RNAi Therapies: Kevin Fitzgerald on The Long Run

Today’s guest on The Long Run is Kevin Fitzgerald. Kevin is the chief scientific officer of Cambridge, Mass.-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. He joined the company way back in 2005, when it was aspiring to create a new class of RNA interference medicines. These are sometimes referred to as “gene silencing” drugs. They are designed to shut down the production of disease-related...
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