AI Day 2024

As director of the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design, David Baker's lab has developed some of the world's leading models to predict and generate proteins. Baker has turned those breakthroughs into businesses, co-founding 21 biotechs including Xaira Therapeutics. Hear from one of the field's top scientific visionaries on the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for the AI revolution in biology.

Biopharma is reckoning with the ways AI might disrupt the status quo, with large legacy drugmakers and new startups alike both building their own bets on using AI in drug R&D.  Will incumbents successfully be able to build or buy the most promising technologies, or is AI poised to allow new entrants, particularly from the tech world, to make inroads in the industry? 

AlphaFold’s triumph at predicting the structure of proteins was a breakthrough moment for AI in 2020. What comes next for protein language models? We’ll discuss the current state of the fast-moving field, progress in expanding beyond proteins into RNA and DNA, and connecting protein sequences, structures, and functions. 

From small molecules, to biologics and beyond, the implementation of AI in drug discovery and development has arguably advanced from a nascent to a transformative technology. Despite early successes, much hard work remains before the use of AI in drug development becomes pervasive and delivers results that come close to the hype. What’s needed is a shift in mindset, a new approach that puts the problem before the “AI solution.” This panel will discuss the challenge of building high-quality datasets to solve specific problems, what’s next with predictive modeling, and how to seamlessly integrate ML with biological and or biophysical methodologies.