The Future of Aging, AI, and Robotics with CEO of Insilico Medicine - Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD | Ep. 52

In this episode, VibeCast host Ray Dogum speaks with Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, about his journey to starting the company in 2014. Insilico Medicine's mission is to extend healthy productive longevity by transforming drug discovery and development with generative artificial intelligence.
Key Moments:
00:00:08 - Introduction
00:01:14 - Dr. Zhavoronkov's Journey from Computer Science to Longevity Research
00:05:24 - Application of Deep Neural Networks in Biomedical Research
00:08:33 - Overcoming Challenges in AI Adoption in Biotech
00:17:07 - Ensuring Ethical and Unbiased AI in Healthcare
00:18:32 - Importance of Safety in Drug Development
00:21:53 - FDA Regulations and Drug Approval
00:26:42 - Global Collaboration and Opportunities in Africa
00:30:03 - Democratization of AI Technology
00:35:18 - Future of Biotech and AI
00:37:22 - The Future of Longevity Research
00:37:54 - Psychological Aging
00:38:22 - Conclusion and Call to Action
Guest Bio:
Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine (insilico.com), a leading clinical-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation generative artificial intelligence and robotics platforms for drug discovery. Since 2014, he has invented critical technologies in the field of generative artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning (RL) for the generation of novel molecular structures with the desired properties and the generation of synthetic biological and patient data. He also pioneered the applications of transformers and other deep learning technologies for the prediction of human biological age using multiple data types, transfer learning from aging into disease, target identification, and signaling pathway modeling. Under his leadership, Insilico raised over $400 million in multiple rounds from expert biotechnology, healthcare, and financial investors, opened R&D centers in 6 countries and regions, and partnered with multiple pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and academic institutions. Since 2021, the company nominated 18 preclinical candidates, started 6 human clinical trials, and entered Phase II with an AI-discovered novel target and AI-designed novel molecule. By 2023, 11 out of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies used a part of the Pharma.AI software suite, and the IND-stage cancer program was sold in a deal with $80 million upfront as a testament to the quality and novelty of the AI-generated molecule.
Prior to founding Insilico, he worked in senior roles at ATI Technologies (GPU company acquired by AMD). Since 2012, he has published over 200 peer-reviewed research papers with over 30 papers in the field of generative adversarial networks, generative reinforcement learning, and multi-modal transformers, and 3 books, including "The Ageless Generation: How Biomedical Advances Will Transform the Global Economy" (Macmillan, 2013). He serves on the advisory or editorial boards of Trends in Molecular Medicine, Aging Research Reviews, Aging, and Frontiers in Genetics, and founded and co-chairs the Annual Aging Research and Drug Discovery (10th Annual in 2023), the world's largest event on aging research in the biotechnology industry. He is the adjunct professor of artificial intelligence at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.
Guest Links:
Linkedin: / zhavoronkov
X: x.com/biogeron...
Website: insilico.com/
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VibeCast is our weekly informational podcast and content series exploring the hottest topics in drug development and AI. VibeCast is a collection of long-form and short-form video content intended to help our community learn about the current opportunities and challenges in biotech financing and community engagement innovation.
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