Trends from the Trenches
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Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Feb 28, 2023
Episode: 15 - CEO Andrew Hopkins on Exscientia’s AI-Driven Approach to Modern Drug Discovery
The steel industry is not a common birthplace of biotech companies, but Andrew Hopkins traces the ideas that became Exscientia back to his time there. New technologies and new processes replaced nearly 90% of the steel workforce, and Hopkins kept those market lessons. He says, “When I ended up in pharma and biotech, I had a very different perception of the power of commerce and markets and what they can potentially drive, and the power of new technology to position oneself in those markets.”
In this episode, Andrew Hopkins, CEO and Executive Director of Exscientia, speaks with host Stan Gloss of BioTeam about his desire to fundamentally change drug creation mechanics and processes with technology, his graduate experience working in human immunodeficiency virus drug design at Oxford University, and his stint at Pfizer. He also discusses Exscientia’s machine learning-based and model-driven approach to drug design, the connection between knowledge and efficiency in drug optimization projects, and its fourth platform-designed drug launch into the clinic.
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2022 Bio-IT World story: Building AI for the Drug Discovery Learning Problem
2006 Nature Paper: Global mapping of pharmacological space
Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Jan 24, 2023
Episode 14: How Recursion Hopes to Harness the Big Picture View to Understand Biology’s Landscape
After ten years of working on a specific disease, Chris Gibson’s graduate school lab tested their treatment theory on an animal model. It not only didn’t work, it actually made the animals worse. The experience prompted Gibson to look into how other tools and techniques could be brought to bear on biological programs. And so he quit medical school to co-found Recursion Pharmaceuticals where he is now CEO.
In this episode, Gibson sits down with host Stan Gloss of BioTeam, about Recursion’s mission to decode biology, radically improve lives, and set big goals to innovate across every stage of drug discovery. “If you set goals that are easily achieved, you default to using tools that have been used in the past. The only way you can force yourself to use new tools is if you set goals that are very hard to achieve if not seemingly impossible,” Gibson said. He talks about the company’s use of ’omics technologies to answer the industry’s present and future questions, their highly automated wet lab with robots, and Recursion’s use of machine learning to understand biology as a complete system. Gibson also discusses the company’s purpose-built datasets and the culture-first approach that helps foster more agility relative to larger, older pharmaceutical giants.
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Recursion
Recursion’s Vision for the New Shape of Drug Discovery
Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Dec 27, 2022
Episode: 13 - Vizgen’s Terry Lo on Creating Maps of Biology’s Backroads
Terry Lo has been in healthcare for almost 25 years, with business and commercial roles across pharma, diagnostics, and life sciences, but his most recent role—CEO at Vizgen—connects him with what he calls, “without a doubt the most exciting space I’ve been involved with.” In this episode, Lo speaks with BioTeam’s Stan Gloss about spatial biology, why it matters, and how he imagines the technology changing healthcare’s future.
Lo details how a science that explores the intersections between visual histology and molecular markers creates more complete images or maps of healthy and diseased tissues to better understand disease onset and progression. He explains, “The challenge has always been that these two have been very separate fields of science and technology. Now we have this ability to bring them together. And that’s really how you get spatial biology.” He also talks about Vizgen’s MERSCOPE platform powered by MERFISH (multiplexed error robust fluorescence in situ hybridization) technology, its origins at Harvard, and the company’s collaboration with the Allen Brain Institute to create detailed brain maps.
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Vizgen
Vizgen Launches Data Release Program, Shares Spatial Genomics Mouse Brain Map
Spatial Surge: AGBT Updates On Single-Cell and Spatial Genomics, In Situ Analysis, More
Allen Institute for Brain Science
Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Nov 30, 2022
Episode: 12 - Bonus Episode With AWS’ Aaron Friedman on the New Amazon Omics Service Launch
Host Stan Gloss, founder of BioTeam, talks with Aaron Friedman, HealthAI Principal Product Manager at Amazon Web Services, about the launch of Amazon Omics. This new purpose-built service helps healthcare and life science organizations store, query, and analyze genomic, transcriptomic, and other omics data to generate insights that improve health and advance scientific discoveries. The platform simplifies and accelerates the process of storing and analyzing data for research and clinical applications.
On the day of the announcement, Friedman discusses why Amazon Omics will best suit small and large biotech companies and make it easier for various organizations to mine their data. He also outlines its key features, how it combines data with other modalities, and why it lends itself to top-tier multi-omics and multimodal analysis.
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Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Nov 22, 2022
Episode 11: Atomic Changes: Reshaping our Data Journey in Small Steps
Host Stan Gloss, founder of BioTeam, invites Mike Tarselli, chief scientific officer at TetraScience, to chat about data and how the life sciences industry thinks about our primary product. They discuss the tech sector’s influence on pharma in switching from a project mindset that yields outputs to a product mindset that yields outcomes and why the industry should use traditional supply chain mechanics as the blueprint to generate and package data.
Tarselli also advises biotech companies experiencing a data transformation—as opposed to a digital transformation—to start small and resist the urge to make sweeping changes. “If everybody did these little 1% and 5% hacks here and there, you would have a 20x better laboratory in two years. Data transformation initiatives tend to fail when they go too big,” he says. Lastly, Tarselli shares his hopes for a global and highly collaborative environment that fosters data exchange and readiness in the pharmaceutical space.
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TetraScience
TetraScience Announces GxP Solution, $500M Investment in Scientific Data Cloud
"I, Pencil" Essay by Leonard E. Read
Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Oct 25, 2022
Episode 10: Dr. Kiana Aran on a New Wave of Technological Advancements With Graphene
Graphene has quickly become a biotech buzzword as scientists aim to better connect with biology and usher in a new wave of technological advancements. Outperforming silicon at nearly every turn, graphene is one of the most biocompatible tools for extracting valuable information without disrupting biological systems. “Graphene is a single layer of carbon molecules. Everything in our body is made of carbon. It’s the most compatible material we can find that has amazing electronic properties. You can build electronics and conjugate with biology without impacting the biology and without biology impacting it,” says Dr. Kiana Aran, chief scientific officer at Cardea Bio, Keck Graduate Institute associate professor of bioengineering, and founder of the Aran Nebula Foundation.
In the latest episode of Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast, host Stan Gloss, founder of BioTeam, speaks with Aran about the scientific advantages of merging graphene with modern technology. She also discusses her work in creating graphene-based biological transistors for pathogen detection, CRISPR-based gene editing, and plant genotyping. Finally, Dr. Aran provides an update on the Aran Nebula Foundation, an organization designed to help women in science build their scientific skill sets in preparation for leadership roles.
Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Sep 27, 2022
Episode 9: State of the Industry: Checking in on AI Trends and Progress with Fernanda Foertter
In the latest episode of Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast, host Stan Gloss, founder of BioTeam, talks with Fernanda Foertter, director of developer relations at Voltron Data, about her AI experiences in the past few years, whether we’ve made any real progress, and if she thinks AI is a pipe dream. “It feels like it’s a pipe dream to be able to get these things right [today]... I think as we get the ability to regularize and get data in a way that looks as harmonized as possible, things will improve. But the problem is getting to that point.”
Foertter also shares her thoughts about imputation, why most companies should stop buying AI startups and hire a statistician, and why sharing data is one of the most critical components of industry progress. “What’s going to change the world is when we start learning how to share data with one another. The differentiator is going to be how you do the service, and not necessarily the data that you hold. People who understand that and see that will actually benefit far more than people who are thinking that their data is gold, and they have a lot more than the next person.”
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2021 Trends from the Trenches Presentation
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Voltron Data
Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Aug 23, 2022
Episode: 8 - Victoria Gamerman on a Roadmap to Real-World Data in Drug Discovery
Victoria Gamerman’s love of analytics and math came from her grandmother—the first mathematician she knew. And in her nearly decade at Boehringer Ingelheim, she’s been putting that love to use as the Global Head of Data Governance and Insights. In the latest episode of Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast, host Stan Gloss, founder of BioTeam, talks with Gamerman about real world data, why it’s important for drug discovery, and the shifts happening around how we think about data. “Historically what I have seen and observed in terms of industry trends and trends from regulators is… a culture of data collected for a very specific purpose. Therefore, the design of a clinical trial is very specific to address the scientific question at hand,” she says.
Gamerman speaks openly about how shifts in technology help real-world data make a significant impact on precision and public health, the challenges that varied data sources present to scientists, and how those same challenges present useful information regarding a patient’s health journey. “The trifecta of information that ultimately comes out of those data sources is what will give us the huge opportunity to better understand and create really powerful medicines for future generations.”
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Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Jul 26, 2022
Episode 7: George Church on Neurodiversity, Collison of Bad Ideas, and Thinking Visually
Neurodiversity is inconvenient in a classroom; George Church knows firsthand. But in the latest episode of Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast, Church tells host, Stan Gloss: “I’m interested in overcoming the inconvenience of having people who are a little bit out on the bell curve… You don’t want necessarily to train everybody in your lab to be as close to the ideal citizen as possible. You just want them to be comfortable enough that they can deal with their diversity.”
Church goes on to talk about how neurodiversity shaped his education and scientific career, the mental tricks he used to survive school with dyslexia, why being neurodiverse is an asset, and how personifying ideas lets him champion the underdog. “It’s not just dyslexic thinking, it’s thinking in any way differently,” he said. “If you think differently on any axis... then that means you become more self-reliant… When everybody in the middle of the bell curve is stuck on a problem, you’re going to give a new solution.” When hiring or forming collaborations, Church says he looks for the ability to deal with ambiguity and contradictions. He shares how a neurodiverse workplace leads to innovative discoveries, and his advice to early scientists navigating traditional work environments.
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Wyss Institute
Richard Branson Praises LinkedIn for Adding ‘Dyslexic Thinking’ as Official Skill
George Church on 4D Omics, Natural Computing, and the BioWeatherMap
Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Jun 28, 2022
Episode: 6 - Susan Gregurick Previews Potential Elements of NIH’s Next Strategic Plan for Data Science
Susan Gregurick, Associate Director for Data Science and Director of the Office of Data Science Strategy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), speaks with Stan Gloss, podcast host and BioTeam founder, about the next iteration of the NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science and the lessons learned from the recent pandemic. “COVID just told us how much we weren’t doing, and how challenging it is to really get FAIR data into the hands of researchers in a timely fashion so they can find it, access it, and use it. We are nowhere close to actually accomplishing that goal,” Gregurick tells Gloss.
Over the next five years, the NIH plans to create a research data mesh to harmonize data services, enhance Researcher Auth Services to standardize methods for accessing data, develop hybrid data compute infrastructures, and create new language around artificial intelligence, machine learning, and research-inspired data. Hear Gregurick speak about the NIH’s vision to develop tools for ethical AI and her passion for enhancing training in under-resourced communities and building a multi-disciplinary and diverse data workforce.
Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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May 24, 2022
Episode: 5 - Kim Branson on Building Groundbreaking AI/ML Models in Drug Discovery
Dr. Kim Branson’s intense interest in drug discovery and structural biology quickly led to an interest in machine learning. After receiving multiple degrees from esteemed universities in Australia, Branson trained at Stanford and now works as the Senior Vice President and Global Head of AI/ML at GSK. With host, Stan Gloss, Branson shares his work in creating “biological twins.” These 3-D tumor culture models replicate cancer and their respective immune environments. Branson and his team monitor tumor and immune responses to cancer drugs in real-time. The clinical implications of anticipating a tumor’s every move within a patient’s body are astounding. He also explains why thoughtfulness is paramount in experiment design and how a project’s impact should be the primary consideration before proceeding. Learn how GSK recruits talent and the importance of creating a multidisciplinary environment. Hear Branson talk about eliminating AI analysis bias, navigating ethical issues, a…
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Apr 27, 2022
Episode: 4 - James Cuff on Computing’s Evolution and the Next Fascinating Challenge
James Cuff summarizes his career over the past 25 years or so in the latest episode of Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast. He tells our host, BioTeam’s Stan Gloss, where he’s seen updates in the space and which things have fundamentally stayed the same. He also shares about the problem that’s been bugging him for the past five years and the new company he’s joined that could fix it.
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Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Mar 29, 2022
Episode 03: Jim Bilotta on Digitization vs. Digital Transformation at Alnylam
Jim Bilotta found his home in orphan diseases early in his career, driven by both personal experience and the “unbelievable” impact on patients and their families. Today, as Chief Information Officer, head of IT, at Alnylam, he is still pursuing that impact. Bilotta and Trends from the Trenches host, Stan Gloss, discuss digital transformation at Alnylam, and how Bilotta views the distinction between digitization and digital transformation.
Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
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Alnylam
Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your inside…
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Feb 21, 2022
Lita Sands on the Cloud, Digital Transformation, AWS Future Plans
From big pharma to Amazon Web Services, Lita Sands has seen the amazing impact that the Cloud has had on life sciences research over the course of her career. During the pandemic, Sands has seen companies’ journeys to the cloud accelerate from 8-12 year roadmaps into 1-2 year transition plans. As companies turn their attention to enabling digital transformation, Sands has some advice. Take a 1-3 year view of your goals, she says, and don’t try to boil the ocean. “People need to see success.” She advocates for strong partners who have already built and validated the tools you need, and warns against setting a finish line. “You’ll never be done,” she says.
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Amazon Web Services
Bio-IT World’s 2021 Plenary Panel on Digital Transformation moderated by Lita Sands
Trends from the Trenches column with Mike Montello, GSK
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Feb 21, 2022
Launching a Trends from the Trenches Podcast from BioTeam and Bio-IT World
Bio-IT World and BioTeam have been exploring the drivers of life sciences innovation for years during the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo and in regular columns in the publication. Now Bio-IT World editor, Allison Proffitt, and BioTeam co-founder, Stan Gloss, discuss their latest project: a podcast to capture in-depth conversations with leaders in the field about data, culture, technology, and more.
Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.
*Biography:* As co-founder and Evangelist of BioTeam, Stan Gloss has been working to tell the stories of the intersection of science, data and technology since 2002. Gloss joined with fellow founding partner…
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Feb 21, 2022
Tony Kerlavage on Data Lakes, Data Commons, and Empowering the Research of the Future
At the National Cancer Institute, Tony Kerlavage knows quite a bit about managing very large pools of data. When NCI launched the Genomic Data Commons, it aimed to democratize access to the genomic data in The Cancer Genome Atlas and other sources. Since then, though, Kerlavage points out that our data types and volumes have only grown. Now NCI is taking a “Commons of Commons” approach to link pools of well-structured data. “The more data we can bring together in a well-structured way, the more value it has in the long run,” he believes. He advocates for sharable Python notebooks and reusable R programming, believing significant investments in data hygiene and interoperability delivers more value than simply mining data lakes with artificial intelligence tools—for now, at least. The challenge for researchers, Kerlavage says, is to view their work with an eye to the future: How might someone else use this data going forward?
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