Can a giant pile of data beat human expertise in the design of miracle drugs? Daphne Koller and her startup Insitro may come up with a surprising answer
but for Daphne Koller it’s a regular occurrence. “It happens at pretty much any event that has tech people,” Koller says when asked about one recent snapshot. “It’s a little awkward. It’s not like I feel like this is something I deserve.”
Lab biologists typically focus on a few specific proteins as drug targets. If those fail, data scientists make suggestions for others to try. Insitro, on the other hand, wants to collect much more data before the biologists go off on their hunt. It will leverage advances in bioengineering and in software that enables computers to see things that escape humans.
AI plus biology, her background, was a “marriage made in heaven” for investors, she says. Within six months Koller raised $100 million from ARCH Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Foresite Capital, Alphabet’s venture fund GV and Third Rock, with Jeff Bezos and others joining later. In April, she landed a deal with Gilead Sciences that gives Insitro $15 million now with $1 billion to follow if it helps find a treatment for a deadly form of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
Artificial intelligence does not make biology easy. “I don’t think the platform can be magic,” Koller says.
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