a16z Podcast

Journal Club: Finding New Antibiotics with Machine Learning, What Coronavirus Structures Tell Us

Episode Summary

with @vijaypande @andy23tran @heyjudka @lr_bio a16z Journal Club covers recent advances from the scientific literature; this inaugural episode for bio covers 2 two different topics: (1) identifying new antibiotics through a novel machine-learning based approach; and (2) characterizing the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic

Episode Notes

a16z Journal Club (part of the a16z Podcast), curates and covers recent advances from the scientific literature -- what papers we’re reading, and why they matter from our perspective at the intersection of biology & technology (for bio journal club). This inaugural episode covers 2 different topics, in discussion with Lauren Richardson:

0:26 #1 identifying new antibiotics through a novel machine-learning based approach -- a16z general partner Vijay Pande and bio deal partner Andy Tran discuss the business of pharma; the specific methods/  how it works; and other applications for deep learning in drug discovery and development based on this paper:

11:43 #2 characterizing the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic -- a16z bio deal partner Judy Savitskaya shares what we can learn from the protein structures; the relationship to the 2002-2004 SARS epidemic; and more based on these two research articles: 

You can find these episodes at a16z.com/journalclub.