The Bioinformatics CRO Podcast

Jeremy Kamil

Jeremy is an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at LSU Health Shreveport. Usually his lab uses molecular genetic and pharmacological approaches to study human cytomegalovirus, but since the pandemic started, they’ve shifted to SARS-CoV-2.

Adam Robertson

Adam is Chief Scientific Officer, at Hemispherian, where his team is working to develop broad-spectrum anti-cancer therapeutics. After receiving his PhD from UNC Chapel Hill, he moved to Norway and established his own lab at Oslo University Hospital.

Brett Abrahams

Brett is the Vice-President of Research & Development at Magnolia Neurosciences, which is developing therapies for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy and other neurological disorders.  Previously he was head of pre-clinical biology at Ovid Therapeutics.

Noor Siddiqui

Noor is the Founder and CEO of Orchid, a reproductive technology company. Prior to Orchid, Noor was an AI researcher at Stanford where she worked on applications of deep learning to genomics. She was also formerly a Thiel Fellow, working at Remedy.

Jimmy Qian

Jimmy is co-founder and COO of Osmind, which has developed an electronic health records system tailored to people with treatment-resistant mental illness. He is currently on leave from Stanford’s MD program, and has previously founded multiple successful non-profits.

Lucia Huang

Lucia is co-founder and CEO of Osmind, which has developed an electronic health records system tailored to people with treatment-resistant mental illness. She received her MBA from Stanford and, previously, worked to help find cures for ALS and Parkinson’s at Verge Genomics.

Deepti Gurdasani

Deepti is a clinical epidemiologist and senior lecturer in machine learning at Queen Mary University of London. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she uses machine learning to understand prominent clusters of patients’ symptoms and how people are likely to progress over time.

Christina Pagel

Christina is director of the Clinical Operational Research Unit and a Professor of Operational Research at University College London. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she works closely with clinicians and public health professionals to communicate research to the public.

Nisreen Alwan

Nisreen is an Associate Professor of Public Health at the University of Southampton, researching maternal and child health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alwan uses social media to communicate public health messages and to call for long COVID to be counted and measured.

Grant Belgard

Grant is founder and CEO of The Bioinformatics CRO as well as head of bioinformatics at bit.bio. He previously earned a doctorate from the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, with joint training at the NIH, and worked as a research scientist in biotech. 

Ambika Bumb

Ambika is the health science and technology advisor for the department of state’s crisis management and strategy.  Previously she studied nanodiamonds as a NIH-Marshall Scholar and subsequently founded Bikanta applying nanodiamond technology to diagnostics.

Lucas Steuber

Lucas is clinical product and marketing director at Cognixion. A renowned linguist and speech pathologist, he has helped develop a brain-computer interface with augmented reality to help people with speech disabilities communicate.

Trevor Martin

Trevor is co-founder and CEO of Mammoth Biosciences, discovering novel CRISPR systems that enable new possibilities for expanding biology. For example, using CRISPR as a COVID-19 diagnostic test. He has previously been honored as Forbes 40-under-40. 

Dan Geschwind

Dan is a professor and associate vice chancellor at UCLA. His group has pioneered the application of systems biology methods in neurologic and psychiatric disease, with a focus on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and neurodegenerative conditions.

Delian Asparouhov

Delian is the co-founder of Varda Space Industries and principal at Founders Fund.  He was awarded the Thiel Fellowship in undergrad and moved from MIT to Silicon Valley.  His company Varda is working to manufacture products such as human organs in a microgravity environment.

Vania Cao

Vay is a neuroscience Ph.D. who made the transition from academic postdoc to business professional at a biotech startup. She founded Free the PhD to provide career counseling and a peer support system to current students looking to move out of academia. 

Mark DePristo

Mark is the founder and CEO of BigHat Biosciences, using AI to design antibodies and other therapeutic proteins. He has a wide range of experience, having previously worked at the Broad Institute, Google and a biotech startup.

Shaan Gandhi

Shaan is a Director at Northpond Ventures and leads its Boston office, investing in life sciences companies and collaborating to build new ventures. He earned a DPhil at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and an MBA and MD from Harvard University. 

Peter Joyce

Peter is cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of Grey Wolf Therapeutics and has over 13 years of experience in biomedical research leading drug discovery projects in immuno-oncology, rare genetic diseases and neurodegeneration.

Podcast Transcript

Quin Wills

Quin is an MD and computational biologist. He co-founded Ochre Bio, a liver drug company 15 years ago, co-steered Oxford’s single-cell genomics consortium, and founded the Cellular and Systems Genomics department for a leading biopharma.

Podcast Transcript