Owl Posting

Abhishaike Mahajan

5.0 (2)
NATURE
UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Owl Posting

a podcast about biology and computation www.owlposting.com

FEB 3

How do you make a 250x better vaccine at 1/10 the cost? Develop it in India. (Soham Sankaran, Ep #2)

This is an interview with Soham Sankaran, the founder and CEO of PopVax, an mRNA vaccine development startup. Curiously, PopVax is based in India, specifically Hyderabad. This should be a surprise to most people in the field: we never really hear of interesting biotech research being done in a place that isn’t [US, Europe, East Asia]. Yet, PopVax has been astonishingly successful, having a (in mouse) influenza vaccine that is 250x better than its competitors, multiple large research collaborations, and their first upcoming US based phase 1 clinical trial being fully sponsored and conducted by the NIH. It’s an extremely interesting success story from what feels like a very clear underdog. In this 2-hour podcast, we discuss everything from why so little biotech research gets done in India, a breakdown on what you care about in vaccine design (immunogens), how PopVax uses machine learning for precise immunogen design, how raising money for a vaccinology startup is going, and a lot more. Timestamps and transcripts are below. Just as in my last episode, I’ve included a ‘jargon explanation’ as a quick primer for some of the subjects discussed in the episode. Some final bits: the studio rental costs were kindly covered by Dylan Reid! Huge shout-out to him for making this episode possible. Also shout-out to Samarth Jajoo, Reha Mathur, and David Yang for some very helpful discussion about the Indian biotech scene. And, if you think PopVax is interesting, here is their Substack which has some articles on their results, their job section (they are actively hiring), and can be reached at contact@popvax.com. Timestamps 01:31 Introduction 02:38 Why is there such little biotech research in India? 17:43 Advantages of building a company in India 31:30 Policy prescriptions for India 35:39 Questions on vaccine design 50:55 What does PopVax do? 01:01:58 The role of machine learning in vaccine design 01:12:07 The (conservative) culture of vaccinology 01:26:57 Hiring in India 01:46:52 How fundraising for an Indian vaccine design startup is coming along 01:57:36 How is PopVax so good at designing vaccines? 02:02:07 Pet theories on immune mechanisms 02:09:07 mRNA beyond infectious diseases 02:12:38 What would you do with $100 million dollars? Get full access to Owl Posting at www.owlposting.com/subscribe

2h 15m
12/03/2024

Can AI improve the current state of molecular simulation? (Corin & Ari Wagen, Ep #1)

In my first (real) podcast episode, I talk with Corin and Ari Wagen, two brothers who I met through my writing. They are building something super cool: a molecular simulation company called Rowan (which recently got into the Nat Friedman AI grant program). We discuss neural network potentials (NNP’s), whether dynamics are useful at all, the role of computational chemistry in drug design, what the future of the field looks like for molecular simulation, and a lot more. If you work in molecular simulation, I recommend trying out their tool at rowansci.com. I’m not a chemist and cannot vouch for the tool personally, but I can vouch for how much I’d trust Corin and Ari to build something useful. Not a paid sponsorship, not anything I have an investment in, etc, etc, I just genuinely want their startup to succeed. If you're confused by this episode, check out the 'Jargon Explanation' on the Substack post: https://www.owlposting.com/i/152329408/jargon-explanation Transcript of this episode (contains links to all referenced organizations and papers) My Twitter My Substack (you should subscribe!) Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 01:19 Divide between classical and quantum simulation 03:48 What are NNP's actually learning? 06:02 What will NNP's fail on? 08:08 Short range and long range interactions in NNP's 10:23 Emergent behavior in NNP's 16:58 Enhanced sampling 18:16 Cultural distinctions in NNP's for life-sciences and material sciences 21:13 Gap between simulation and real-life 36:18 Benchmarking in NNP's 41:49 Is molecular dynamics actually useful? 53:14 Solvent effects 55:17 Quantum effects in large biomolecules 57:03 The legacy of DESRES and Anton 01:02:27 Unique value add of simulation data 01:06:34 NNP's in material science 01:13:57 The road to building NNP's 01:21:13 Building the SolidWorks of molecular simulation 01:30:05 Simulation workflows 01:41:06 The role of computational chemistry 01:44:06 The future of NNP's 01:51:23 Selling to scientists 02:01:41 What would you spend 200 million on? Get full access to Owl Posting at www.owlposting.com/subscribe

2h 9m

2 Episodes

5

out of 5

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a podcast about biology and computation www.owlposting.com

Creator

Abhishaike Mahajan
Years Active

2024 - 2025
Episodes

2
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© Abhishaike
Show Website

Owl Posting