Discovery Engines – with Nabil Laoudji

Nabil Laoudji, YesAnd Labs LLC

Featuring the innovators advancing science and technology. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. More at www.discoveryengines.co

  1. Jun 11

    Democratizing AI for Biology | Discovery Engines

    Gabriele Corso, CEO and co-founder of Boltz, believes the most powerful AI models for drug discovery should be accessible to all, starting with the open models his team has put in the hands of over 100,000 scientists. In this episode, I sit down with Gabriele to explore the leap from predicting protein structures to designing new molecules with Boltz-1, Boltz-2, and BoltzGen, why he champions open access, their multi-year partnership with Pfizer, and the vision of "zero-shot" drug design. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. See below for episode links, chapters, and our socials. 🙏🙌 Episode Links: Boltz Boltz Repository Gabriele's LinkedIn Worldwide Protein Data Bank Ginkgo Lab Tour Pfizer Partnership Announcement Chapters: (00:00) - Preview (00:56) - Intro (02:15) - Why Proteins Matter and Rational Drug Design (05:51) - Target Identification, the Toughest Problem in Drug Discovery (07:55) - Small Molecules and Biologics (12:57) - Does a Disease Have One Target or Many? (15:36) - The Billion Dollar Molecule and How Boltz's Models Work (22:05) - The Protein Data Bank (PDB) and the Role of Sequencing Data (25:55) - What New Data Could Improve AI Bio Models? (29:02) - Where Boltz's Training Data Comes From (31:46) - Unlocking Private Bio Data (35:34) - Boltz's Open Approach vs. DeepMind's Isomorphic Labs (39:18) - What Boltz's 100,000 Users Get Access To (41:32) - Inside the Pfizer Partnership (43:55) - Why Biotech Business Models Are So Hard (Microsoft, Apple, Red Hat) (49:17) - How Boltz Differs from Schrödinger, Recursion and Others (52:31) - Regulation, the FDA, and Trust in Computational Data (56:42) - Autonomous Labs and the Data Feedback Loop (1:00:25) - Faster Trials, Virtual Cells, and Other Speedups (1:03:34) - When Will a Boltz-Designed Drug Reach a Patient? (1:04:55) - How Listeners Can Help (Hiring, Partnerships, Investing) (1:06:27) - Closing Reflections on AccessConnect With Us: Our Newsletter Twitter LinkedIn Bluesky Feedback or questionsPlatforms: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts

  2. Mar 30

    Building an AI-Driven Autonomous Lab for Life Science R&D | Discovery Engines

    Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, believes the future of life science R&D is autonomous, starting with the 52-cart lab he and his team have built in Boston. In this episode, I sit down with Jason to explore Ginkgo's autonomous biology lab, its collaboration with OpenAI, the POTUS-backed Genesis Mission, and where autonomous physical systems could take science next. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. See below for episode links, chapters, and our socials. 🙏🙌 Episode Links: Ginkgo Bioworks Jason Kelly's LinkedIn OpenAI x Ginkgo Cell-Free Protein Synthesis Collaboration Genesis Mission to Accelerate AI for Scientific Discovery PNNL's Anaerobic Microbial Phenotyping Platform (AMP2) Society for Lab Automation and Screening GlobalData Report: Large Pharma Drug Licensing from China Chapters: (00:00) - Preview (01:54) - Jurassic Park and the Value of Storytelling in Science (04:50) - What Is the Department of Energy's AMP2 at PNNL? (07:17) - How Autonomous Labs Can Be Used to Run Experiments (11:49) - Principles of the Autonomous Lab (Waymo Analogy) (17:12) - Project Genesis, Competing with China in Scientific Discovery (23:42) - Reindustrializing America via Automation (37:03) - OpenAI Designing and Running Bio Experiments (47:17) - Advice to Frontier Labs Designing AI Intelligence for Science (49:24) - Ginkgo Autonomous Lab Tour (1:00:38) - OpenAI's Interface With Ginkgo (1:02:51) - Lab Scheduler Platform (1:16:19) - Advice for Deep Tech Startups (1:22:22) - Advice for Scientists and Founders Thinking About Where to Focus in Biotech (1:25:18) - How Research Labs Could Better Collaborate and Communicate Results (1:29:23) - Advantages and Challenges of Going Public (1:32:14) - Public Perception of Ginkgo (1:33:57) - How Ginkgo's Business Model Has ChangedConnect With Us: Our Newsletter Twitter LinkedIn Bluesky Feedback or questionsPlatforms: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts

  3. 11/12/2025

    Building Safe AI - MIT AI Alignment's Riya Tyagi and Gatlen Culp

    Riya and Gatlen are board members of MIT AI Alignment, an organization focused on reducing risks from advanced artificial intelligence. Join us as we map the AI safety landscape, define key risks, examine generational perspectives, and explore how we can work together to build a safer future for humanity. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. See below for episode links, chapters, and our socials. 🙏🙌 Episode Links: MIT AI Alignment Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative (CBAI) Riya's LinkedIn Gatlen's LinkedIn Gatlen's Projects Slaughterbots x Future of Life Institute Track II Diplomacy Tegmark AI Safety Group "Nexus" by Yuval Noah Harari RAND Institute BlueDot Impact "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares Chapters: (00:00) - Preview & Intro (01:48) - What Is MAIA? (02:47) - Why AI Safety? (09:26) - Trends in AI Safety Interest (12:46) - AI Safety Techniques: MechInterp & Beyond (17:15) - Model Situational Awareness (20:58) - Hybrid, Mixture of Experts Models (24:40) - Decomposing a Model & Parallels with Human Brains (29:00) - Private Capital for Safety Research (32:23) - Frontier Lab Mentorship Programs (34:14) - Policy Perspectives & China Competition (36:53) - Ways In Which AI Might Threaten Us (39:31) - Track 2 Diplomacy & International Collaboration Examples (43:13) - Slaughterbots & Dangerous Capability Demos (46:54) - AI-Driven Unemployment (52:06) - Generational Attitudes Towards AI (57:44) - How to Get Involved - Non Technical (01:01:00) - Learning Resources: BlueDot Impact, etc (01:01:46) - Importance of Communicators & Artists (01:03:50) - How to Support MAIAConnect With Us: Our Newsletter Twitter LinkedIn Bluesky Feedback or questionsPlatforms: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts

  4. 08/06/2025

    AI for Physics Discovery - Jesse Thaler of NSF's IAIFI, MIT's Center for Theoretical Physics

    Jesse Thaler is Director of the National Science Foundation's AI for Physics "Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions" (IAIFI), and Professor of Physics at MIT's Center for Theoretical Physics. In this episode we explore how AI is reshaping physics, how physics is reshaping AI, and mind-bending implications of theoretical physics. Join us!" See below for episode links, chapters, and our socials. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. Support the podcast! Subscribe to our newsletter: www.discoveryengines.co. Thanks for watching 🙏🤙 Episode Links: Jesse's Website National Science Foundation's IAIFI MIT Department of Physics Jesse's MIT Page Quantum Field Theory CERN Large Hadron Collider Chapters: (00:00) - Preview & Introduction (04:00) - Jesse's Journey Into Physics (05:49) - Curiosity For Understanding The Nature Of Reality (07:27) - What Is A Theoretical Particle Physicist? (09:34) - Quantum Field Theory (11:05) - Particle-Wave Duality (12:53) - What is the Large Hadron Collider? (15:04) - Data Generated From Particle Collisions (17:52) - How LHC Experiments Are Scheduled (19:24) - The Future of the LHC and Particle Colliders (26:29) - National Science Foundation's Institute for AI and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI) (30:52) - How AI Is Accelerating Physics Discovery (40:42) - How Physics is Accelerating AI Discovery (Diffusion models and beyond) (48:27) - Physics Popcorn! – Einstein on Time (49:32) - Donald Hoffman's Interface Theory of Perception (50:48) - Many-Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics (53:12) - DeepMind's Demis Hassabis on Superintelligence for Science (54:03) - Human-Style Intelligence Alone Is Not Enough (55:17) - Advocate For Curiosity-Driven Research, Hire IAIFI Talent, Engage With AIConnect With Us: Our Newsletter Twitter Bluesky LinkedIn Feedback or questionsPlatforms: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify PodcastsFeatured Images: "Standard Model of Elementary Particles", Cush, Public Domain "First proton-lead ion collisions at the LHC", Pcharito, CC BY-SA 3.0 Book cover: "The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes", by Donald Hoffman X Screenshot, Demis Hassabis, @demishassabis

  5. 06/19/2025

    Universal Lab Automation - Rick Wierenga of PyLabRobot

    Rick Wierenga is creator of PyLabRobot, an open-source, hardware-agnostic Python SDK that's lowering the barriers to lab automation for scientists, startups and hackers. See below for episode links, chapters, and our socials. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. Support the podcast! Subscribe to our newsletter: www.discoveryengines.co. Thanks for watching 🙏🤙 Episode Links: Rick's Twitter Rick's LinkedIn PyLabRobot GitHub PyLabRobot Forum PyLabRobot Twitter Dana Gretton, PyHamilton PyTorch Flow Cytometry Chapters: (00:00) - Preview & Introduction (03:33) - Rick's Serendipitous Foray Into Lab Automation (07:00) - Why AWS for Biology (09:17) - Understanding Liquid Handling Robots (10:49) - Generic Robotics Stack (13:20) - Robot Automation With PyLabRobot (15:07) - The Community Building PyLabRobot (16:54) - Why A Big Pharma Would Support PyLabRobot (18:36) - PyTorch: An Open Source Inspiration (20:32) - Sharing Technology In A Competitive Industry (23:11) - Supported Device Ecosystem (25:49) - Surprises in Device Integration (27:54) - Reverse Engineering 101 (31:26) - How Useful Are Github CoPilot, Codex, LLMS for Reverse Engineering (34:34) - How Device Manufacturers, Automation Experts, Are Reacting to PyLabRobot (39:17) - Open Source Efforts and Device Safety (41:11) - How PyLabRobot Enables Sharing Protocols, Reproducibility (45:03) - Creating a 3D Scanner From a Liquid Handler (48:49) - Supporting Self-Driving Labs (54:49) - How PyLabRobot Will Evolve (55:40) - Automating Flow Cytometry (58:17) - How To Contribute and ConnectConnect With Us: Our Newsletter Twitter Bluesky LinkedIn Feedback or questionsPlatforms: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts

  6. 05/07/2025

    Breaking Into AI for Science - Alishba Imran of UC Berkeley BAIR, Arc Institute, CZ Biohub, Voltx

    Alishba Imran is a deep learning researcher at UC Berkeley's BAIR AI Lab, a Research Fellow at the Arc Institute, a former Research Intern at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, co-founder of battery tech startup Voltx, and co-author of "AI for Robotics: Toward Embodied and General Intelligence in the Physical World" See below for episode links, chapters, and our socials. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. Support the podcast! Subscribe to our newsletter: www.discoveryengines.co. Thanks for watching 🙏🤙 Episode Links: Alishba's LinkedIn Alishba's Twitter "AI for Robotics" book Arc Institute UC Berkeley BAIR AI Lab Chan Zuckerberg Biohub DynaCLR Paper Biopunk Lab Chapters: (00:00) - Preview & Introduction (05:02) - Why AI for Science? (10:34) - Bootstrapping Your Own Learning (16:02) - Why Battery Testing Matters: Launching Voltx (20:19) - Batteries, Raw Earth Minerals: Incremental vs Transformative Chemistries (23:54) - The Business Side of Deep Tech Entrepreneurship (29:14) - The State of Battery Tech Today (30:50) - Working with Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (33:37) - DynaCLR For Contrastive Learning of Cell State Dynamics (36:21) - Why Self-Supervised + Contrastive Learning (41:06) - Generalizing to Different Cells Contexts With Embeddings (42:06) - Microscopy or ML Advancements for Unlocking Progress (43:54) - Managing Terabytes of Data (46:51) - Arc Institute: Collecting Largest Single Cell Dataset (48:40) - Role of Tech-Founder Funded Institute To Advance Foundational Work (50:41) - Book Launch! Merging Classical Robotics Methods With Cutting-Edge Deep Learning (53:42) - Robotics Progress: Hype vs Reality (57:09) - Robotics for Science (58:54) - Future Trends: Automation, Foundational Single Cell Models, Protein and Genome Language Models, Transcriptomics (01:00:41) - Pivoting into AI for Science Early, Mid, or Late Career (01:02:49) - Exchanging Ideas; DynaCLR Paper; AI for Robotics BookConnect With Us: Our Newsletter Twitter Bluesky LinkedIn Feedback or questionsPlatforms: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts

  7. 04/23/2025

    Unleashing Scientific Data - Nicholas Larus-Stone of Sphinx Bio, Bits in Bio

    Nicholas Larus-Stone is the Founder & CEO of Sphinx Bio, a startup helping life science labs unlock the full potential of their data to accelerate discovery. He’s also the Founder of Bits in Bio, a global community advancing science through software. See below for episode links, chapters, and our socials. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. Support the podcast! Subscribe to our newsletter: www.discoveryengines.co. Thanks for watching 🙏🤙 Episode Links: Nicholas' LinkedIn Sphinx Bio Bits in Bio Folding Playground Google Co-Scientist Paper Recursion Defining TechBio Chapters: (00:00) - Preview & Introduction (04:34) - Why Biotech & Life Science (07:33) - About Small Molecule Discovery Companies Octant & Benevolent AI (11:47) - Why Is Software Second in Biotech? (14:35) - What Engineers Bring to Biotech (16:00) - Is Science Data-Starved or Data Rich? (19:23) - How Scientists Work With Data (28:10) - Observations That Led to Founding Sphinx Bio (31:48) - AI Co-Scientists (37:57) - How Platforms like Sphinx Are Powered (40:31) - Foundation Model Companies' Interest in Science (43:58) - How Sphinx Leverages AI Models (45:59) - Managing Hallucinations (47:52) - Scientists: Give AI Another Try (49:02) - The Business and Cycles of TechBio (53:32) - Google's Co-Scientist, Notebook LM, and Other Science Ventures (57:43) - Protein Folding Playground (00:58:58) - "Wrapper" Companies In Era of Foundation Model Commoditization (01:01:56) - Bits in Bio Community & Growth (01:04:25) - Try Sphinx's Platform; Work for Sphinx; Support Your Local ScientistConnect With Us: Our Newsletter Twitter Bluesky LinkedIn Feedback or questionsPlatforms: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts

  8. 04/02/2025

    Inside the DOE's Autonomous Lab for Materials Discovery - David Milsted, Lab Systems Engineer

    David Milsted is a postdoctoral researcher at the “A-Lab” for autonomous materials discovery, located at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Please note: The views expressed in this video by David are his own and not those of his colleagues. See below for episode links, chapters, and our socials. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. Support the podcast! Subscribe to our newsletter: www.discoveryengines.co. Thanks for watching 🙏🤙 Episode Links: David's LinkedIn Lawrence Berkeley National Lab A-Lab Ceder Group UC Berkeley Mississippi State University Wood Science Chapters: (00:00) - Preview & Introduction (04:37) - LBNL Fun Facts (05:40) - David’s Journey Into Lab Automation (Wood Science, Automation Engineering) (10:26) - Why Wood Science (14:54) - Journey From Brazil To LBNL (25:50) - Material Discovery Process Steps (29:37) - Predicting Materials Properties (35:07) - Synthesizing Materials With Automation (43:21) - Testing Novel Materials (44:58) - Orchestrating Automated Labs (A-Lab OS) (49:14) - Shifting From Independent to Team-Based Projects (53:28) - University-Government Lab Structure (57:41) - What Inspired A Lab’s Vision (01:02:40) - Growth in Autonomous Lab Investment (01:05:34) - Future of Characterization Via Microscopy (01:10:22) - A Lab Tour (Core Components) (01:15:44) - Vendor Support: Mitsubishi, Labman, MTI, etc (01:18:58) - Managing Input Inventory For Runs (01:20:12) - Furnace Deep Dive (01:24:06) - Parallel Processing (01:25:43) - Vendor Automation Out of the Box; Importance of Societal AwarenessConnect With Us: Our Newsletter Twitter Bluesky LinkedIn Feedback or questionsPlatforms: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts

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Featuring the innovators advancing science and technology. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. More at www.discoveryengines.co

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