Vivodyne's AI-Driven Biology Labs Tackle Data Problem in Cancer

Biotech startup Vivodyne has developed a machine learning approach to tackle the data problem in cancer research. The company's AI-driven biology labs aim to provide the kind of causal data needed to train new models on human biology.

Vivodyne's HIVE machines are tracking hundreds of thousands of ongoing experiments where diseased tissue is exposed to some stimulus, providing a unique opportunity for reinforcement learning.

CEO and co-founder Andrei Georgescu believes that this approach will be key not just for today's medicine challenges but also for a future where complex diseases require drugs that target multiple pathways.

'If we want combination therapies, the space that has to be searched explodes,' he said. 'You have to say, 'I want this effect to happen, so what cause should I invoke?' Establishing causality in human biology is the basis of all of this.'

Vivodyne's approach has garnered attention from major pharma companies, which are working with the company to solve a problem that Georgescu compares to automotive crash tests.

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'The idea is to accelerate the path of drug candidates,' he explained. 'Though it won't name its partners publicly, Vivodyne says it is working with multiple major pharma companies to solve a problem that has plagued the industry for years.'

The company's vision is to generate the kind of causal data that can be used to train new models on human biology, providing a significant breakthrough in cancer research.

'All the training is done on static snapshots of these cells, and the models are not conditioned at all,' Georgescu said. 'In other words, the model learns 'this is cell state A,' 'this is cell state B,' but never 'cell state B is the effect of inflaming cell state A.'

Vivodyne's HIVE machines are poised to provide this kind of reinforcement learning, enabling the development of AI models that understand human biology enough to make meaningful progress in healthcare.

'If we want combination therapies, the space that has to be searched explodes,' Georgescu emphasized. 'You have to say, 'I want this effect to happen, so what cause should I invoke?' Establishing causality in human biology is the basis of all of this.'