Pharmaceutical companies are undergoing a digital transformation. By experimenting with new initiatives, they are positioned to play a role in the revolution of healthcare. This transformation is driven by data from internal and external sources, including
both -omic data and that from digital devices. Bio-IT World WEST, part of Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference, brings together all the stakeholders involved in this transformation. Your registration includes the option to track-hop
to the other programs at the Molecular Med TRI-CON as well as the Hackathon, plenary keynote, exhibit/poster hall, and more!
Machine learning, specifically for drug discovery and development, is highly data-intensive with disparate types of data being generated that have historically been trial-and-error processes. Deep learning, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence
(AI), coupled with correct data, have the potential to make these processes less error-prone and increase the likelihood of success from drug discovery to the real-world setting. The AI-Enabled Drug Discovery and Development conference
will discuss lessons learned from case studies as well as challenges that lay ahead.
Final Agenda
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Download Brochure
Sunday, March 1
2:00 - 5:00 pm Afternoon Short Courses*
*Separate registration required
5:30 - 8:30 Dinner Short Courses*
*Separate registration required
Monday, March 2
8:00 - 11:00 am Morning Short Courses*
*Separate registration required
10:30 Conference Program Registration Open
(please see Keynotes page for details)
11:45 Organizer’s Opening Remarks
Cindy Crowninshield, RDN, LDN, HHC, Executive Event Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute
11:50 Chairperson’s Remarks
Allison Proffitt, Editorial Director, Bio-IT World
11:55 Keynote Introduction, Benchling
Ashoka Rajendra, Head, Product, Registry, Inventory, Benchling
12:10 pm KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: The AI Bubble and the Emerging Thinking Economy
Pietro Michelucci, PhD, Director, Human Computation Institute
12:40 KEYNOTE PANEL DISCUSSION: Data Quality in Human Computation Systems
Moderator: Allison Proffitt, Editorial Director, Bio-IT World
Panelists: Jennifer Couch, PhD, Chief, Structural Biology and Molecular Applications Branch, Division of Cancer Biology and Citizen Science Coordinator, National Cancer Institute
Devin
Krotman, Director, Global Learning XPRIZE and IBM Watson AI XPRIZE
Vani
Mandava, Director, Data Science Outreach, Microsoft Research
Pietro Michelucci, PhD, Director, Human Computation Institute
Ginger Tsueng, PhD, Scientific
Outreach Project Manager, Department of Integrative, Structural and Computational Biology, The Scripps Research Institute
1:30 Bio-IT World WEST Luncheon Presentation to be Announced
2:05 Session Break
2:20 Chairperson’s Remarks
Michael D. Miller, Head of Science Infrastructure, Roche
2:25 AI and Computer-Aided Drug Discovery: the Hype, the Myth, the Legend
José Duca, PhD, Global Head, Computer-Aided Drug Discovery, Novartis
2:55 PANEL DISCUSSION: AI in Genomics and Precision Medicine
The AI-Enabled Drug Discovery and Development conference assembles thought leaders who will discuss Genomics and Precision Medicine, taking data from multiple -omics sources, imaging, and lifestyle data and aligning it with clinical action. These can
then be turned into clinical recommendations for disease prevention, prognosis, diagnostics, and therapeutics. Machine learning gives us the power to extract elusive indicators from the ever-increasing volume of heath information. This information
also gives us the power to make patient clusters, well beyond single etiology or prognostic indicators, and the panelists will present the promise and application of these multifactorial approaches toward curing or treating diseases and cancers.
Moderator: Ben Busby, PhD, Scientific Lead, NCBI Hackathons Program, Computational Biology Branch, NIH
Panelists: Jenny Smith, MSc, MEd, Research Bioinformatician, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Lukasz Kidzinski, PhD, CTO, Saliency.ai, Researcher, Stanford University
Celeste Shelton, PhD, CGC, Clinical Variant Scientist & Genetic Counselor, Ariel Precision Medicine
3:55 Sponsored Presentation (Opportunity Available)
4:25 Refreshment Break and Transition to Plenary Keynote
4:35 Welcome Remarks
Cindy Crowninshield, RDN, LDN, HHC, Executive Event Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute
4:45 PLENARY KEYNOTE INTRODUCTION
Thomas Westerling-Bui, PhD, Senior Scientist, Regional Business Development, Aiforia
5:00 PLENARY KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: High-Performance Medicine
Eric Topol, MD, Founder and Director, Scripps Research Translational Institute (SRTI); Author, Deep Medicine: How Artificial
Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again
6:00 Grand Opening Reception in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing, Speed Networking, Book Signing, and Meetup Group
7:30 End of Day
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Download Brochure
Tuesday, March 3
7:30 am Registration Open and Morning Coffee
(please see Keynotes page for details)
8:00 Organizer’s Remarks
Cindy Crowninshield, RDN, LDN, HHC, Executive Event Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute
8:05 Chairperson’s Remarks
Sudeep Basu, PhD, Practice Leader, TechVision-Innovation Services, Frost & Sullivan
8:10 Keynote Sponsor Introduction
Vasu Rangadass, President, CEO, L7 Informatics, Inc.
8:25 KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: AI and Big Data Strategies in Accelerating Clinical Research for Faster Rare Disease Cures
Harsha K. Rajasimha, MS, PhD, Founder, Jeeva Informatics Solutions, Inc.; Founder, Organization for Rare Diseases India–USA (ORDIUSA); Co-Director, Rare Diseases Systems Biology Initiative, George Mason University
8:55 KEYNOTE PANEL DISCUSSION: Applications of AI Technologies in Pharmaceuticals: Facilitating Development of Therapeutics in Treating Rare Diseases
Moderator: Sudeep Basu, PhD, Practice Leader, TechVision-Innovation Services, Frost & Sullivan
Panelists: Tom Defay, Senior Director, R&D Strategy and Alliances, SPMD, Strategy, Program Management and Data Sciences, Alexion
Annastasiah Mhaka, PhD, President, The Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AAIH)
Harsha K. Rajasimha, MS, PhD, Founder, Jeeva Informatics Solutions, Inc.; Founder, Organization for Rare Diseases India–USA (ORDIUSA); Co-Director, Rare Diseases Systems Biology Initiative, George Mason University
Additional Panelists to be Announced
9:40 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing, Speed Networking, Book Signing, and Meetup Group
10:40 Chairperson’s Remarks
Keith L. Ligon, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Pathology, Harvard Medical School; Associate Pathologist and Neuropathologist, Pathology; Director, DFCI Center for Patient Derived Models, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
10:45 Translating Ten Trillion Points of Data into Diagnostics, Therapies and New Insights in Health and Disease
Atul Butte, MD, PhD, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor; Director, Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco; Chief Data Scientist, University of California Health (UC Health)
We build and apply tools that convert trillions of points of molecular, clinical, and epidemiological data – measured by researchers and clinicians over the past decade and now commonly termed “big data” – into diagnostics,
therapeutics, and new insights into disease. Dr. Butte, a computer scientist and pediatrician, will highlight his center’s recent work on integrating electronic health records data across the entire University of California, and how analytics
on this “real world data” can lead to new evidence for drug efficacy, new savings from better medication choices, and new methods to teach intelligence – real and artificial – to more precisely practice medicine.
11:15 Using Networks to Decode Cancer Risk
John Quackenbush, PhD, Professor and Chair, Biostatistics, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
Precision medicine is based on the idea that single mutations can inform our understanding of disease and response to therapy. But we know that cancer is multifactorial, with many genetic variants moderating disease and disease risk. By using
network methods, we can better understand how and why cancer develops and assess disease risk.
11:45 Sponsored Presentation (Opportunity Available)
12:15 pm Session Break
12:20 LUNCHEON PRESENTATION I: A Modern Molecular LIMS Built for Precision Medicine
Nabil Hafez, MS, Senior Director, Product Management, Precision Medicine, Sunquest Information Systems
12:50 Luncheon Presentation II (Sponsorship Opportunity Available)
1:20 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing, Speed Networking, Book Signing, and Meetup Group
2:00 Breakout Discussions in the Exhibit Hall (please click here for details)
3:00 Transition to Conference Programs
3:15 Chairperson’s Remarks
Pankaj Agarwal, Chief Computational Biologist, BioInfi
3:20 Strategies to Study Rare Diseases with “Big Data”
Jaclyn N. Taroni, PhD, Principal Data Scientist, Childhood Cancer Data Lab, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation
We sometimes speak of “big data” in biology. In most cases, these data are wide, and have many more features than examples. This is particularly pronounced in the case of rare diseases, where we may have tens of samples but tens
of thousands of measurements. I’ll discuss how we can use compendia of data with many training examples as a training dataset and then transfer the results of those analyses to rare disease datasets where the number of samples is
particularly limited. I’ll also discuss how this feature of data, even outside of rare diseases, affects deep learning methods in this domain.
3:50 Data-Driven Approaches for Improving Clinical Trial Lifecycle
Shameer Khader, PhD, Senior Director, Advanced Analytics, Data Science and Bioinformatics, AstraZeneca
A successful drug discovery project is under development for 10 years and costs around USD $2.6B. On a temporal scale, the clinical trial phase of the process lasts about 4-6 years. In this talk, I will discuss about big-data-driven, machine
intelligence approach we are leveraging to identify factors driving enrollment and dropout in respiratory clinical trials. Further, I will also discuss about developing predictive models to improve the throughput of the clinical trial
enrollment lifecycle.
4:20 Sponsored Presentation (Opportunity Available)
4:50 Spring Fling Celebration in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing, Speed Networking, Book Signing, and Meetup Group
6:00 End of Day
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Download Brochure
6:30 - 9:30 Dinner Short Courses*
*Separate registration required
Wednesday, March 4
6:45 am Registration Open
7:00 BREAKFAST PANEL DISCUSSION: The Time is NOW: Creating Meaningful Change for Women in the Workplace (Sponsorship Opportunity Available)
Moderator:
Robin Toft, Author of WE CAN, The Executive Woman’s Guide to Career Advancement; Founder and Chairman, Toft Group Executive Search
Panelists: Camille Samuels, MBA, Partner, Venrock
Paul Hastings, President and CEO, Nkarta Therapeutics, Inc
Teresa L. Wright, MD, Staff Physician, Medicine, San Francisco Veterans Administration
(please see Keynotes page for details)
8:00 Organizer’s Remarks
Edel O’Regan, PhD, Vice President, Production, Cambridge Healthtech Institute
8:05 Chairperson’s Remarks
Joseph Ferrara, CEO, Boston Healthcare
8:10 Keynote Introduction, Amazon Web Services
Speaker to be Announced
8:25 KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: The Value and Application of Informatics in Cancer Care Delivery
Debra
A. Patt, MD, Vice President, Public Policy & Academic Affairs, Medical Oncologist, Texas Oncology Cancer Center & Editor in Chief, Journal of Clinical Oncology-Clinical Cancer Informatics
8:55 KEYNOTE PANEL DISCUSSION: Pragmatic Use of Informatics in Cancer Care Delivery and Cancer Research: Big Data and AI Take on Cancer
Moderator: Joseph Ferrara, CEO, Boston Healthcare
Panelists: Mark Hulse, Chief Digital Officer, City of Hope
Debra A. Patt, MD, Vice President, Public Policy & Academic Affairs, Medical Oncologist, Texas Oncology Cancer Center & Editor in Chief, Journal of Clinical Oncology-Clinical Cancer Informatics
Nicholas Schork, PhD, Deputy Director of Quantitative Sciences, Distinguished Professor of Quantitative Medicine, The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen)
Robert P. Sebra, PhD, Associate Professor, Director of Technology Development & Genomics Core Facility, Icahn Institute, Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai
Ajay Shah, PhD, Executive Director & Head of IT for Translational Medicine, Bristol-Myers Squibb
Paul A. Rejto, PhD, Vice President, Head of Translational Research, Pfizer Oncology R&D
9:40 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing, Speed Networking, Book Signing, and Meetup Group
10:40 Chairperson’s Remarks
Kristen Fortney, PhD, CEO, BIOAGE
10:45 Data Science for Translational Research in Pharmaceutical Industry
Zhaoshi Jiang, PhD, Executive Director of Bioinformatics & Clinical Data Sciences, Gilead Sciences
The pharmaceutical industry is facing unprecedented challenges with its current R&D models. The key issue of the industry is the low successful rate of translational research. We would like to share our experience on leverage “omics
data” to better support the translational research at Gilead.
11:15 Leveraging AI, ‘-Omics,’ and Biobanks to Extend Human Lifespan and Healthspan
Kristen Fortney, PhD, CEO, BIOAGE
‘-Omics’ data enables us to study aging directly in humans, rather than less translationally relevant model systems. At BIOAGE we focus on ‘-omic’ phenotyping of human aging cohorts that have healthy blood samples tied
to decades of follow-up EHRs that include rich healthspan and mortality outcomes. We integrate multiple data modalities for data-driven discovery of key aging targets.
11:45 On the Road to Genetically Validated Targets in Kidney Diseases: Computational Challenges
Thomas Tibbitts, PhD, Senior Vice President, Computational Discovery, Goldfinch Bio
Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is scarring of the kidney that can lead to kidney failure. To discover genetic variants associated with FSGS, we built the Kidney Genome Atlas (KGA 1.0), which contains whole genomes (>30X) on 23000
individuals, including 2000 cases of FSGS and other proteinuric disorders. To efficiently process and analyze this large amount of genomic data we have implemented infrastructure and pipelines on AWS and launched a web portal to facilitate
target discovery.
12:15 pm Sponsored Presentation (Opportunity Available)
12:45 Session Break
12:50 Bio-IT World WEST Luncheon Presentation (Sponsorship Opportunity Available) or Enjoy Lunch on Your Own
1:20 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Last Chance Poster Viewing, Speed Networking, Book Signing, and Meetup Group
2:00 Chairperson’s Remarks
Zhaoshi Jiang, PhD, Executive Director of Bioinformatics & Clinical Data Sciences, Gilead Sciences
2:05 Fake It ‘til You Make It (Reproducible): Synthetic Data Resources for Genomics
Geraldine A. Van der Auwera, PhD, Director of Outreach and Communications, Data Sciences Platform, Broad Institute
The computational reproducibility of published biomedical research is limited by data access restrictions, affecting not just researchers who wish to reuse published analysis code, but also tool developers and educators who lack suitable example
data for testing and training. We present: 1) a prototype pipeline that wraps established open-source data simulation tools to generate publicly shareable synthetic sequence data at any scale; and 2) a plan to develop community resources.
2:35 Progress in Diagnosing Rare Disease Patients Leveraging NLP and Genomic Sequencing
Tom Defay, Senior Director, R&D Strategy and Alliances, SPMD, Strategy, Program Management and Data Sciences, Alexion
Diagnosing patients with rare disease is challenging. Whole exome and whole genome sequencing have improved our diagnostic abilities but can still fall short due to our lack of understanding of which mutations are most likely to be the cause
of disease. By combining phenotypic information automatically extracted from the patient’s EMR with a patient’s genome sequence, we have developed a system for prioritizing which mutations may be most significant and proposing
possible diagnoses. Advances on this approach will be discussed.
3:05 Drug Targets with Genomic Support
J. Wade Davis, PhD, ACOS Research Fellow, Director, Computational Genomics, Genomics Research Center (GRC), AbbVie
3:35 Close of Conference
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