How Knowledge Graphs Accelerate Drug Discovery in Biotechs

The emergence of knowledge graphs, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data principles has created a unique opportunity within the biopharmaceutical industry to capitalize on the explosion of growth in data in the last 10 years. However, there remain significant barriers to adoption of these approaches, specifically in the biotech sector where there is a need to maximize cost effectiveness in choosing tools that get results fast and allow them to scale. There is a strong desire to investigate and leverage data science, AI and machine learning approaches in drug discovery and democratize insights across the organization. However, additional challenges need to be addressed, such as lack of FAIR data, access to necessary resources and skills and internal change management.

Attendees will gain insights into a unique knowledge management platform that harmonizes siloed, disparate data using a powerful data ingestion engine and underlying knowledge graph. The platform’s flexible user interface is customized to shield end-users from complexity which enables Aelin Therapeutics and e-therapeutics to democratize insights across their wider organization to support rapid, crucial research & development decision making to accelerate their drug discovery process.

In this webinar, attendees will hear from the CIO of Aelin Therapeutics, a biotech company that leverages targeted protein aggregation to develop a completely new class of therapeutics, aiming at hard-to-treat targets in cancer and infectious diseases, and the Head of Discovery Biology at e-therapeutics, a biotech company that integrates computational power and biology to discover life-transforming RNAi medicines. The featured speakers will discuss how they collaborate with ONTOFORCE, a Life Sciences technology company which transforms data into knowledge by unlocking hidden insights from data.

Register to learn how the adoption and usage of knowledge graphs, AI and machine learning approaches accelerates drug discovery.

Speakers

James Longden, Head of Discovery Biology, e-therapeutics

James Longden is head of Discovery Biology at e-therapeutics, a drug discovery company that combines GalNAc-siRNA therapeutics with computational modelling to better understand how protein interaction networks drive disease. His team is responsible for applying computational models to identify novel therapeutic targets and then validate them experimentally.

Prior to joining e-therapeutics, James worked in early drug discovery in both academia and industry. He spent over seven years at AstraZeneca performing small molecule and natural product hit identification and over four years at Cenix BioScience, a pioneer in the field of RNAi, performing target identification and mechanism of action screens. He then moved to academia, firstly as Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen where his research was focussed on ‘big data’ biology and the use of machine learning to predict network changes driving cancer cell metastasis and drug resistance. From thereon, he moved to the University of Edinburgh applying the same network methodologies to motor neuron disease and multiple sclerosis research. He has a PhD in biomedical science from the University of Nottingham.

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Paul Vauterin, CIO, Aelin Therapeutics

Paul Vauterin holds a master’s degree and PhD in physics from the University of Ghent. In 1997, he co-founded Applied Maths, a company that became a global leader in advanced biological data analytics for bacteria. For 15 years he headed the company’s product development team. After this, he worked at the University of Oxford, developing advanced computational tools for the interpretation of large-scale full genome data for malaria research.

In 2014, he joined Multiplicom, where as VP Informatics he started a software unit and created CE-IVD approved SAAS software for the analysis and interpretation of the company’s human diagnostics assays based on next-gen sequencing. Subsequently, he moved to ONTOFORCE, a company developing an innovative data science software platform supporting drug discovery & development, and as SVP R&D he headed the company’s product development team. Paul Vauterin is currently CIO of Aelin Therapeutics, and is responsible for bioinformatics and data science activities, being crucial elements of the company’s drug discovery and development platform.

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