June 6, 12:45pm
Location: Santa Clara I

Deep Learning in Genomics and Proteomics

Large Language Models (LLMs) have catalyzed transformative and unexpected advancements across many domains. In this talk, we aim to illustrate why molecular biology is an optimal area for applying these models. Molecular biological processes connect our DNA to cellular biology of the approximately 30 trillion cells in our bodies. Through interactions with our environment, these processes influence our traits, health, and susceptibility to disease. These processes are complex, messy, with structure that is mostly inscrutable by humans, but also robust and reproducible. This makes deep learning, and specifically LLMs, uniquely suited for modeling molecular biology. We will highlight recent breakthroughs that LLMs have accomplished in molecular biology, including gene regulation modeling, gene prediction, protein 3D structure modeling, cellular molecular process modeling, and personal genome interpretation. Some of these problems were significant unresolved challenges before the advent of deep learning. Looking to the near future, we will explore the potential of LLMs to integrate everything — from DNA to cellular molecular biology to phenotype — within the context of large-scale cohort studies, like the UK Biobank and All Of Us, along with similar global initiatives. These advancements promise to lead to impactful applications in biotechnology, drug development, and the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

Dr. Serafim Batzoglou is Chief Data Officer at Seer Bio, leading the computational and ML teams to advance the core proteomics technology and its biomedical applications. Prior to this role he was chief data officer at insitro, VP at Illumina, and professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. His work has focused on computational genomics and the application of algorithms & AI to diverse problems in biosciences ranging from genome assembly, comparative genomics, population genetics, cancer genomics and genome sequencing technologies. He is co-founder of DNAnexus and has been at several scientific advisory boards including those of 23andMe, NextBio, DNAnexus, Eve Biomedical, Genapsys and Moleculo. In 2003 he was named among the top young technology innovators by Technology Review magazine. He received the inaugural Innovator Award by the International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB) in 2016, and was named an ISCB Fellow in 2020.