Name: Brainstorm AI Singapore 2024: The 1,000-Year-Old Human
Uploaded: 2024-07-30
Duration: 21 min 8 s
Description: Christine Yuan HUANG, Founder and CEO, Quantum Life Alex ZHAVORONKOV, Founder and CEO, Insilico Medicine Moderator: Jeremy KAHN, FORTUNE

Christine Yuan HUANG, Founder and CEO, Quantum Life Alex ZHAVORONKOV, Founder and CEO, Insilico Medicine Moderator: Jeremy KAHN, FORTUNE

Brainstorm AI Singapore 2024: The 1,000-Year-Old Human

Conferences

So the title of this panel is deliberately a bit provocative, but there are several ways in which A I you could think about potentially extending human human lifespans. And one is through better treatment of disease. That's one way of looking at it. Another might be well through wellness, you know, sort of helping us live healthier lives. Another might be to actually try to treat aging specifically. So taking some sort of compound that would reverse the aging, the aging process. And lastly, and probably most sort of science sci fi would be the idea that somehow we're going to through brain computer interfaces or some future technology kind of merge with, with an artificial intelligence. And while our, you know, we might be able to extend our consciousness, even if our physical bodies don't, don't make it. Um I wanna, I wanna ask our, our guests because they're um they are experts in this area where they think the most impact from A I will be Christine. Let's start with, with you and then, and then Alex. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Fortune. Thank you Jeremy for the wonderful panel. Um I'm Christine. I'm from quantum life. And the quantum life is actually doing quantum enhanced artificial intelligence for precision medicine and for integrating human beings longitudinal data to predict more and more accuracy plans for human um health span. And of course, maybe later on its lifespan. So uh we are so excited for this new technology merging up and we are we have already seen for human life. And for the past like 30 years, we have already had a lot of changes in um Medicare in healthcare in pharmaceutical air driven pharmaceutical development. But the question is for human beings, we always think about birth, aging, disease and death. We are in Singapore. Some people are talking in uh in Chinese, we call it Shen Laing, right? We never think about we previously, we are all focusing on disease which is a disease and death. But how about aging before disease? That is how we wanted to introduce A I to improve before disease. And we have already seen during the past 10 years. Liquid biopsy, which is highly um based on the bos metics being there, which is make great progress in cancer prediction. And for disease prevention, which means a shift from the disease care before had based on the autonomous diagnostic. Before this, we had Q prevention. And next question that is going to be how we develop and interventions through the process. That is how A I will be introduced and we are going to move forward So this is on the idea of prevention as a way to forestall disease and to improve lifespan. Alex. I think you may have a, well, you may agree with some of that, but I'm curious what your view is on this. I think you might have a slightly different perspective on where you think the biggest impact will ultimately be on longevity. Sure. Uh So I um I wear many hats and one hat is in Silicon medicine, CEO and another hat. Um I co-founded a conference called Aging Research uh for Drug Discovery. Uh It's an annual event in Copenhagen uh every August uh for five days. A lot of people come to this conference and uh we convene and talk about aging. So it's probably the largest event right now. Uh And when I started the conference, um most of the scientists were talking about diet exercise, sleep, behavioral medication, right? And then of course, you know, about 30% of the delegates at that conference are also going after very, very visionary things that are way beyond that. But at the end of the day, um it always goes back to diet, exercise, sleep, uh and the hero medications. Uh And uh what I'm afraid of the most is that in the next 10 years, I'm already 46. Uh So kind of for me, it's all like you, you, you, you look into the future. It's all down hill, right? Sorry for both males and females at that time. So, whatever I do, it has to have more impact than just diet, exercise, sleep. So I think at most conferences, we need to start thinking about, you know, diet exercise, sleep prevention, diagnostics should be the baseline, right. So let's do what your mother told you. Just let's stop talking about us, do it, right? Some people are still smoking, right. Um, so we need to have something much more substantial, a big breakthrough cha GP T moment in longevity in order to get people excited and get them, steer them away from, you know, diet, exercise, sleep, behavioral medications, do what your mother told you because we know that works. It will work to some extent. But billions of people live their lives of them have optimized for diet, exercise, sleep and they still aged, got diseases and died. So we need to go radically to the next level. So far from what I've seen, nothing works on humans, there is nothing clinically proven to. No drug is clinically proven to demonstrate age reversal in human beings. So we are still trying to prove that some of the drugs that are known for 3040 years may have some impact even though they work in mice really well. So like creamy and for example, 15 to 20% consistent life extension in mice. And now people are doing combos looking at different ways to different molecules to go after aging. But I think that we need to have a fundamental breakthrough in order to live longer. And of course, things like um you know, brain clear interfaces very promising. So there you are not only maybe reducing the rate of loss during aging, you might actually augment your function, like think about glasses, right? Very easy innovation, but it restored a useful function. Plus nowadays, with 3D glasses, um you might be able to with a reality, you might gain new functions. So I think we need to go and look at the next level. I think that the next level is going to be drugs that target aging and disease. At the same time, if you are just looking for using A I to discover drugs that only go after aging, I think you won't be able to develop it into a drug for many reasons. One is just basic economics, you won't be able to reimburse it. Most people understand how difficult and costly it is to develop a drug. And also you have to be committed for 10 years or longer, right? So I run in silica for 10 years. My most leading drug is in phase two clinical trials. So in, as they say, in the Middle East, uh if we are successful with phase two and we go and you know, target the disease uh and show the proof of concept in maybe like 34 years, we will be able to show that it works on aging. Hopefully because that's how we discovered that using aging research. Uh So you have to be very committed for a very long time to demonstrate even a little bit of, of, of efficacy. Alex. Can you talk a little bit about how A I is, is maybe speeding up some of that process? And I know you're getting this but um have some of the most number of A I discovered drugs currently in various phases of clinical trials including in phase two, a drug for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which is a drug that's targeting both the disease but also has interesting implications for aging. So, can you talk a little bit about first of all, like how A I can accelerate that process that 10 year drug discovery process? But also this dual strategy of going after things that both target unknown disease but may also have implication for age reversal. Sure. So first I need to kind of tell you and that's probably useful for all of you. A story of how drugs are discovered and developed. So, drug discovery and development is split in two phases. Basically drug discovery where you discover the drugs and ensure that you complete all the preclinical experiments and on development, it's human clinical trials. Phase one safety, phase two efficacy, phase three, safety and efficacy. That part cannot be dramatically expedited because you have to move with the speed of traffic, it's very regulated. Uh but the part where you discover drugs can be substantially accelerated. Um And so far, we've demonstrated at least 50% increase for the slowest of our drugs. In some cases, we've demonstrated that we can shave off 70% of the time and maybe 90% of the cost of drug discovery using A I. Um And drug discovery is split into three phases. One is formulating the mechanism of disease. So you need to understand why disease happens. So usually for Alzheimer's, for example, we still don't know why it happens and what's driving it. Then after you formulated the mechanism of disease, you need to understand which proteins or other features in biology are driving those diseases, we call them protein targets. So you identify protein targets that may work in a disease. Then you design a small molecule, a drug or a biologic, an antibody that disables that kind of criminal that you've identified that is driving the disease and that's a completely different kind of type of work that you need to do. Usually that's very two different separated areas in the pharmaceutical company. And then once you've designed the molecule, you need to conduct safety studies. So you need to go into animals and demonstrate preferably in more than one animal that the drug. Well, first of all works, so it's effective and it's also safe. So you call it I and enabling studies, safety studies and can start humans. So in our case, we use kind of life models, the models that understands human biology from cradle to the grave and also understand diseases to pick those protein targets that are implicated on aging and disease at the same time. So there are few. And then we have another form of generative A I that designs small molecules with the desired properties. Instead of looking for a needle in a haystack, you generate a bunch of perfect needles and then you synthesized test, go through the clinic, preclinical trials, go into clinical trials and then we either take it ourselves or we sell those molecules to other parties. So we actually sold a couple of drugs very successfully. And you know, last year we did $1.5 billion in total deal value selling those drugs. So those A I generated drugs that are faster and cheaper to make are actually of higher quality. So people are willing to pay a lot of money for it, right? Christine, you were telling me as we were coming in that you're also sort of looking at this idea of creating a life model using A I but maybe also to pick up on indicators of disease earlier and then you can have earlier intervention is sort of your idea of how you could extend life. Can you talk a little bit more about, about that and what you're doing? And then I want to go to questions from the audience. So please think of your questions. Hopefully we'll get one or two in. Yeah, exactly. Thank you Jeremy and, and just as I have mentioned, um because for drug discovery, it's a very, very long journey. And currently we also have the drug discovery from the preclinical stage. And Ino did amazing work driving forward the A I drug discovery to the to the clinical stage. But the question is we still need to facing the clinical stage, right? We still need to take like 10 years to get through all the regulatory approval. I have to say for bringing in new medicine or bringing in effective drugs or cures or intervention to our life. It's not only about pharmaceutical, it's not only about drugs, it's also about the one regulatory. Secondly, what is a personalized red drug for ourselves? So during the past 30 years and during the medical, if we leave our Western medicine is true, like to the past 200 years, we will figure it out. Ok. So actually the medicine drug, the drug development, the system is all because of based on one fundamental for medicine, which is, which is autonomy and that is a fundamental curriculum in medical school. Like I'm training as a medical doctor. So that is the the first year of curriculum. But during the past 10 years, we already shift our diagnostic window before the traditional autonomy because you think about it, how we diagnose the disease, we do autonomy and we have our brain, our liver, our stomach, right? And now what has happened during the past 30 years, the next generation sequencing has already shown up and a lot of molecular information has already been discovered. And together with the BOS Matic, which is the A I for the past 10 years, we have already developed several pre diagnostic tools like Guri developed the cancer prevention. OK. So the next error going to be, think about it, we have already shift a little bit the cancer diagnostic stage from the late stage like two and 32, the four stage zero. And what is the cure for the stage zero? And we need to develop a cure for the stage zero. And that is how quantum life wanted to discover from stage zero. And we compare that is not only disease we compare which is younger, healthy group and older group. And we discover what is the red intervention, what is the red target before any disease happening? And we develop a cure for the stage zero. So that is how we can make jobs for extending the life span and health span. Then think about it if we have this kind of interventions already, maybe drugs, maybe some other treatment like medical device can already be a treatment to the C zero. And what is the next step? The next step? That is how we can compare. Where is the right? Ah If we are talking about the precision Medicine, where is the database, how we can have the database, how we can make the individual personalize the medicine for ourselves. So we also need to have the database for ourselves. That is, you have to, you have to record a lot of data about each individual person in order to deliver the precision medicine because the data you have on the whole population may not be actually be relevant. That's interesting. Let's take some questions from the audience, at least let's get one in while we have time. Who has a question? Please raise your hand. We'll get a mic to you. There's I see there's a woman at the table over here. If we can get a mic to her, please, there's someone running over to you and if you could please stand up and state your name, that would be great. And where are you from? My name is Mia. So I'm Global Cio for it from G LP. So I have a question around. So the A I, the role A I plays in medical and where do you see the obstacles of further utilization of A I? Either in um this is not just precision medicine but diagnosis of a disease but also in a longer term health care really care about people. Is that a compliance issue or government regulatory or other obstacles? So I guess what, how you know, how do you make sure that A I is actually helping us bring out better treatment, maybe assisting doctors in a better way and what are some of the hurdles for that, whether they're regulatory or not? I know Alex was talking about a number of regulatory hurdles on that he's facing in terms of just getting, getting treatments out. But I'm curious on this wider question, do you have a view on, you know how a I might assist doctors in picking the best treatments for individuals and then maybe Christine can answer. So sure, actually, I will give the time to Christine on that because she is working on that area more than I do. Um So on the population level, how do you um use A I for health care? Uh That is um the dream, it's actually the actually the dream for human beings and for the current pub public health system, that is to say that is how we wanted to bringing Medicare beneficial to human beings and through medical doctor system as soon as possible of. So the, so the first of all A I for diagnostics, we can exactly enhance the diagnostic errors of the make medical doctor, radiologist to, to, to, to have a better, have a better diagnostics. And also for me, doctors can select a better drug and bringing the drug repro because some of the interventions may not need a new drug. We need to figure out how is the right drug for the right person? Maybe that the drug is for traditional drugs like Metformin, Metformin is very cheap and Metformin. Currently, we also see the um effect on extending human lifespan. Basically, it has been, but it's very cheap. So uh we are considering if we can use it and bring it to the healthcare system, I have a question on this, which is sort of, I feel like there's a lot of these medical techniques that are sort of have have been invented. They, they there have been a number of breakthroughs yet, the distribution of that is a problem. So we have this big inequality issue depending on where you live or even which doctor you happen to see your doctor might know about this breakthrough treatment, might be able to prescribe. It might do genetic testing, might not do genetic testing. I feel like there's this great disparity in the health care we receive just on some of these very arbitrary factors about where you live and what doctor you happen to have. I don't know if you can say anything about that Christine and maybe A I can help sort of bring the general standard of care up to a certain level. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, I think that A I is the ultimate um uh democratizer, enabler, and unifier, and equalizer. So now with C GP T, everyone here in the room can uh you know, can have more access to knowledge than some of the best doctors just five years ago. So you can take a picture of uh you know, your wound for example, and let it annotate it. And I hope it doesn't hallucinate an answer. Well, yeah, it has a problem, right. But it has a very good demo of what is possible because you give it a little bit more reinforcement learning. And if you don't need a snappy response, you can actually, you know, have a multi agent system that will try to solve your question in maybe a little bit more time than it doesn't hallucinate where you eliminate some of the areas where it could hallucinate. Um And it can answer very accurately. So it shows you that with technology, we actually not only uh equalize some of the professions, but we also make them very accessible to everybody democratize and we gain superpowers. And I think that we need to use this technology right now as much as possible to identify interventions that can target aging at a core and make this technology available to everybody. That's why we are very focused on small molecule drugs because small molecules, unlike biologics, they are super cheap to make. Once they go off patent, they are available to everybody on the planet for peanuts and they are also very easy to store to transport and people are very used to pills, right? Rather than injecting expensive biological. There's lots of potential for A I to democratize access to health and access to hopefully these new medicines, we're out of time everybody. But thank you very much for listening. And thank you to our panelists, Alex and Christine. Thank you so much. Thank you, Singapore. Thank you. Thank you so much.