AI vs Aging: Why Wormbot-AI is the secret weapon against disease | 29 – Mitchell Lee

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No single discipline or approach holds the key to making big strides in the longevity field. Human aging is incredibly complex, and we’re going to need multiple shots on goal in our pursuit of human life- and healthspan extension. At the Optispan Podcast, we’re always excited to learn about the various angles researchers and founders are taking to advance our understanding of longevity and get impactful therapeutics that will transform human health into the clinic.

In this episode, Ora Biomedical CEO and cofounder Mitchell Lee gives us the lowdown on doing high-throughput drug discovery using a combination of worms, robotics, AI, and the general public. Matt and Mitchell talk about the company’s ambitious goal to create the world’s largest and most rigorous database of longevity interventions, and how a new robotics and AI data analysis platform is helping the company get there. They discuss the state of drug discovery in the longevity field, whether we can really believe any data we get from worms, the intervention that killed all their worms in one day, and more.

Prior to cofounding Ora Biomedical, Mitchell spent his career focused on scientific research and mentorship, mentoring nearly 50 trainee researchers of all levels during his graduate and postdoctoral research periods. He was the founding Chair of the American Aging Association (AGE) trainee chapter, which offers early-career financial, career development, and networking benefits, and has served on the AGE Executive Committee and Board of Directors. Mitchell received a B.S. in biology, a B.A. in philosophy, and an M.S. in biology from Western Washington University. He completed his PhD in Experimental Pathology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, during which time he received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study.

Matt is a cofounder and Chair of the Board of Directors of Ora Biomedical.

0:00 Trailer
1:02 Introduction
2:54 How Mitchell became interested in using invertebrate systems to study aging
25:42 Moving out of academia
28:08 The idea behind Ora Biomedical
32:30 The WormBot and high-throughput discovery
39:23 C. elegans as a model organism for aging research
44:31 What else can we learn from C. elegans?
50:26 Testing combinations of drugs
52:27 Why we need a platform for identifying new longevity interventions at scale
54:20 The Million Molecule Challenge and predictive AI
1:02:47 The Million Molecule Challenge community
1:08:24 Some initial results from the Million Molecule Challenge
1:18:15 Contract research and partnerships
1:19:44 Translating a drug lead in worms to humans
1:20:52 Prioritizing the interventions for translation to mammals and humans
1:22:08 Picking indications and approaching the regulatory environment in drug development

Producers: Tara Mei, Nicholas Arapis
Video Editor: Jacob Keliikoa

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Hi, I’m Matt Kaeberlein. I spent the first few decades of my career doing scientific research into the biology of aging, trying to understand the finer details of how humans age in order to facilitate translational interventions that promote healthspan and improve quality of life. Now I want to take some of that knowledge out of the lab and into the hands of people who can really use it.

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