🧬 Noam Solomon - Immunai - Part 3 | Deciphering the Book That is the Human Immune System | Building Immunai’s Team | The Importance of Single Cell Multi-Omics | Big Pharma & Dancing With Gorillas
August 19, 2024
Part 3 of 4.
My guest for this week’s episode is Noam Solomon, CEO and co-founder at Immunai, a pioneering biotech company that is comprehensively mapping and reprogramming the immune system with single-cell biology and AI to power new therapeutic discoveries, accelerate drug development, and improve patient outcomes.
As a podcast listener, you can redeem exclusive discounts with a growing list of biotech vendors and get $500 off your first equipment lease by using promo code “TBSP” on https://www.excedr.com/rewards.
Part 3 of 4.
My guest for this week’s episode is Noam Solomon, CEO and co-founder at Immunai, a pioneering biotech company that is comprehensively mapping and reprogramming the immune system with single-cell biology and AI to power new therapeutic discoveries, accelerate drug development, and improve patient outcomes.
Prior to co-founding Immunai, Noam had a career in both industry and academia. Noam has a double PhD in math and computer science and served as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and Harvard. Noam also worked as an algorithms developer, consultant, and head of data science in several high-tech companies in Israel. Noam's extensive background in math, computer science, AI, and machine learning gives him a unique depth of experience that founders can learn from.
Join us this week and hear about:
- How the human genome project gave us the alphabet to read the book that is the human immune system
- Immunai’s philosophy of doing what's right even if they don’t know what they’re doing
- Balancing a CEO’s naivete with being selective about who’s advise to take
- What single cell multi-omics, the technology behind Immunai, really means
- Why working with different pharma companies is like dancing with a gorilla
Please enjoy my conversation with Noam Solomon.
Timestamps:
00:28 Intro
02:04 Episode starts, the human genome project and the alphabet used to read the book of the human immune system
05:10 Bringing an outsider's perspective to Immunai and their unique approach
08:07 Building the the Immunai team with both immunology and computer science experts who are not afraid to ask the stupid questions
12:10 Observing the hospital, pharma, AI landscape and how that shaped their philosophy of doing what's right even if they don’t know what they’re doing
19:00 Balancing both your naivete as a CEO with judging who’s advice to take
20:03 What is single cell multi-omics, the technology behind Immunai and what they learned from Netflix
24:44 How to embrace failure without creating a failure culture and other lessons learned from setting up their first lab
28:22 “Do you know how you dance with a gorilla?” and how to work with different pharma companies
33:05: Outro
Find Our Guest, Noam Solomon, at this link:
Find Our Host, Jon Chee, at these links:
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Enriched Notes:
Topics Mentioned:
Immunai https://www.immunai.com/
Human Genome Project https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project
Single Cell Multi-Omics https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5303816/
Recommender Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recommender_system
What Is Bioinformatics https://www.excedr.com/blog/what-is-bioinformatics-and-computational-biology
New Drug Application https://www.excedr.com/blog/new-drug-application-process
Guide to the FDA Drug Approval Process https://www.excedr.com/blog/fda-drug-approval-process-guide
Equipment Leasing for Laboratories https://www.excedr.com/leasing
Biotech Startup Support https://www.excedr.com/resources-category/biotech-startup-support
People Mentioned:
Louis Voloch https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisvoloch
Ansuman Satpathy https://www.linkedin.com/in/ansuman-satpathy-3b386639/
The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.