Abstract: We find ourselves potentially at an inflection point where biology foundation models will be competent for the design and preclinical assessment of novel drugs, for the automation of advanced therapy manufacturing, and for predicting the future of a patient using a digital twin. These foundation models will need both massive high quality datasets that digitize the relevant (multi-) omic landscapes, and massive bespoke compute resources. I will discuss how at imec, we are leveraging mature platforms to develop and manufacture a new generation of life science tools to generate the datasets that will feed competent biology foundation models.
Bio: Dr. Peumans holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University, and a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He is currently responsible for imec’s health strategy with a keen interest in how to leverage machine intelligence for deeper insights into biology. Prior to joining imec, Dr. Peumans was a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University where his work focused on large area electronics, solar energy conversion and biomedical electronics. He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award and a Belgian-American Educational Foundation honorary fellowship. His peer-reviewed papers have been cited over 24,000 times and he holds more than 60 patents.