In the first episode of TechBio Talks, host Najat Khan talks to Regina Barzilay — Distinguished Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and AI faculty lead at MIT Jameel Clinic, MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient and member of the National Academies of Medicine and Engineering.

Regina and Najat discuss everything from Regina’s work on early cancer detection models to what sparked the collaboration behind Boltz-2, the first open-source AI model for highly accurate protein binding affinity predictions from MIT alongside Recursion – and how it’s already leading to new discoveries.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00): Introducing MIT's Regina Barzilay

(01:32): Early Detection of Breast Cancer

(04:55): What Do You Do In the Clinic When You Discover High-Risk Patients?

(06:00): Bringing the Algorithm to the Patient06:19: Ensuring Your Results Are Relevant

(07:50): Slow Adoption of AI Tools in Clinical Protocols

(08:43): Understanding the Mechanism of Action

(10:49): The Origins of Boltz-2

(14:06): Noise and Intelligent Data Curation

(14:57): How Recursion Is Integrating Boltz-2

(16:17): Applying Vision to Open Source Tools

(17:24): The Next Frontier

(18:38): New AI Tools for Metastatic Patients

(21:41): Clinical Trials Underway at MD Anderson

(25:08): Be Critical and Rely on Logic and Evidence