Ep189: Marc Tessier-Lavigne on Reinventing Drug Discovery with AI

Xaira Therapeutics' CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne discusses his career, ranging from neuroscience research to executive leadership in the biotech industry, and the company's AI-driven approach to drug discovery. He recounts his academic journey, influenced by philosophy and physics, leading to neuroscience. Xaira aims to transform drug R&D by applying AI to target selection, drug design, and patient identification. A key strategy involves building causal models of biology through large-scale perturbation data, like Perturb-Seq, to distinguish disease drivers from passengers. Tessier-Lavigne envisions AI cutting drug development timelines in half and significantly increasing clinical trial success rates, ushering in an era of abundant medicines.