Speaker Profile
Ph.D., CEO, Atomwise Inc.
Biography
Abraham Heifets is the CEO and co-founder of Atomwise, which uses machine learning to help discover new medicines. Abraham was a Fellow of the Ontario Brain Institute and a Massey Fellow at the University of Toronto, where his doctoral work applied machine learning and classical artificial intelligence techniques to organic synthesis planning, a long-standing challenge in chemistry. Previously, Abraham researched high-performance data processing at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center and helped develop the strategy and control AI systems of the world-champion robotic soccer team at Cornell University. Abraham created SCRIPDB, then one of the largest public databases of patented chemical structures, and LigAlign, a protein analysis tool used by researchers in 70 countries. He is an author on 19 papers, patents, and patent applications, and was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.
Presentation Title and Company Description
AI and Data Science Showcase: Redesigning Drug Discovery for an Abundant World
Atomwise invented the use of deep neural networks for structure-based drug design for hit discovery, lead optimization, and off-target toxicity. Atomwise works with organizations such as Merck, Monsanto, Stanford, and Harvard on diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and Ebola.
