Serna Bio x Lilly Tune Lab - Lecture Series #3
The Serna Bio lecture series will spotlight bold, creative operators and founders working across the spectrum of AI and biology, showcasing the many different paths shaping the future of this rapidly evolving field.
This event features Tim Allen, Director of ChemAI at Serna Bio, and Vanessa Braunstein, Senior Director at Eli Lilly focused on the Lilly TuneLab AI/ML Drug Discovery Platform.
Come join us in person to network and learn how Serna Bio is using Lilly TuneLab to design and optimize RNA-targeting small molecules for drug discovery. We will discuss our work benchmarking these models to state of the art (SOTA) methods and how we have integrated this into our GenAI Chemistry platform to overcome SAR cliffs and reduce lead op timelines for RNA-small molecule drug discovery.
design and optimize RNA-targeting small molecules for drug discovery. We will discuss the role of AI models for predictive ADMET and generative chemistry as well as how Lilly TuneLab is accelerating workflows using decades of proprietary data and fostering model collaboration via federated learning.
About the speakers:
Tim is a machine learning chemist, cheminformatician, and computational toxicologist working to discover novel RNA-targeting small molecule therapeutics and designing machines capable of optimizing them for the clinic at Serna Bio. He previous worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Cambridge and Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit working in collaboration with Unilever to build computational models for toxicity prediction.
Vanessa has worked at large pharma/biotech/tech companies such as Sanofi, Abbott, and NVIDIA and start-ups such as Ingenuity Systems and Fabric Genomics. Vanessa began her career in molecular and cell biology and public health at UC Berkeley and UCSF and then transitioned to commercial leadership roles building new products, strategy, and business development.
The Serna Bio Discovery Platform integrates target discovery, generative chemical design, and in-cell screening to identify and optimize selective RNA-binding molecules.
Our foundation includes:
* The world’s largest atlas of experimentally validated RNA structures
* A generative chemistry engine that outperforms state-of-the-art methods such as NVIDIA MolMIMM.
This technology has enabled the creation of an entirely new class of small molecules—translational enhancers—that modulate RNA to restore or increase protein expression, offering novel therapeutic paths in neurodegeneration and cardiometabolic disease.