DaVinci Cafe: AI & Virtual Cell
About Event Series
In a world driven by rapid and complex challenges, innovation thrives at the convergence of technologies. By bringing together experts from different domain areas, we unlock new possibilities. Welcome to DaVinci Café, where thinkers, creators, and visionaries connect and collaborate.
Event Details
The program will open with a research spotlight by James Zou (Stanford) on AI Agents for Science, setting the stage for a panel discussion on the AI Virtual Cell. The panel will bring together leading voices from academia and industry to explore the current state, commercial trajectory, and future potential of AI Virtual Cells.
Tentative discussion topics include:
• Key technical bottlenecks in AI Virtual Cells
• Scientific, clinical, and commercial use cases
• Comparisons with co-scientist and agent-based AI paradigms
🗓️ Agenda
Date: September 18th
Address: 2550 Hanover Street | Palo Alto, CA 94304-1115
5:00 PM: Check in & networking
5:30-5:45 PM: Research Spotlight on AI Agents for Science: James Zou (Stanford)
5:45-6:30 PM: Panel Discussion on AI Virtual Cell: Johnny Yu (Tahoe Therapeutics), Bo Wang (Xaira Therapeutics), Yusuf Roohani (Arc Institute), Gilad Almogy (Ultima Genomics), James Zou (Stanford)
6:30-7:00 PM: Networking 🍕🍺
This event will include light appetizers, wine/beer and non-alcoholic beverages.
🎙️Research Spotlight: James Zou (Associate Professor, Stanford University)
James Zou is an associate professor of Biomedical Data Science, CS and EE at Stanford University. He works on developing cutting-edge AI for biomedical applications. His group developed many widely used innovations including EchoNet AI (FDA cleared for assessing cardiac function), Gradio (used by over a million developers), and SyntheMol (NY Times 2024 Good Tech). He has received a Sloan Fellowship, the Overton Prize, an NSF CAREER Award, two Chan-Zuckerberg Investigator Awards, a Top Ten Clinical Achievement Award, best paper awards at ICML and other AI conferences, and faculty awards from Google, Amazon, Adobe and Apple.
🎙️Panelists (Moderator: Akira Nishii):
Gilad Almogy (CEO, Ultima Genomics)
Gilad Almogy founded Ultima Genomics in 2016 with a mission to continuously reduce the cost of sequencing to enable the era of data-driven healthcare, transform biology, and improve human health. Before founding Ultima, Gilad was the Founder and CEO of Cogenra Solar, a developer of record breaking shingled solar modules, with more than 7 gigawatts deployed worldwide to date. Gilad led Cogenra from inception until its acquisition by SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR) in 2015. Before Cogenra, Gilad was a senior vice president for Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT), the leader in materials engineering solutions used to produce virtually every new semiconductor chip and advanced display in the world. Gilad earned a PhD in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology and a BSc in Mathematics and Physics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem’s Talpiot program. He is the inventor of more than 80 US Patents.
Yusuf Roohani (Group Leader, Arc Institute)
Yusuf Roohani is a Machine Learning Group Leader at the Arc Institute. His research explores how artificial intelligence can guide experimental design in biological discovery, with a particular focus on predictive models of cell state. Yusuf earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University and previously spent four years at GSK as a Machine Learning Engineer, developing computational models for early-stage drug discovery.
Bo Wang (SVP and Head of Biomedical AI, Xaira Therapeutics)
Dr. Bo Wang is SVP and Head of Biomedical AI for Xaira. He is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology at the University of Toronto, where he is also the inaugural Temerty Professor in AI Research and Education in Medicine. He is the Chief AI Scientist at the University Health Network, the largest research hospital system in Canada. He also holds a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) AI Chair at the Vector Institute. Dr. Wang earned his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University and has been at the forefront of developing novel AI models for biomedical research.
Johnny Yu (CSO/Co-Founder, Tahoe Therapeutics)
Johnny Yu, PhD is Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Tahoe Therapeutics, where he is building foundational datasets for virtual cell models that enable discovery of novel therapeutics. Tahoe’s single-cell genomics platform, Mosaic, powers this vision—most notably through the creation of Tahoe-100, the world’s largest single-cell RNA sequencing atlas of 100 million cells. By continuing to push the limits of single-cell data generation and integration, Tahoe is pioneering the world’s first pharmaceutical company built entirely on single-cell technologies.
Before co-founding Tahoe, Johnny trained at UCSF with Dr. Hani Goodarzi and Dr. Kevan Shokat, where he developed the foundations for Mosaic and its pan-cancer in-vivo screening capabilities. He previously worked at the Broad Institute and Biogen Idec.
About the hosts & sponsors:
Hosts: Davinci Cafe: Where thinkers, creators, and visionaries from every industry connect, collaborate, and shape the future. Find your tribe, your partners, and your inspiration.
Sponsors: Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP: A global law firm focusing on the Tech, Energy, Financial, Real Estate & Construction, and Life Sciences industries.
Please note, this event may be photographed and filmed. Davinci Cafe reserves the right to use photographs and video from the event for marketing and communications purposes. By attending the event you consent to your image being used for these purposes.
To maintain the integrity of our peer collaboration and to respect venue capacity, we will not accommodate walk-ins or +1s for the event. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.