​🧬 Self-Accelerating AI for Drug Development

​📍 San Francisco
📅 October 16–22, 2026

​AI is starting to reshape how drugs are discovered and developed. The biggest opportunities will come from building systems around the real workflows, constraints, and decisions of people already doing the work.

​This hackathon brings together drug developers, scientists, biotech founders, and operators with AI engineers, researchers, and technical builders to work on real problems across the drug development process.

​Drug developers bring the workflows, bottlenecks, datasets, and scientific context. AI builders bring the models, agents, infrastructure, and engineering needed to turn those problems into working systems.

​Over the course of the week, teams will explore how AI can improve the full development loop — from scientific reasoning and experiment design to data analysis, execution, decision-making, and iteration.

​The goal is not to build generic demos. It is to test what becomes possible when AI is grounded in real scientific work.

​⚡ What makes this different

​Most hackathons begin with a prompt.

​This one begins with real drug development workflows.

​Participants will work directly with people who understand where development slows down, where information gets lost, where decisions are difficult, and where better AI systems could create meaningful leverage.

​Projects may explore areas such as:

• ​Scientific reasoning and decision support

• ​Experiment planning and execution

• ​Biological and molecular modeling

• ​Infrastructure for AI scientists

• ​Closed-loop experimentation

• ​Self-improving research systems

​The broader question is simple:

​What does drug development look like when reasoning, experimentation, data, and execution become part of one continuous learning loop?

​👥 Who should join

​This event is designed for people across both sides of the problem:

• ​🧪 Drug developers and discovery scientists

• ​🧬 Computational biologists and bioinformaticians

• ​🚀 Biotech founders and operators

• ​🤖 AI and ML engineers

• ​🛠️ Agent and infrastructure builders

• ​🔬 Research engineers

• ​💻 Scientific software developers

​You do not need to arrive with a team or a fully formed idea. The kickoff is designed to help participants meet, share problems, and form teams around the strongest opportunities.

​🗓️ Agenda

​🔥 October 16 — Kickoff

​4:00–7:00 PM · Cole-Frieman & Mallon

​We’ll open the week with a founder fireside chat, followed by short introductions from participating founders, scientists, and builders.

​The rest of the evening will focus on meeting collaborators, sharing workflows and problems worth solving, and forming teams for the week ahead.

​🛠️ October 17–21 — Async Build Week

​Teams will spend the week building at the intersection of AI and drug development.

​Participants will have opportunities to work with domain experts, technical mentors, and other builders as they refine their problem, develop a prototype, and prepare to present what they learned.

​🎤 October 22 — Closing Event

​5:00–7:00 PM · AWS Builder Loft

​We’ll close the week with a panel of industry leaders discussing the next paradigm for AI in life sciences, followed by team pitches and networking.

​Teams will present what they built, the workflow they targeted, and what they learned about applying AI to real drug development problems.

​🧑‍⚖️ Judging Panel

​Projects will be evaluated by leaders across AI, biotech, and scientific infrastructure:

​Khalil Kaddoura — CEO, Optagon Labs
Nicholas Larus-Stone — Head of AI, Benchling; Founder, Bits in Bio
Charbel Eid — VP of Platform, BigHat Biosciences
Alfredo Andere — CEO, LatchBio

​Judging will focus on the quality of the problem, scientific relevance, technical execution, and potential to improve real drug development workflows.

​🏆 Potential Prizes & Opportunities

​Selected teams may receive access to resources and opportunities to continue building beyond the hackathon, including:

• ​💰 Cash prizes

• ​🧬 Optagon Labs platform access

• ​⚡ Model tokens and compute credits

• ​🤝 Introductions to Health Engine’s mentor and investor network

• ​🚀 Internship opportunities at Health Engine portfolio startups

• ​🌱 Consideration for Health Engine acceleration

• ​🧑‍🔬 Mentorship from biotech and AI leaders

• ​💻 Technical infrastructure and partner resources

• ​📣 Visibility across organizer and partner communities

• ​🔬 Opportunities to continue developing promising projects after the event

​Prizes and opportunities are subject to project fit and partner availability.

​🤝 Participating Organizations

​Optagon Labs
A Berkeley SkyDeck company building frontier AI models for biology, with a focus on developability and manufacturability.

​Health Engine
UC Berkeley’s student-run accelerator connecting early-stage startups with mentors and investors across the Bay Area.

​Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health
An early-stage venture capital fund investing in healthcare and digital health.

​LatchBio
A biotech R&D data and compute platform helping scientific teams centralize biological data, run scalable analyses, and build reproducible computational workflows.

​Bits in Bio
A global nonprofit community bringing together software builders and life scientists to advance better tools for science.

​❤️ Supported by

​AWS · Cole-Frieman & Mallon

​If you are building AI, developing drugs, or working on the infrastructure connecting the two, we want you in the room.

​Mandatory - AWS Builder Loft Policy: Please add this policy to your registration page if you haven’t already: All guests must be 18+ and present a valid government-issued physical photo ID at check-in (digital IDs will not be accepted). Scooters and bikes are not permitted in any Amazon building with no on-site parking available.