AI IN DRUG DEVELOPMENT: TURNING BREAKTHROUGHS INTO IMPACT
Join us at CIC Cambridge for an evening co-hosted by KASBP Boston Chapter & Kendall On Air, where we’ll explore how AI is reshaping drug development from multiple perspectives. Panelists will share insights spanning next-generation imaging platforms driving biological discovery, the entrepreneurial journey of building an AI-powered biotech, the venture capital lens on what it takes to fund and scale these companies, and the pharma perspective on applying Decision science to guide R&D strategy and bring therapies to patients faster.
Big thanks to KIST & One Way Ventures for their generous support in making this event possible!
AGENDA
05:00 - 05:50 PM : Check-in & Dinner
05:50 - 6:00 PM : Opening Remarks (KIST)
06:00 - 07:00 PM : Keynote Seminar
07:00 - 08:00 PM : Panel Discussion
08:00 - 09:00 PM : Networking
About Keynote Seminar Speaker:
Jun Young (Nick) Hong is a scientist with expertise spanning chemical biology, drug discovery, and AI-driven pharmaceutical innovation. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Cornell University, where he focused on covalent inhibitors, PROTACs targeting sirtuins, and post-translational modification probes. Following his doctorate, Dr. Hong served as Chief Scientific Officer at Sedec Therapeutics, leading the development of small-molecule inhibitors of palmitoylation for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases. In 2024, he transitioned into operations and strategy as Vice President of Operations at Cephla Inc., a Stanford spin-off commercializing bespoke confocal microscopes. In this role, he expanded the company’s sales pipeline through targeted market research and go-to-market strategy execution. Currently, Dr. Hong is the Technical Alliance Manager at XtalPi, where he manages global partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and aligns corporate needs with next-generation AI, automation, and quantum SaaS platforms to accelerate drug discovery and development.
About Panelists:
Anne Carpenter is an Institute Scientist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Her research group, co-led by Dr. Shantanu Singh, develops algorithms and applications for large-scale experiments involving images. Her open-source CellProfiler software, now developed by Dr. Beth Cimini, is used by thousands of biologists worldwide and her Cell Painting assay has been adopted throughout the pharma industry to accelerate drug discovery - including in two startups based on her research: Recursion and SyzOnc. She leads industry-wide consortia such as JUMP-Cell Painting, OASIS, and VISTA. Her PhD is in cell biology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and her postdoc in high-throughput image analysis was at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and MIT’s CSAIL (Computer Sciences/Artificial Intelligence Laboratory). Carpenter has been named an NSF CAREER awardee, an NIH MIRA awardee, and is listed in Deep Knowledge Analytics’ top-100 AI Leaders in Drug Discovery and Advanced Healthcare and STAT News' 2025 STATUS list 50 leaders in healthcare.
Tarun Walia is a Senior Director and Head of Decision Science at Novo Nordisk. In his role, Tarun is responsible for implementing Data Science capabilities for due diligence and integration of assets, building use cases of AI across the clinical value chain, leading AI/Modeling collaborations and generating data driven portfolio insights. Tarun has built his career at the intersection of Science, Business and Technology. Most recently, Tarun worked as an Associate Partner with McKinsey and Co. and was a leader in their Life Sciences practice based in Boston. At McKinsey, Tarun led collaborations with biopharma clients focused on R&D strategy, corporate development, portfolio analytics/strategy, due diligence, life cycle management, and business development. His focus is on using cutting edge AI/analytics for multiple use cases in R&D, including modeling and simulations, RWE analytics, and identifying and prioritizing business development opportunities for in-licensing and M&A in multiple therapy areas including metabolic, oncology and rare diseases. He has led and supported over 25 biopharma BD deals, including a notable ~$1B asset acquisition by a rare disease company. He also collaborated with MassBio to organize the MassBio Align Summit in Boston, focused on early-stage innovation in biotech where he led the biotech panel and evaluated over 100 biotechs for scientific merit and commercial potential. Before McKinsey, Tarun was the head of Business Development for BioXcel, a biotech company that leverages AI to bring novel therapies to market. Tarun also headed global business development and commercialization strategy for a data analytics company. Tarun is a Biotechnologist by training and holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management where he was a Sloan Fellow and TA to Harvey Lodish, a renowned molecular cell biologist and the founding member of the Whitehead Institute. Tarun has also received a Hon. Doctorate in Biotech Engineering. Tarun was also one of the early adopters of AI and gave a TEDx talk, “The Future of AI in Biopharma,” which can be found featured on the TED website.
Claire Zeng is the Founder, CEO, and CTO of DoriNano. Trained in clinical medicine and cell biology, she brings deep expertise in stem cell biology, biomaterials, cancer immunotherapy, and nanotechnology. She pioneered the integration of cancer immunotherapy with DNA origami delivery, publishing in Nature Nanotechnology and Nature Biomedical Engineering. She founded DoriNano in 2023 and has since led the company to multiple wins, including first place at the Alnylam BioVenture competition, runner-up at the HBS New Venture Competition, and awards from MassNextGen and the Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge. DoriNano is developing programmable DNA origami nanoparticles as a delivery platform for immunotherapies and genetic medicines, with future opportunities to integrate AI to optimize nanoparticle design, cargo selection, and therapeutic discovery. Previously, Claire was Instructor and Senior Scientist at Dana-Farber, Wyss Institute, and Harvard Medical School, where she transformed nanotech concepts into therapeutic platforms and led multi-disciplinary teams. She holds an M.D. from Xi’an Jiaotong University, a Ph.D. from Peking Union Medical College/Tsinghua University, and completed postdoctoral training at Tsinghua, MGH, and Dana-Farber. She is the co-inventor of DoriNano’s core technologies with 30+ publications and 2,200+ citations.
John Keilty is a Venture Partner at Third Rock Ventures, a firm that specializes on the ideation, development and launch of new biotechnology companies focusing on areas of unmet medical need. John concentrates on the establishment and roll-out of bio/cheminformatics, automation and science platform technologies intended to impact the entire drug development life-cycle. He has played key roles in many companies including Thrive Detect and Decibel Therapeutics where he served as interim-CDO and Chief Data Sciences Officer, respectively. Prior to TRV, he was the Vice President, Information Technology and Informatics at Infinity Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for information systems, software development, structural biology, bioinformatics, and clinical informatics. Early in his career, John was an early member of nascent Millennium Pharmaceuticals where he had broad ownership for the creation, management, implementation and transfer of much of the company's core genomic technologies.
This insightful discussion will be facilitated by Rhie Lim, is a Venture Partner at One Way Ventures, where she supports immigrant founders building frontier technologies across AI, digital health and deep tech. She is also a former CNBC reporter turned entrepreneur. As co-founder of LifeCanvas Technologies, Inc., a company revolutionizing 3D bioimaging, Rhie helped grow the startup from inception into a sustainable, profitable business. She led a cross-functional team across science, AI/ML, finance, sales, marketing, and HR, and secured over $17M in funding from institutional investors and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Rhie previously spearheaded MIT’s first Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp in Seoul, South Korea, which fostered a network of 1,200 alumni and led to the launch of 100+ ventures that have collectively raised over $70M. Prior to her work in startups, she was a financial news reporter for CNBC Asia, where she covered South Korea’s leading companies, including Samsung, and conducted exclusive interviews with global opinion leaders such as Warren Buffett. Passionate about bridging market gaps and supporting visionary founders, Rhie is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build impactful, scalable solutions. She holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and hosts Kendall On Air, a YouTube series spotlighting innovators, technologies, and founders from the world’s most innovative square mile - Kendall Square.