Serna Bio - Lecture Series #1
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.
The first lecture features Mark DePristo who was the founding CEO of BigHat Biosciences from 2019 to 2025, a Bay Area startup developing safer, more effective antibody therapies for patients using machine learning and synthetic biology. Mark founded and led the Genomics team in Google Brain, was Vice President of Informatics at SynapDx, and co-director of Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute. He has a BA in Computer Science and Math from Northwestern University, a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar, and was a Damon Runyon Fellow at Harvard University in evolutionary biology. Dr. DePristo's academic articles are widely published and have received over 149,000 citations.
Zoom link will be provided after registration.
(on site event is full, only virtual option)
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.